A friend of mine relayed to me a story of when he had $1000 face in BU 2000D halves a few months ago. Rather than dump them into the counter, he called around to see if he could get more than face for them. One of the places he called was Jake's MarketPlace. The guy told him that $1000 would be tough to move, but said he could give him $9.75 per roll. Of course my friend ran to the post office to drop the coins in the mail as quick as he could. How someone can offer less than face value baffles me, but my question to everyone else here is What's the worst offer you've ever received for coins that you were selling?
The first Adams Doubled Dollar found. Offered $20.00 from a dealer. Sold it to a gentelman in Calif. for a tad bit more on Ebay. : )
Years ago I put up a small lot of 1948 Canadian nickels on ebay. Lower mintage date and it got no bids. Some moron offered me like 6 cents each and I WAS to pay shipping. Needless to say I never even bothered to respond. clembo
I've made ebay offers like that before. Not really serious, just on the off chance the seller really HATED the item. Lol. Of course, I expected to either get denied or no reply or something. So I'll apologize to you, clembo, for whoever did that. Worst offer I was ever given was $15 for an about Fine 1679 Charles II halfcrown. First he undergraded it to Good or lower, then quoted a low price from an out of date Krause catalog (not the appropriate guide for these coins). The thing listed for 60 pounds in F in the 2002 Spink! Of course my reply was "If this is worth $15, I'll buy all you have for thirty, right now"
Being young or even older that is a good way to test a dealer. Play stupid (comes naturally to me go figure). NOT saying you are DJ but many dealers see a young face and see a sugar lump on a stick. I test dealers by bringing a decent coin to see what they offer. If it's ridiculous I inform them then cross them off my list.
A dealer offered me 50% of the exchange rate on some world currency I'd picked up here & there through flea markets, etc. I'd have been ok if he'd said 'hey, the exchange is XX and I give 50% of XX' but he said 'the exchange for US is only X and I'll pay you that much. (It's been a while ... basically giving $1 for English pounds) I told him I'd think about it ....
This is easy. Many years ago I got caught up in the attempting to hoard those Bicentennial Quarters. So did a friend of mine. All in almost AU to MS grades. I had several hundred dollars worth and he had several thousand dollars worth. We both thought someday they would be worth a fortune sort of how people today think of the baby dollars or Beanie Babies. Not to long ago we both took large amounts to seveal coin shows in an attempt to sell them. One offer was for $0.24 each. It was a joke intended to stress they are not wanted. So they all ended up in a banks counting machine. At least face value there.
Um, no offense, but your friend was a moron... he could have take them to a bank and got face value for them. Most banks will even count your coins free if you have an account there (some will do it free even if you don't.) The most I've ever seen a bank charge for coin counting is 2%... which would still be $9.80 a roll, better than that dealer paid. There's no reason you should ever take less than face value for any legal tender US currency. EVER. If you can't get more than face value for it you can still at least spend or deposit it for its face value!
Bingo!! , sorry if I forgot the sarcasm font. Of course they went straight into the counter. No one knows that there's a glut of something in the market until they call around and ask, but to be offered less than face was pretty insulting. I thought there were going to be some better stories like being offered face for large size gold certificates because they are illegal to own or something outrageous. Of course I like clembo's approach and I got a chance to use it this past year when I found all the Washington Dollars with missing edge inscriptions. Some dealers were down right insulting (but now I know quite a few dealers I will forever avoid). I keep meaning to stop by these shops asking how much they are BUYING scrap silver for, then turn around and ask to buy some to see what they say. Maybe if I find one that feels guilty, I'll get a good deal on scrap silver.
There are exceptions. Every year or two we get several hundred pounds of mutilated coins. Banks won't take mutilated (knowlingly) and most of them are damages to the point that they won't fit into a roll. We buy these large groups at under face. Nick
Back about 24 years ago I was in need of a few bucks. So i thought id see what i could get for some of my coins. I went to a big name pawn shop it the city and the guy there offered me 100 bucks for about 250 dollars face value in silver coins alot of morgans and piece dollars in MS grade. A few days after that I brought them to a friends father that was interested. He though I was just a dum kid, Offeres me $300. LOL I closed the book and said, Sorry I couldnt sell these for that. Mind you this was 24 years ago. I new then this part of my collection was worth about a 1,000 then. He knew it to. Sneaky davil told me a few year ago. He thought id fall for the low ball and wishs I did. lol then turns and says, Hey you still have thos. I reply Yup. His following question. DO you want to sell then now. I will give you $3,000.00 cash. lol I said sorry yet again. He said after that. Well i guess ill never get your 1894 Morgan eh? lol
Man, I can see them being hard to move, but that is just plain out: OUCH. Can't recall the lowest I've been offered, always been offered fair prices for my coins when I sell, and I try to do the same when I buy and sell too. Phoenix
