Christmas came early for me this year

My local coin shop was having a few contests to celebrate the opening of a new location, and as part of it they had jars of Ike dollars, wheat pennies and foreign coins, and visitors were supposed to guess how many coins were in them. I'm always way off on this sort of thing, so I basically just made up a wild number for each and entered. Well, I just got a call that I won the Ikes! There were 328 coins and I guessed 327, so that's a nice early Christmas present for me. Now I have to figure out what to do with them. I really like Ikes but my collection is already complete and I can't leave that kind of money sitting around. I suppose I'll end up depositing most of them. I'm sure the people at the bank will look at me funny. Anyway, I'm feeling the holiday cheer today.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

That's great, but you might be able to sell the remainder. Some people have been selling Ikes for a small profit.

 

Grab one of each date/MM and all 1972 type twos. Start a new Ike collection then Send the rest to me

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/370475290109?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1438.l2649

This guy is listing them in lots of 10 for 17.50 plus shipping on the bay. Seems to be doing pretty well. You could try that if they don't have any silver or Numi value.

congrates on the win!!

 

Plus $5.20 S&H?? I would think anybody who buys for that price is simply insane!

 

what you don't know CAN hurt you. looks like 6,360 in profit for him so far, not counting what he may get out of the shipping charge.
:devil:
I've also been watching this guy:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/180646463951?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1438.l2649

He's charging 79.99 for 5 unsearched bank rolls of halves. I pay $50 at the bank but that's just me.


I've thought about listing some bank rolls. can't decide if it is a slick idea or just plain dirty.

 

Thanks for the ideas. I won't be getting them until next weekend so after that I'll see what I have and then figure out what I want to do.

 

People will pay a small premium for them, I usually get 11/2-2x face value for them. They also make great stocking stuffers for kids,and are a good way to get them interested in collecting,my 4 year old granddaughter loves them I think It's the size. And they can play with them instead of them getting put away like more expensive coins...just my 2 cents worth...by the way, congrats on the win.

 

Think about it this way. If you advertise correctly, the people buying are getting the deal THEY want. Many people ARE satisfied with what they get, and if they aren't, they still can figure out that they knew ahead of time and went with it anyways....therefore, in their mind they ARE satisfied. Just because you might not want to buy based on that doesn't mean there aren't lots of people out there that do.

 

Kasia has a good point. When you buy on eBay you always have to factor shipping in. It often makes sense to pay more than something is technically worth because you save money on shipping in a group. For someone trying to complete a set, it is much better to get a bunch of coins together than to pay $3 each to ship them. Maybe when I get these I'll try to make some groups of different dates and list them on eBay and see what happens.

 

Exactly Kasia. I have been saying this a long time, the coin market you and I know is somewhat at the "wholesale" level. We are informed buyers and know where to get the better prices. People rail against high priced stores in Vegas, some catalog companies, and tv shows, but they are the real "retail" market in coins.

I bet 99% of this board pays retail for most items they buy. If you know where to go, you can buy meat, cheese, or chips much cheaper than the grocery store. I don't see people protesting their local SuperValue as ripoff artists. I just accept I know where to buy coins at wholesale, but most of my other purchases I don't, so have to pay marked up retail prices.

Chris

 

Here's a picture if anyone wants to see what 328 Ikes look like. I haven't had time to look through them completely, but an initial inspection shows that a lot of them have a lot of dirt or other damage, so those will be spenders. Some of them are nice though.

 

It's not too unreasonable actually. $5.20 is the exact amount for a flat rate small priority box. 10 ikes are probably too heavy for first class shipping so priority is probably his only next cheapest option. It does seem like a lot though for the amount of coins.

 

Like others have said, its probably better to sell the lot on ebay if you don't want them. On the other hand if you have any niece or nephews maybe you can give them a few to play with. You never know if you will start them off in the hobby.

 

you just got 328 free dollars? spend em where you can.

If one out of every ten people who gets one gets interested, you will be making more collectors.

More collectors means more people paying more money for coins, thus prices will rise.

Scratch that spending them. Instead dump them at a local bank.

The bank will just return them to the fed, the fed will put them with their other kajillion ikes, and Littleton will buy the hoard for 3 times face and sell them off for 5 dollars each.

Scratch that.

Heck I would ask friends coworkers and relatives if they want any, I have sold a lot of em for 1.25, I have spent a lot of them and a lot of them I have used at coin shows for purchases.

 

I'm kind of afraid to spend something like that because I'm worried it will cause a scene with some cashier who doesn't know what it is. Other people have posted on here about trying to spend dollars or halves and having security called.

 

Nah, that is the best part. You get to look down and ridicule the ignorance of those who don't know what US coins have been made.

 

I would love to get security called on me for something like this. I would make such a scene it would make the news.

 

Tell that to the guy that got shackled to a pole at Best buy for trying to pay with $2 bills!

People are funny! I say spend em though. Best and worst case scenario, you'll have some interesting stories to tell.

 

I would be interested in getting a few Ikes, I'm trying to get a date/mm set for those, minus the silver.