I just bought a bag of 1000 Ikes from the sister of a former part time dealer who is now deceased. She is clearing out his collection and sold me the Ikes at face because no one was willing to pay a premium for them. Bag was an old canvas bank bag that was sealed with a cord and a metal clip. I like looking through coins and I was thinking that I would be getting a bag of circulated Ikes that would maybe contain a holed Peace Dollar or two or maybe something cool that was foreign. No such luck. The entire 1000 coins are 1977 D and they are BU. When I say BU I mean they are gleaming and look like they were just minted in Denver today. I know 1977 D's have an high mintage and that Ikes aren't highly collectible, but anybody out there know the series well enough to tell me of potential value? Thanks a lot guys.
Numismedia's got em in the $10-$15 range at MS63-64. There's a pretty nice jump at 65, and then real premiums, so they say, at 66 and above. PCGS's price guide isn't far off from that. Around here, circulated Ikes frequently get given as change at an LCS. Nice AU-BU examples carry a VERY small premium, going maybe $1.50-$2.00. The occasional slabbed examples I've seen seem to go about 75% or so of what FMV and PCGS suggest. *shrug* Personally, if it were me, I think I might pull the 10 best examples out, submit 'em, and see if you can't get an MS-66 or better out of there. Granted, it'll take a good while to go through all 1000 that carefully...but you said yourself, you like looking through coins, and at $100+, might be worth the time. Worst case, you haven't lost anything...even if they come back as 64's-65's, they're likely to cover the grading fees if you don't mind going to slower/cheaper route. ========= Perhaps another angle might be simply to shoot a picture of, oh, 10-20 of them, and then offer them on here or on e-bay, described as you did above, in lots of "10 for $19.95" or something. To be honest, plenty of folks are likely to pay 2x face for a batch or two of those, just to take the shot I mentioned above, figuring it's no great loss if they don't find a real gem. Heck, I'd probably take a roll at that price, just for the fun factor. Worst case, I'd drop the nicest one in my 7070, and toss the others in the safe for the heck of it.
Just a couple years ago someone found a bag of '77 Ikes and got "9" high grade coins and made many many thousands of dollars on the deal. It's a little difficult to say this to someone hoping for a holed peace dollar in a bag of Ikes... ...But, good luck.
It sure looks like it, but there is no writing on the bag. I would think it would say "US Mint" on it.......
I got a bag of 1878 S BU dollars in 1963. It was a disappointment. The only way to get rid of them was to spend them.
Thanks for the helpful responses, guys. I'm going take my time and go through the bag. I'll cherry pick the ten best and send them into NGC. I'll have fun doing it and who knows...maybe there is a MS 66 in there that some collector would want for his registry set. Thanks again
Hopefully, you find some good pieces to send in and grade~ At least it will be fun trying with all those~~
If I recall correctly, that was a 3 bag submission which produced 8 MS67's (more than doubling the pops from 5) and over 300 MS66's (more than doubling thos pops as well). Population wise, it threw the 1977 IKE pop's into close contention with the 1971-D/1974-D Populations but the folks selling them still demanded the more expensive "old" populations price ($5,800). Today those coins are still way over priced at $5,500 by about a grand IMO. Prices for MS66's dropped by nearly half from the $300+ days. But, thats the problem with Modern Coins, you just never know when the populations are going to double or even triple. For the OP, you probably could have gotten $2,000 for the sealed bag and there's still a good possibility that you could sell rolls at $2.00 per coin but you'll have to contend with the selling fee's. Selling 10 at a time might work but it gets very tedious as you'd have to nurse over 80 different ebay listing over a period of months! After a while, you just feel like spending them! Getting some graded is also an option but the best bet is to make a bulk submission as it would yield the most. Of course, you'll be looking at a minimum $1,000 submission charge with PCGS if all the coins graded. Personally, I'd specify a MS65 minimum and pick out the very best of the bag. MS66's would be relatively easy to sell as long as you didn't flood the market and a solitary MS67 would simply be sweet! As a side note, going through 1,000 coin bags of IKE's is a real pleasure but its an awfully large amount of coins which ALWAYS begs the question: "What the heck am I gonna do now?"
