Hello, I am brand new to this forum. My father has collected coins since 1961 and has a rather large collection. He used to be associated with a parking garage and had the opportunity to touch/sort MANY coins and always bought the good ones from the chage bins. Now He has recently been diagnosed with multiple types of cancer and was given 2-6 weeks to live. He wants me to sell off his coins to help him pay off debts and leave very lilttle burden on his wife (my step-mother). I planned on researching the coins and selling off the highest dollar coins first to get the ball rolling. Then maybe list the rest of the book for sale as a partial set. Is there a downside to splitting up books? For a quick example he has 2 complete Lincoln books 1909-2007 including the graded 1909svdb rated xf-40. I know most guys looking for that single coin will have little or no interest in the others inside that book. I have maybe one tenth of his collection here right now and I can tell you there are complete books of Mercury Dimes, Eisenhower Dimes, Franklin Half Dollars, Washington Quarters, Mercury-Roosevelt Dimes, Morgan Dollars and American Eagle Silver Dollars. Is there anywhere that I could find an interested party to purchase larger quantities of these coins or should I just flood the market on Ebay and hope for the best? Thanks in advance for any information. -- itZme
You can try a local dealer in your area if he or she has any connections they can sell them quick. Ebay would also be fast but you might not get the price you are hoping for. Heritage will take time too get the price that the coins are worth so ebay or a dealer in your area would be the best bet. You can try to post them on this website on open or auction listing someone here may want a shot at them or know someone that does. No matter where you go sell them, selling them as a lot will be harder but you will get a better price, individually you will sell the key date and may be stuck with the common date. Good Luck and God bless.
Numismatic News is a weekly publication in which a number of firms advertise that they buy complete collections. Many coin dealers sell individual copies of the current issue.
"Is there anywhere that I could find an interested party to purchase larger quantities of these coins or should I just flood the market on Ebay and hope for the best?" First, unless you have an extremely large collection, I doubt that you could ever flood Ebay. Next, satootoko is right use Numismatic News or Coin World to find a dealer. Perferably one in your area. The first question that they'll ask you is: "what do you estimate the value of the collection?" The bigger dealers will not consider it unless it is over $10,000. They have a lot of expenses, and won't travel for smaller collections. If it is worth less then a local dealer would probably be wiser. But, be careful. Good luck. Frank
Welcome to the forum! I would try to find a dealer near you to take the coins too---coins such as the 1909-S VDB might be fake and you need someone who knows. If you have these dates--- CENTS 1909-S VDB 1909-S 1914-D 1931-S Dimes 1916-D 1921 1921-D Quarter 1932-D 1932-S These are the Key dates---all of them might be fake but this is where the $$ will come from---a dealer will want to buy the whole sets so that is what I would do---if a dealer near you isn't interested in the coins as if he would be able to send off coins to a grading company----NGC or PCGS---if he can I would send off the above coins and then list them on Ebay. Whatever you do DON'T clean any of them! Speedy
Thank you all for your advice. I will check out the mentioned resources and proceed from there (with caution of course) -- itZme
Speedy most of those dates are already slabbed and graded but thanks for the heads-up. He has duplicates of some like the 1909S v.d.b. and 1916D dime.
Good---now comes another question. Who are they slabbed by?...there is a good many Grading companies out there but only a small few are to be trusted. If you can post a list of the coins and who they are graded by and what they grade maybe we can point you to a dealer that would be interested in buying the whole lot. Speedy
Well, I went ahead and listed the first coins on Ebay for him. The only dealer within 15 miles of us had no interest in the collection and had some VERY lowball offers on the key date coins he had. Please let me know if there is anything I should do differently next time or if the ad looks fine as is. I tried to put the minimum bid around what he wanted to get out of it so if one bidder is all he gets then at least it won't go way under value. Also, can anyone tell me roughly how much it costs to have a coin certified/graded by a reliable company? I am wondering at what coin velue does it become more costly to have the coin graded than taking the loss for a non-graded coin sale. This one was done by a company called SEGS. I have read on this site that one called SGS is really generous on their grading but I thought this one was pretty much dead on. The coin seems like it would've been much higher if it weren't for the one dent on the face. Here's a link to the auction. Hope I didn't violate any rules by posting that. I just want advice not advertising the sale EDITED--Sorry but links to a members own items are in violation of rules---
Nice photos, and stay away from SGS, most collectors will not buy their stuff. besides, everything that they grade is usually MS-70. SEGS is usually fairly accurate, but the big guys are PCGS, NGC and ANACS. (with some opinions about who #3 should be). Good luck.
Sorry---but the link had to go---rules are rules. From what I'm reading here the coin was slabbed by a not soo good Grading Company.....maybe SEGS. While I agree that most of the time they are good at grading the market hasn't accepted them and untill that time comes you aren't going to get high offers or such on ANY of the coins slabbed by them---now SEGS is pretty good IIRC on finding fake coins so I'm sure these are real but just don't hope for high prices because they aren't going to come. If you remember---post a list of some of the coins and the offer that the dealer made....alot of people think that dealers low ball offers when in all truth their offer is higher than normal. Speedy
