I bought a few 1-oz. gold eagles several years ago, thinking I wanted to start hoarding gold. Turns out that's not what I wanted to do after all, so I'd like to cash out and put that money to use elsewhere. Planning to take them to one of my local coin/gold dealers, but since I've never sold gold before, I don't have a good idea of what to expect price-wise. What constitutes a reasonable offer these days?
For a 1 ounce gold Eagle, right about spot, or a neglible amount over or under depending on the dealer. At this exact moment, I'd expect $1300 per Eagle.
If you have a bit of time, you may consider putting them on the sale section here or something similar. Trading with one of us collecting nuts should net you spot anyways. I would expect your local dealers will need something for overhead.
And depending on what you mean by "a few" selling them online to JMBullion or Provident might make sense. What I mean is they pay $10+ over spot at the moment. So if you have 5 and can make $50 extra dollars for something that would cost you $15-$20 to ship fully insured, that might make the most sense.
I'll make a handsome profit on these, so squeezing every last dollar out of the deal isn't necessary, especially if it involves the hassle of packing, shipping and insuring. I mainly didn't want to walk into a shop, have a dealer smell "rube" and try to lowball me. And since I don't know what a fair market offer looks like, he might just be successful.
I hear you, and I'm not averse to playing the market timing game. I've been known to do that with other investments. The thing is, I'm anxious to put the money into something else. And considering how little I paid for these (I've had them a long time) and how much I'll net, waiting for the next uptick really won't serve my purpose.
In that case, accept nothing less than $1300 per ounce. Gold is around $1308 now, so I'd expect all reasonable offers to be between $1300-$1320.