Dad's collection

Hi! As the "responsible" person in charge of selling my late dad's coin collection, I have made an appointment with a reputable appraiser to put a value on, and possibly sell, the collection. I wish I was more knowledgeable, but I confess that I know nothing about these coins except their year! Is there a resource for "fair market value"? I do know that condition affects value.... What should I expect? What questions should I ask? What is the normal procedure? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

If you post some pictures that would help immensly. OH! WELCOME to coin talk. You'll learn a lot here. And have fun doint it too.

 

Get more than 1 appraisal

Remember a dealer isn't going to give you fair market value because he needs to make money on the coins at fair market value or better.

Without understanding grading and coin conditions that affect the grade - prices may not be very helpful. A couple sources you could start with are the US Red Book ( http://www.amazon.com/Official-Red-Book-United-States/dp/0794824943 ) which will give you a very rough idea. If you want a dealer to dealer price buy the last online copy of the grey sheet ( http://www.greysheet.com/cdn/grey.asp ) . The dealers you deal with may - or - may not base their price on the bid price listed. You can/should ask the dealer what they are basing their price on. If you think the price isn't fair tell them you are going to think about it then do some more research and get more estimates.

Ask specific questions here if you have some! If you post some coins we can give you an idea of value which you can then use as 1 more data point.

Remember - your dad probably put a lot of time into acquiring the collection - don't be in a rush to get rid of it without learning more about its value.

Good Luck ~ Darryl

 

I do not know the terms of your dads will, you did not state what they were, but if you are the executor of his will, know this, whatever your dads collection is worth in sale to a dealer is worth more to you in not only retail value but in sentimental value. A dealer may give you a thousand dollars for the collection, but if you were to try to buy one like it, it may cost you twice that much.

When my dad passed away, suddenly from a stroke, I also had to deal with liquidating the estate and a large part of this dealt with the coin collection he had accumulated through the years.

One of the things that needs to be done is to appraise the value of his collection, first you should not go into the process blindly, what are some of the coins he has? does he have a list with conditions and prices he paid? Does he have business cards of dealers he dealt with?

In my case my dad accumulated the better part of his collection during the mid to late 60s, there was no contacts that I could trace. If your dad was active in collecting you may be able to trace some of his sources.

Ask to meet with them. Go with an open mind but be open to your gut feelings, ask them about his collection, about how he felt about it, what it meant to him.

If they were his friends they will be very valuable resources to you in disposing of his coins.Like I said, trust your gut instincts sometimes, more than what people tell you.

 

Excellent advice from Chip and Darryl....:thumb:

 

I'm afraid you can expect to find the process difficult and frustrating. There are a couple of online price guides, but a person needs to determine the grades of the coins. Depending on what kind of coins they are, a person might expect 30% to 70% of retail value as a fair dealer offer. The higher the value of the individual coins, the higher the percentage of retail value is likely to be.

It is a difficult bridge to cross. Unfortunately, more than a few "reputable appraisers," will give low ball offers. It would be much better if your dad had left instructions, or dealer contacts. Was he a member of a coin club? That would be a good resource.

As for getting online advice, photos would be of immense help. If that is not possible a general description of what kind of items are in the collection might get you better answers. What are the basic denominations and dates? Are the coins in albums? Hard plastic containers with the letters NGC, PCGS, ANACS or Capitol Plastics on them? Cardboard 2x2s? Vinyl flips? Or is it more of an accumulation of coins in various coffee cans and cigar boxes? The latter usually translates into lower value more common coins. Collector holders often mean higher value, better coins. Of course there will be exceptions to these generalities.

Good luck. Post pictures if you have them. Look to see if your dad had any coin contacts in terms of a club or trusted dealers. The odds of getting "fair" treatment tend to go up, if you went to a dealer where your dad was a regular customer.

If you do an Internet search on "what's my coin worth?" you will find a variety of sites that will help you do a quick assessment to see if you have a collection worth spending a good deal of time on, in terms of selling.

Time is money. If the entire collection is worth $100 retail, it isn't a financial tragedy if it gets sold for $10 to a dealer. It certainly wouldn't be worth spending days and days taking stock and figuring things out, and if it will only net such a low dollar amount, the sentimental value is likely more.

On the other hand, if the collection is full of better coins and worth say $250,000 retail, and you only get $25,000, that is a measurable mistake where a person could have spent much more time to get a much better result.

