Hi Everyone. This is my first post besides an intro post. My rad Grandpa died last year, and Grandma is starting to clean up his office. She sent his coins home with me to sell for her (or buy from her), and it's a bit overwhelming. I'll be cataloging it (a spreadsheet), taking the face-value stuff to the coin counting machine at the bank etc, then doing some research on the rest, and either buying them for my collection, or selling them. Here is a photo of the whole shebang (and a link to a larger version, if you want to look closer) http://themdg.org/pics/posts/2010-06-29-WSBCoinslarge.JPG Generally, the contents are: Circulated coins from the 60-90's. Tubes of coins "graded" by Grandpa as either "BU" or "AU". Usually in a roll of the same year and mint mark. Dates range from the late 1930's to 2000's. Many proof sets (the black, green, purple, boxes around the back and side there), and Uncirculated sets (example: envelope with uncirc 1985 P and D coins sealed in plastic, along with some paperwork.) A few silver proof sets. Eisenhower dollar proofs A few silver ignots (that set of 6 at about 1-o-clock). 2 add-a-coin banks (with no key, or course since they were Bank banks) full of coins. Misc silver coins. Dimes, quarters, halves, dollars. Several coin book sets including mostly-filled books. Many silver coins here. LOADS of wheat pennies and some Indian heads. etc. . . I am finding many that fill spots in my books, which is nice. But I am not considering keeping more than 10% of this collection. Can anyone offer any advise on where to start with something like this? I am in no rush for time and enjoy dealing with the coins, so no need to dump it all at once. Thanks in advance.
Welcome to CT! Sorry about your grandfather. I bet he was "rad." That looks like a great hoard to me. Be sure to do your research and also keep some coins for sentimental reasons. TC
I'll def. be keeping some of the coins to remember grandpa love for currency. Those that I replace in my books with his coins, I mark with a small dot (the book, not the coin).
Since time is no issue, I would first make sure that the coins were not being damaged by verdigris, pvc, or deep silver toning. I would remove those into isolation. Any key coins that were afflicted I would try and conserve them as best information advised. Once everything is triaged, you can move at your leisure. An inventory would help your next step. Jim
Be sure to check the Proof Sets for the "No S" varieties - 68, 70, 71, 75, 83 & 90. If you have the 64 Proof Set, check the Kennedy for the Accented Hair variety. If you have the 65-67 SMS sets, check those for CPG varieties, too. Also, check to see if you have an 87 Mint Set. No Kennedy's were produced that year for general circulation. If you have a 2005 Silver Proof set, check the Kansas 25c for a die gouge on the hind quarter of the bison. Sorry for your loss. Chris
It is hard to tell from the photo but the 6 silver ingots appear to be silver art bars that were minted in 1973 by the Silver Mint. It looks like part of the "Flag of Silver Producing nations" set. If that is the case, then they should weigh (and be marked) 20 grams. Most of the Silver Mint art bars that were minted in the 1970's were 20 grams in size. You can sell those on ebay and get a decent premium over spot silver for those 6 bars if you decide that you want to sell them.
Good stuff. Ill buy it all from you at face value to save you the trouble! I'll even pay shipping! Sorry bout your gramps.
That's exactly what they are. "One for each of the 6 silver producing nations" (or something to that effect). The tarnish on them is pretty. I'll check ebay to get an idea of what they've sold for recently.
WELCOME TO THE FORUMMMMMMMMMMMM As to a start with that mess, here is some of my suggestions: 1. Purchase the Red Book by Whitman Publishing for general information 2. DO NOT take any of what you think is just normal everyday coins to a bank just yet. First know what they are. Again, there are many coins people think are nothing and actually are. 3. Place all the Proof and Uncirculated sets in a separate pile for later investigations. 4. Place all coins in separate areas based on denominations. Pennies in one area, Nickels in another, etc. 5. Place all bullion or bars in another area for later also. 6. Be carefull handling any of the coins since you do not really know which is what just yet. If necessary, use cotton gloves. One lousy finger print on a valuable coin could well ruin it. 7. Although not in a hurry, let the Pennies go for later since there appears to be a real, real lot of them. There are so many of them that may well take your time looking at both the obverse and reverse. When you do get to those I suggest you look into purchasing a book called "Looking Through Lincoln Cents" by Chuck Daughtrey. You could look it up on the web site www.coppercoins.com 8. Get to know what you have as much as possible before making any decisions on keeping or selling anything. 9. Attempt to look up coin shows in your area. If there are any, go to some and spend some time talking to the dealers. Get to know them and eventually you may want to ask if they are interested in purchasing anything from you. Faster way to get rid of coins and no hassel like on ebay. 10. If you do make it to a coin show or two, do not plurt out about the coins until you really get to know who is who. OR just put the entire mess in a large box, ship to me and your problems are done.
No wonder they have to keep minting new coins every year, your grandpa had stashed away most of the stuff they already minted.:mouth: Welcome to CT! I had a similar haul about 15 years ago and I quickly learned that the real value of the coins I had were primarily in the keys. The rest was more or less face value. That is always sort of shocking considering the volume of coins but true nonetheless. I considered taking the multiple dates and putting them into books and selling them on ebay but haven't acted on that impulse yet. I could put together so many sets of Lincolns, Roosevelts, Jeffersons, etc. minus the keys of course and make a killing selling them to new collectors that just want to buy the keys and have complete BU sets. If time is not an issue, you might want to consider doing something along those lines. It would take time and money but you'd certainly learn a lot along the way. Good luck!
Just an update. I'm taking my first batch to the coin counting machine at the bank today (free at a few local banks, thank goodness). It's a bag of circulated change. You can see it in the photo above just barely. It's at about 9-o-clock in the photo, on the desk between the blue and red books. Black leather bag. I've gone through it carefully over the past few months. I found a few that I was missing, and a bunch that were much nicer than the coins I currently had. All in all, replaced/added maybe 50 coins. It's gotta be 25 lbs of coins, mostly quarters. I'm guessing it's somewhere around $200. We'll see. Edit: In case you're interested.. a good sampling of the coins in these bags included: quarters from the mid 1980's to the early 2000's. A few from the 70's and 60's, but none older than 1964. Many of the 1980's quarters were in great shape, and I kept several. A good number of very clean 1978 D cents. I kept several of these as well. G'pa must have opened a roll in there. Roll of Thomas Jefferson dollars. A few dimes, and a few nickels. Maybe 30 or 40 each. Mostly 1980's or 1990's.
What a cool thing he did for you and your family! Be sure to keep part of it to pass on to your next generation! Congrats to you and kudos to your rad G-dad! -Scott
