I want to thank you for permitting me on your site. I have had this collection since I was 17. I am 57 now. I haven't done much with it other than once in awhile look at things. I know there are however over 36,000 coins. So as of this past Saturday, I have started looking at each one trying to figure out if there are any mistakes. I want to sell them all, but I don't know if anyone buys Circulated coins. I do have some Proof and Silver Proof sets, and Commemorative sets as well. I have been diagnosed with an incurable disease and recently my wife has been laid off with no expectation of returning. So I figure once I get these coins looked at, separated, and counted, I will look to where I can sell. Coins range from 1898 to U S State quarters. I have never cleaned any of them.
Taking your situation at face value you have several choices when it comes to selling your coins. Do you want to sell your coins at wholesale or retail or somewhere in between ? Learn as much as you can about the value of the coins in your collection before you start selling. And be careful of buyers who will pay you a fraction of their value so they can turn around and sell them for much more. You have a very large collection of coins and hopefully they will provide you some financial relief. Good luck to you sir.
Thank you for your kind words. When I found this site, it wasn't looking to find buyers but to find out what my weird issues I was finding on the coins were. I am finding some things I already new but this site has helped with two issues as well. It's going to be awhile before I have looked at all of them. And yes I was looking for complete value, even if someone was to buy them at this price, down the road they could get their money back +.
@Coinus Collectus First, welcome to the neighborhood. I'm sorry that you are having a difficult time at this point in your life. At 68, I've been there myself. I hope you don't get your hopes up regarding the "moderns", i.e., the proof sets, commems and SQ's. You might be lucky to just break even on them. Anyway, finding a dealer will probably be your best chance to sell everything at once, but you should expect that you will not get full retail value for them. FWIW, most dealers don't get overly excited about run-of-the-mill errors and varieties. It's the major ones that are easy for them to recognize. Good luck! Chris
welcome to CT. sorry you have to sell your coins. I would recommended getting an appraisal. appraisals usually cost money... ask the person how much it will cost. get to know what your coins are worth.
Good advice, but I wouldn't suggest dragging 36k coins (or anywhere remotely close unless bulk or junk) to one unless willing to pay for their time. That's a lot to dig through and simply too much to expect. It, unfortunately, sounds like a good number of them will bring little to no premium beyond face, but who knows... perhaps you'll find something special in addition to those that have worthy premiums. You've a lot of work ahead, but good luck, sir, and welcome to the forum.
Good point, Books! Yes, the OP will definitely have to whittle the collection down to a more easily workable size. Even then, it might be too large to haul around. However, it is also possible to have a dealer visit him at home for the appraisal, but I must urge extreme caution when attempting this. Be sure to check references, first, particularly for advertisers from places like Craigslist. Chris
Welcome to the forums @Coinus Collectus. While you're going through your collection, keep an accurate record of each coin and your opinion of the condition. You might be able to start narrowing down which coins have high value and which do not. Once you have a list put together you could post a partial list on this site and people could help you in many different ways, depending on need. There are a few dealers on this site too. I guess what I'm saying is that some of your material might be bought by members of this site. That might be a quick way to sell some of your collection. I wish you the best of luck. Please let us know if you have questions. Members here can be very helpful.
Likewise, but I would still respectfully caution against expecting a dealer, even one coming to his home, to be willing to dig through so many coins unless almost all were already known to have collectible level and/or metal value, and there was some sort of guarantee his time wouldnt be wasted. I simply don't see, based upon the given description, any actual or worthwhile dealer being willing to appraise such a collection unless first whittled down or having a set agreement to be paid for him time, especially considering the OP's interest in profiting from any errors or varieties it may contain. Even just to quickly scan through them averaging ten coins per minute, working eight hours per day, it would take over seven days just to go through them all.
36,000 that's a crazy amount of coins. I have 900 coins and I think that's a lot. this is from collecting for 18 years.
I'm really sorry to hear about your situation. I hope everything goes as well as it can go. I've only sold dozens of coins, never thousands, but whenever I have sold I just took them to a dealer and received an estimate. As others have said, you'll have to find out which coins in your massive horde have any potential value. Those could then go to a dealer. Another option, though this would take quite a bit of effort, is to make an organized list of everything by type and denomination and let a dealer peruse the list to see if anything catches their interest. Anything that qualifies as circulated pocket change could simply go to a bank's change counter. Good luck!
Being 70, I am certainly empathetic to your situation. I totally agree with Ed Womack about organizing everything and you might be able to get some help from a local coin collecting club; especially if there are some junior members. Also, CT has provided me with a great education over the past six months and it would be advantageous to call up some of the threads that are related to your questions about varieties and rarities. Best of luck.