 

How many coins are we talking about? What denominations? What years? Are any of them in holders of any kind...better still, with descriptions (...and what are those)? No offense intended, but you're ripe for the plucking; and a coin guide won't get you anyplace, unless you know your grades. Probably your quickest approach would be to simply tell us the general vicinity you're in, so we could recommend some good dealers near you. You'd want more than one offer, I second that advice. If you'd want us to grade and appraise, though, we'd need some good pictures. Look, good luck.

 

It's important to know the nature of the collection.

If there are valuable coins, tokens, and medals the venue for their best distribution will be very different. Coin dealers can't make reasonable offer for items they can't sell over the counter and this applies to wide swaths of what might be in the collection.

Get a Redbook for a feel of prices.

 

I hate to say it but chances are you are going to get ripped off. If you list what you have and post it here you will get an idea of what the value might be, also post what the appraisal said.

 

take the best of bunch and send them to be graded by

NGC,PCGS, ANCS or ICG, then buy a good scanner of camera and take good photos and sell on ebay yourself, you'll get the best price that way, if coins are really high grades maybe try teletrade, they will even grade for free if the coins sells for $250 or more

 

I agree and they will see from a mile away you do not have a clue about coin collecting.

While telling you your collection is absolutely worthless, perhaps even kind of tossing one on the counter that is worthless, they are dying inside for you to GIVE the coins away so they can sell the one worth a small fortune on ebay.

All dealers, nope.

Now do as the people around here have ask at least a list and better yet photos and you will get more help than you can ask for. The people around here are excellent at helping people.

 

I forgot to ask the biggest question: "How much time and effort are you willing to expend on this?" If you want something quick, you're looking at wholesale prices, and dealers are where you want to go on that; simply show them the collection, request their bid on it, then pick out the best one. We could most likely recommend good dealers in your area, if you want to go that route. The other route is, the long, hard road. That would be getting retail prices, then going directly to the consumers, in auctions. Again, as we said, we could help you on that first part, but you're going to have to post some good pictures of your coins.

 

i wish my dad is a coin collector.

 

This will work great with the kind of stuff that dealers sell over the
counter. VF bust coins, key date Lincolns and proof sets are prob-
bly best disposed in this manner. You'll get about 70% of retail or
more and save a lot of effort and time.

But if you take a rare saloon token or collection of them to the typ-
ical dealers you'll get pennies on the dollar. The same applies to
most things that they aren't familiar with or can't sell over the
counter.

It really depends on what's in the collection. Some world coins are
worth hundreds of times catalog price for instance while others
would be hardpressed to bring 10% of catalog.

Whatcha got?

 

How true. He may have some of those prizes, there, in a long collection like that. You can lead a horse to water, though, Clad, but...

 

Thanks for the great advice!

Thank you all for the great advice. My dad was an "amateur" collector in the regard that nothing is in protective pockets, as a matter of fact, the coins (consisting of walking liberty half dollars, mercury dimes, buffalo head nickels, some proof sets from the 70's, etc) I have made my first "in person" contact with the appraiser and came away VERY disappointed...basically, the collection is worth "face value" although there are a few coins worth the SILVER content.
All in all, it was a little disheartening. At this point in time I am contemplating spending some time and doing some research (hopefully with y'all) before I make a knee jerk reaction that I may be sorry for down the road. My dad loved his coin collecting and his collection, no matter what the monetary value, deserves to be dealt with appropriately.
Again, thank you all for the great advice...I kinda felt like I was "ripe for the picking" and reading your concerns really hit home. Thanks again!

 

You may want to consider keeping that collection in the family....:smile

 

I agree. When my daughter is old and responsible enough I'll give her some of her grandfathers coins.

 

I started in about the same situation. I now have my Grandfathers collection. My first thought was, how much is it worth, but the more I studied it, the more I enjoyed the coins. It got me back into collecting after thirty years. I have added steadily to the collection ever since, thanks in no small part to the people here.

If the original goal was to sell it and split the money among other heirs, you may think of taking your appraisal and buying the shares of the collection from the others.

In the meantime, take your time, study and enjoy the coins.

Good luck

 

Buffalo nickels with full dates are worth a minimum of about 50c each. If the coins aren't in holders then it's less likely that there is something valuable since most people put valuable coins in holders of one sort or another.

Good luck.