Ok so officially friday was supposed to be my last day at work. Then today I get a call about a major collection/purchase from a lady whose husband passed away. Basically my boss is interested in buying for the right price, but needs me to do an appraisal on the lot. I have bought and sold plenty of coins through the shop but never this size of a collection. He sent me pictures and there is just tons of stuff. Full boxes of mint sets/proof sets. So my questions are: Am I qualified to do an appraisal? How much should I charge for my services? Should I call a local dealer I know to take care of it/ or assist? Anyway just kind of excited about the whole thing. I'll update with pics. BTW nothing will happen until tuesday. That is the only day I am free.
Honestly, if you have to ask if you're qualified, your obviously doubting yourself, I'd call a dealer and let him/her take it over.
Look, the guy you were working for just asked you to go look at the stuff and give your opinion as to it's value. What's the problem ? If there are 2 dozen proof sets worth $4 each wjolesale, that's $48. Next ! As far as your compensation, I imagine your employer expects to pay your previous hourly rate for the time it takes you to do the job. But you can ask him to give you more specifics. He obviously thinks you can handle the task, so just go do it.
The Mint/Proof Sets are easy enough to figure out. It's the other stuff where you might or might nor have an issue. At this point, only you know if you can do it or not because only you know what the stuff is. And by now, you should know what coins you have problems valuing and what ones you don't. In other words you already know the answer Jason.
It's your ex-boss for "JC's" sake! He wouldn't have asked if he didn't trust you to some degree. There is no reason you can't use CDN to help you along, and if there is anything you're stuck on, ask a coin dealer in you're area what he would pay for a specific coin or two or three. The problem is that you shouldn't "burn the bridges" behind you. He may even ask for your help again, but I wouldn't let him get away with paying you a lowball fee. You might want to ask what other dealers in the DC area would charge for a fairly large appraisal (without going into any detail, of course). There is no time like the present to jump in and get your feet wet. Chris