I am taking my mom's coins in for a fast appraisal here in Seattle and being that I am inexperienced in protocol, I want to know if I should ever lose eye contact with my coins during the process ? Thanks, Joseph
You will find a lot of good advice from the CT members, so stay tuned to this thread as it pours in and before you go to that appraisal. I would not leave your property with someone you do not know well enough to trust your coins with, so do not leave the shop or appraisers office without your items. Also, visit more than one professional to get more than one appraisal. You must do your homework before you go to an appraisal. Get to know what the coins are that you are having appraised, understand the terms that may be used, and a ballpark figure of the prices you might expect to see. If you are talking about US coins, perhaps familiarize yourself with a RedBook or consider posting a list of items here, then follow up with good close up photos of coins post here for the members to see. Good pictures will facilitate members helping you 'grade' the coins and estimate costs. RedBook values are NOT to be followed as they do not accurately quote prices you will necessarily realize. Once you know what the coins are that you have, check completed auction listings on eBay, eBid, Heritage Auctions, TeleTrade, et al. In terms of 'fast' as highlighted in your post, remember the Venn diagram, you can "Pick any two" but you can't have all three in any given situation. Good luck to you and welcome to CT! :thumb:
Make a list of what you have. And as you get your coins back check them off. NEVER should your coins leave your field of vision. If they want to take them somewhere else ask them if you can come with them, if not... gather your coins and leave. Other then that, get a few opinions and if you want to sell them sell them to the highest bidder.
To Krispy & LostDutchman Thanks Guys .. I did get the 2010 Redbook and photographed obv & rev of every single coin. I checked Ebay auctions & Teletrade realized prices for MS-63 items that look more beat up than a "couple" of mine. I posted links here to a folder that has high resolution images of many of the coins ( ooops some were out of focus ) & I assumed that since there were little to no comments left on the photo that they had nothing more than metal value items. All things considered ... I be confused. The links I provided take you to the coin catagory and it allows you to click on it 3 times to get to max resolution. Once you finish viewing that coin you can go to the next coin or even just jump to a different coin type folder altogether. I would have posted them here except for the image size restriction. http://cid-786c6e222da07385.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/coin collection/All Wheaties/Picture 84.jpg http://cid-786c6e222da07385.skydriv...coin collection/Mercury Dimes/Picture 101.jpg http://cid-786c6e222da07385.skydriv...ngton Quarters 1964 and older/Picture 197.jpg http://cid-786c6e222da07385.skydriv...oin collection/Buffalo Nickels/Picture 45.jpg http://cid-786c6e222da07385.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/coin%20collection/Tokens%20^J%20Foreigns%20^0%20Lead%20Pennies/Picture%207.jpg Wish Me Luck at the appraiser who has been in business since 1961
I looked through your pictures and this is what you should expect. The wheat cents: The ones pictured are all common and In my shop we sell these for 3-4 cents apiece. The nickels: The buffalo nickels that you can't read the date on are worth about 8 cents. The common date ones are worth 50cents to a dollar apiece EXCEPT the 1931 S which is a bit of a better date and in that condition... $10-$15. The Jefferson with the large letter above the building are worth about 75 cents apiece. The rest are spendable in my opinion. The dimes and quarters: I looked through each of these and they are all common and going to be worth just their silver content. Melt is a little more then 10 times face. Tokens and medals: don't enough about the ones posted to say for certian but I would suspect they are all pretty common. There was a 2 cent piece in that condition it's worth $10-$20. Hope this helps!
I think he quoted you what he would purchase them for, a little low IMO, I think the Dutchmans quotes should be more what you should aim for
chip You are correct , the value shown is what he would pay for them on the spot. The Appraiser experience was an awesome education for me since I have been collecting coins for all of 11 days now I figure he would pay 33% to 70% of actual resale value like any self respecting merchant. I also learned that the quantity of junk silver you sell at 1 time is relevant due to the dealers cost of transferring the commodity without losing value due to the silver market fluctuations. He says he could pay their highest premium for a bag of junk silver coins with $1000.00 face value. He says they pay a flat rate for transfer of the commodity so not really cost effective to buy less than $500.00 face value worth of junk silver. He says any silver coins rolls collected in quantity after 1962 would be , for the most part , junk silver with no real gems in them. ( that is why he didn't open nor look at the quarter & dime rolls ) Just a piece of trivia: My avatar is 1 of the tokens that was in the sack from my Dad and it was from a 1940's burlesque club in Los Angeles , CA & if it were in good shape it would be worth $15.00 Peace & Bright Blessings, Joseph
You should be able to get ten times face for your silver, that alone would make your appraisal worth 850, which is over ten percent more than that appraiser offered for everything. I would not deal with that one, except it were very low value purchases, and as for selling I would find someone else to sell to. I would bet had you sold him those rolls he would have them opened and looked thru them, I think that he gave you a poor appraisal, if it was free you got your moneys worth.
Small problem with that, what Matt quoted is what is what he sells the stuff for - not what he buys it for. The OP got a fair offer. Pretty much any dealer you go to is going to offer the same.
Duke Kavanaugh - yeah .. that 2 cent I did snag out of that "foreign coin bag" and included it with the stuff I had appraised & it turned out to be the highest valued single coin in the small lot I took.
Yes those prices were a sale price on my end. I just wanted you to know what it was worth as a sales price. There is going to be a discount. I suggest taking it to a couple of more places and go with the highest one
Looks very fair to me. Looks very fair to me. He's got to make some money and really there is nothing special in the group. If you had some better grade key or semi-key coins he really wanted he would pay more for all but that is not the case here. I would have been about 5 to 10% lower than this because it's just stuff, normal stuff we all have to much of.
gonna save what I can I do appreciate your advice, however , I am going to try to hold onto at least a single item of each collectible variety that I can from my parents' stash & liquidate the junk so Mom can have some fun money.
I would agree with chip about the rolls. If it were me i would open them up myself and look thru them, you really have nothing to lose. Who knows there might be something really good. Good luck
Ohh believe me I did look through them and there were no keepers, just pretty shiny old things worth their weight in silver. As it turned out the coins I thought were junk like the buffalo nickels , war nickel and a US 2 cent and recently discovered US 3 cent , Australia I-penney , 1943 silver shilling ... all out of a baggie I thought was foreign junk coins hehe
