If you/she decided to sell the coins, bagging them and listing on eBay by weight, may make more profit than melting or simply taking them to the bank. JMHO
I’m picking through ones that I want to keep for myself, and the will sell the rest. I’ve already let go of a couple of small batches of coins. One thing I’ve been told is that I over estimate the grade. I’m trying different places to see where I can get the best deal for her.
I’m going to my first coin show in Austin this weekend. I’ll be looking for coins for myself. Should I consider taking some of her common coins to sell? What about a couple of rolls of Buffalo and/or war nickels?
@tommyc03 ...has it right, too...check carefully and take your time. Consult a Yeoman Red Book for mintage numbers and categorize. The Morgan’s and Peace may have VAMs. Start with one denomination, compile your info, then do the same with the others. As you go through them set aside the better ones with protection (temporary flips) as you will be revisiting these afterward. Once you have this part done, you will have learned a whole lot and have discovered patterns of value/rarity/scarcity and help to avoid missing a key date. The real key to this is how much patience do you have to do this pile of treasure justice? A lot of forum members here at Coin Talk would love to be in your shoes...Spark
Weird that you can melt silver but not copper. Copper can't be melted because it would lend to criminal activities I'd imagine. Silver on the other hand lends to a different kind of criminal activity (and that's acceptable for some reason, go figure). My guess is that people will melt copper anyway and probably have always done so. Just don't get caught I guess would be the lesson.
I would welcome a member in my home. I’m already learning a lot, and can only imagine how much more I could learn with someone to guide me.
Well, tighten up your bootstraps because, whether you realize it or not, by joining this forum you are inviting ALL of our forum members into your home! NOW you have every resident expert available to help you learn...and it is free. This is what we do. All you have to do is be willing to learn...Spark
I recommend sorting through the stash and researching every coin. Then you can have sufficient info to decide what to do next. Welcome to CoinTalk!
To help with grading, you can download a free "PCGS Photograde" App. It has every U.S. coin and shows grades from Fair 02 to Mint-State 70 (depending on the coin - it might be to MS-68, etc.). Simply take your coin and compare it to the images of the obverse and reverse at various grades to better approximate what your coin's grade is. You should examine the coins that the dealer's said were "overgraded" to see how close you were to what you see in the Photgrade App. Have fun with this project!!
Since this is your first coin show I would suggest you take nothing and dismiss all notions of selling. Go, look and enjoy yourself. It's a great chance to learn. Talk with some of the dealers. Hopefully you will find some of those coins on your want list. Try and locate some friendly dealers near your location that you feel you could work with in the future. Feel free to ask questions and get prices on common coins that you want to sell. It will only help you and your friend make better decisions later on. Again, enjoy yourself and learn while at this show. You can even report back to us on how things went, what you did and don't forget photos if your purchases.
Thanks for the advice. My plan has been to take a little bit in at a time to the places I can reach. I've visited the one shop in town, been to a shop in Houston, and plan to visit a shop in Corpus Christi, where my son did business when he was around 12. And there is a collector in town that I plan to meet with next week, although his interests are strictly silver. I wasn't sure about the coin show. I didn't know if coin shows are generally good places to sell stuff, or only buy because of the variety. They don't seem to be very frequent and will likely never happen in Victoria. So it kinda felt like "Do it now, or forget it." As of this writing I have four and a half rolls of Buffalo Head nickels and 15 rolls of War nickels. I've still got about a coffee can and a half of nickels that haven't been sorted and a coffee can of non-war, non-buffalo nickels. Oh, and I've a few V nickels that I've put in flips. This is my best fine, although it is in poor condition:
Take your time with the Indian Head Cents. Lots of varieties to watch for. Please post some images of the album pages when you have time.
Still worth $50 or so. You can sell on CT as you have enough posts. Just use the for sale forum. At shows and coinnshops you can do better at most by trading instead of selling outright. Trade up in one place and sell s better coin(s) in another. Best wishes.
That V Nickel is a key date coin. It’s worth a couple hundred dollars. Good thing you didn’t liquidate the collection at first sight
Welcome to Coin Talk. I see you have already been given a lot of helpful information. Here's some more. PCGS has a few apps you can download to your smartphone that can guide you in grading and give current melt value for silver coins. https://www.pcgs.com/apps https://www.pcgs.com/news/important-new-feature-for-coinflation The top one includes photograde with images for each grade.
I've been through my nickels for the first run through, finally. I've ended up with 33 rolls of War Nickels and 5 rolls of Buffalo nickels. I still have about two coffee cans full of Jeffersons. The dates vary, I've seen some pristine nickles from the 1960's through the 1980's. I've got nickels from the 1930's through the 2010's. Should I just roll everything and take it to the bank? Or could I sell these by the roll as assorted date Jeffersons on EBay. Yes, I know you can put anything up on Ebay, but do I risk a no sale or an angry recipient if I try to sell these?
Don't take anything to the bank yet! Those rolls of war nickels have about $40.00 worth of silver when silver is at $17.77/ounce. The question is, are any of them in really good condition? If not, you're sitting on about $1,300.00 worth of war nickels. The problem is how to cash them in. You will see people selling rolls on eBay right now for around $42.00 to $43.00/roll with shipping included which is close to full value (but then you have to pay fees, shipping, etc.), whereas if you go to a coin dealer, you might get 80% to 90% of the silver value.