Help! We have inherited a coin collection with a lot of foreign stuff in it. China, Qajar, Ottoman, etc. Any suggestions for a reputable dealer in Louisiana who can look at these things and determine value?
Howdy north - First of all Welcome to the Forum ! Now then, I can't help you out much with a dealer in your area. But the members of this forum can probably help you as much if not more than most dealers could. It'll require some effort on your part though. First of all, and I am speaking in generalities here, if most of the coins you have are modern, and I'll define modern as less than 50 years old and in some cases 100 years old, then odds are most of them are not worth much. But that can depend on several things like the specific date/mint of the coin and the condition (or grade) of the coin. Basically what you need to do to get answers is to take some pictures of the coins and share them with the members of the forum, meaning post those pictures here on the forum. Then the members who know about those coins can help you.
old coins Thanks for responding! I will work on getting pictures up--I have looked through the collection again and there are some "ancient" coins as well as modern ones. Some of the small gold foreign coins are dated things like 926-974, 353-359,1264-1313. These are so small I will have to play with my digital camera to see what happens! Some of the other foreign coins are pre-1800s--they are larger so I may be able to photograph those first. On the subject of dealers, I am not opposed to taking the collection somewhere--I love to travel! Thanks again!
A suggestion is to look to see where the closest major show happens. IDK if they have a major coin show in N.O. or if you would have to go to Houston or Dallas. At a major show you will have world coin dealers in attendance. Other than that, I go with Doug's idea of posting pics here. We do have people who collect about anything here. Btw, "ancient" in the mideast usually ends with the advent of Islam. So any middle eastern coins you have from the 10th century, etc would be called either Islamic or middle ages, (usually Islamic as its more descriptive). Something dated 353-359 it would depend on which calendar was used. The Islamic calandar dating of 353-359 would be around the 10th century of the common calendar.
Apparently these coins are already in holders and labeled so that you may already know what they are. You might type the coin label information into your search engine & see what Internet links pop-up. If you post photos here, try to crop the photos so that you only post the coin & holder information without a lot of blank space in the photo. We look forward to seeing some of the coins. I will send you an email address (by PM) of a World coin dealer that I trust.
