Market For Modern Proof/Mint Sets?

Not sure if any coin shows in your area but if there are, you should have tried that too. At some of the coin shows I go to there are dealers that specialize in proof and uncird setss. One dealer I see has possibly hundreds of them at every show and sells them too. And if there were any coin shows in your area, you possibly could have rented a table and sold everything there. It's amazing if the prices are right, you could have sold all in one day and usually to other dealers.

It would be criminal to take them to the bank, now that would really BE cheating the heirs.

I've been to too many of the estate sales, too sad for me to attend any more of them, especially those run by estate companies. To see someone's much loved property/collection lovingly sold off piecemeal is just sad and pathetic. The last one I went to, the old man was English and collected royal memorabilia, Toby jugs and lead soldiers. Almost everything was underpriced and could have gotten a good price by a real auction house. The heirs wanted everything disposed of that weekend. Makes one think.

I'd be interested in some sets also, particularly the silver ones, if they bought those.

I think you might have misunderstood. The estate sale company will not take the sets to the bank. All we can do is advise the heirs of the facts & return the sets. In this case the facts are that after commission & fees the net amount to the heirs would be less than face value if the estate sale company sold the items.




It should make one think......about the lack of estate planning people are willing to do & the lack of interest by the heirs. I agree that it's sad to see someones collection broken up & sold. However, the heirs are the ones that decide what to sell & when they need everything sold by. The estate sale company is merely the tool the heirs use.

Estate sale companies have 2 objectives within the time frame set by the heirs, to maximize the amount of sales & to sell everything. Those 2 dynamics are what dictate prices.

Sounds like you are talking 200 to 400 sets ...just a guess. If you end up getting them at face value
or something close to it .. instead of letting them go to a bank ..

It looks like you could get rid of most of them on this forum. I am thinking you could sell them
all in one bunch .. or sell them in different size lots ..

I am seeing this more and more, where people collect a volume of items that are very hard to
get rid of when the collector passes. This week we have a nice size coin collection come into
a local coin shop. The son of a man who passed, said they did not even know his father had a coin
collection.... or the over 100,000 hot wheel toy cars they found boxed up.

Cool part was he told us they gave thousands of them to a local U.S. Marine toys for tots program.

I don't have any problem with the thread clean up. I was trying to get a feel for what the interest would be. Before I started the thread I had looked at buying these for resale & had come to the conclusion it didn't make sense for the amount of time I would have to spend. At the same time I thought it was a shame that any unsold sets would probably end up in the attic or the bank.

It seems like there is sufficient interest on the forum for me to take a chance on buying whatever is left at the end of the sale. At this point I have no idea what will be left over. Like most estate sale companies we reduce prices on the final day to move the less desireable items. It's entirely possible that someone is waiting in the wings to snap the sets up at the final day sale. I know there are several items I'll buy if they are available at the reduced price sale. It's also possible there will be 2-300 sets left. Any sets I end up with will be posted in the buy/sell/trade forum sometime late next week. If all the sets are sold during the regular sale I'll post that information here.

I was quite surprised by the results of the sale. On Friday a guy showed up an hour before the sale to be first in line after driving almost 2 hours. He ended up spending almost $1000 on Friday & then did the same thing Saturday morning. By the end of the sale the only things left was a box of modern mint sets. I brought those home & will post them in the sale forum later this week.

I'm always amazed by the people that show up for these sales. On Friday I had several people ask how much for the entire collection. I told them I'd be happy to add everything up & could maybe give a slight discount. One guy didn't like that answer so he went to the cashier who runs the sale. He told her that the table the collection was sitting on had a sign that said "Table $85" & that he was willing to pay that for the collection. Then he got offended when she told him that was the price of the table & not the collection. At the time there was over $2000 in face value of proof/mint sets not counting the older coins.

Later in the day I went outside & found 2 older ladies pulling up bushes. When I told them they couldn't pull up the bushes they asked for a shovel & then they got mad when I said the landscaping wasn't for sale. One woman told me "but I want those bushes & I'm willing to pay". The whole time I'm thinking really? If you were willing to pay wouldn't you have asked if they were for sale BEFORE you started pulling them out of the ground?