"Coin Shop" lowballs

Today I stopped in to a place called Treasure Hunters. They advertise themselves as a coin shop (even had a presence at a few coin shows I've been to), so I wanted to see what they would pay for an AU double eagle I have, and two fine walkers.

Now, I know that walkers aren't junk unless they don't have a date on them, even then, borderline.

I was offered $1375 for the double eagle and $6 each for the walkers. And I'm like, what? There is more gold than 1375 in a double eagle. Coinflation shows they are 1410. Plus, it is almost unheard of for pre-33 gold to go for without any kind of premium.

Suffice to say, I got out of there faster than a priest in a brothel. Wait, bad analogy. I got out of there faster than Warren Buffet in a rave party. Still, not a good one. Faster than the Doctor from a bunch of fan girl shipping Daleks.

 

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That's their way of making money. You can scoff at the offer, but he did make one to you. It's then up to you to decide if you accept or not. It's part of the business man, and it's commonplace these days. There are other LCS' that offer a lot lower.

 

What state do you live in? There is a treasure hunters near me as well, although that is probably a common name.

 

I think that 6 dollars was a little low on the walkers, but personally, I think that was a decent offer on the double eagle, it's a business. If they offered you more than spot, how are they going to make money?

 

I honestly don't think his offer was unfair. You will not get full spot for coins when you are selling to a dealer. He offered you $1375 for a coin with $1410 worth of gold in it which is 97.5% of spot (2.5% under spot). Sure, you don't see them selling without a premium...but that's retail. He would probably ask 2.5% over spot or so for it. That would put it in the $1450ish range. That really isn't bad.

As for the walkers...they contain about $8.50 in silver and for later date low grade coins (assuming they were common late date coins), even in fine they don't command much above spot if any. He did offer 70% of spot which does seem a little low, I would have expected around $7.50 each for them. That being said, silver has been on a downward trend...perhaps this dealer is trying to minimize his risk by offering a little low on silver right now.

So, their prices weren't that bad IMHO. But, bottom line is...he made you an offer (and he as the right to offer any amount) and you have the right to accept his offer or not. You felt that it wasn't what you wanted and chose to not take it.

 

cmon people, what do you expect this guy to do. He is the one with overhead. He is the one with a coin shop. He is the one doing this to turn a profit......most owners probably work 80 hours a week in their shops and do expect to make a little money doing so.....how fair is it to them to expect them to give you "fair value" for your coins.......if they did that they would have to fleece anyone buying coins in their shop and then someone would write a thread called, "overpriced coins at the LCS".

 

I agree with most of this, other than Walkers are going for $11-$12 retail right now. The offer on the walkers is a bit low at a little over 50% of retail. Usually walkers and other 90% silver does retail for spot or a little over it, but with the recent drop in silver 90% is retailing between $5-7 over spot right now, and walkers are typically a bit more.

The gold offer is definitely reasonable and probably a higher offer than most shops.

 

Yeah,

I have to say that was a very fair offer. We TRY to work on a 10% margin... so sometimes with lower end classic gold we have to pay less then melt to make 8%-10%.

All late date walkers under AU are melters right now. There is no retail for them. I bought AU's from a dealer for $13 this week.

 

What percentage of spot does your melter pay? I'd be happy to pay you spot for any walkers (as long as it's not all slicks lol, even if it was a lot of slicks I'd probably still be interested if paying based on actual weight rather than .715) that you are planning on sending to your melter.

Probably not worth your time if your melter is paying 95%+, but if 90% or something similar might be worth it for an extra 10%.

 

I'm assuming that all three coins were not graded by a TPG, given you didn't give numeric grades nor a grading firm. So, you walked into a coin shop expecting to sell your coins for what amount?

You didn't give dates for any of the coins, so I'm going to assume all three are very common dates.

F12 on a common date Walking Liberty Half graded by PCGS is $14.
Common date double eagles on eBay go as low as $1500-$1550, so figure 15% for eBay/Paypal fees, $30 for Registered Mail, And you're looking at under $1300 net.

I think the offer of $1375 was MORE than fair, and the store owner probably would toss the two F12s into his "90% box" and priced it accordingly.

 

Lately I have enough demand that I can sell them as 90% in house. I don't personally melt them... They get melted down the line if I have to wholesale them.

I get melt for the coins in the shop. We have put circulated later date walkers in the case for sale and nobody even looks at them.

 

Not a "low-ball".

 

Let's look on the bright side, at least you're not dealing in sports cards right now. That $1400 Mickey Mantle Topps card will have offers in the $500-$700 range to most dealers. I've been trying to unload an old collection for the past five years and it just keeps getting worse.

 

I should have specified, but I put coin shop in quotes for a reason. They are more of a cash for gold shop than they are a coin shop.

They had one display case with silver dollars, some of them quite clearly harshly cleaned, for 50-60. It was in reality more of a cash for gold place.. Which I can't expect them to buy/sell at a fair price. I went to an even more generic cash for gold shop back in early March, and they wanted $2100 for a 2012 AGE. gold was around 1700 then.

 

I don't know about that. While sports cards have dropped a lot in the last few years...big name vintage players seem to be somewhat stable. I personally collect sports cards as well and some of the cards seem to have stabilized. What Mantle are you trying to sell?

 

This whole discussion reminds me of the coin show I attended on April 20th. Silver and gold had taken the big drop and I was kind of curious what they would be selling for. Silver was around $23 dollars the day before the show.

I heard a guy ask a dealer what he was asking for his ASE's, he said $33. The guy very smartly said "what, silver is only $23". The dealer said if you paid $20,000 for a car and it went down to $5,000 the next week would you sell it to me for $5,000? The guy got half mad and walked off.

Later my son said to me, I bet if the dealer bought a car worth $5,000 and it went up to $20,000 the next week he would likely want the $20,000. An interesting observation from someone outside the hobby.

Lack

 

Be glad you were not selling to that bald guy on pawn stars that I call "the king of the lowballers." Oh you want to sell me something worth a million dollars, I will do 100 bucks. Come on man I have to make a profit here.

 

OK, I didn't get that last one (Dr. Who reference, I think), but let's keep it going...faster than a Runway Model at a Buffet? No, better yet...

 

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Now, I know that walkers aren't junk unless they don't have a date on them, even then, borderline."

where did you learn this i get all my walkers from the silver junk bin all have dates and some are ef

 

Every coin shop I've been to has a small premium on walkers. Guess it might just be in my area, though, but I'm not able to find them in the 90% bins at my local shops