I live in a town of over a million people. San Antonio. There is a website names Craiglist, and you can set it so you only get adds from your town, so you can drive over and look at the merchandise. Well 2 weeks ago a fellow offered 11 indian head pennies,very early 1900's, with each date listed, for $11 for them all. I phoned the local coin shop, and he said he never paid more than 50cents for one, so I didn't go buy them? What would you have done? Last week, an ad was a bag of 60 foreign coins for $7. Good deal, or junk? Knowing little yet of American coins, I felt I should ignore foreign ones,but that seemed cheap.
If you are going to try to collect everything, you're going to end up completing nothing. The demand on you $ resources will be too much. Concentrate on one thing. Figure out first what you want to concentrate on. (Oops, hit the wrong button. Continuing...) If you decide in Indian Head Cents, stick with them until you are about 90% done and of the ones you are missing, you can only afford a couple a year. Then start a new collection. Let's say Buffalo Nickels. Or a high grade birthyear set.
How good (what grade) were the coins? If you don't know, then you can't know whether it was a good deal or not. And you HAVE to know how to grade. And you HAVE to have a reliable pricing guide. It's wasted money unless that's what you want to collect. Or you want to buy for resale; and if you do, you better REALLY know the coin market.
its tough to tell you a bag of foreign coins are cheap if you dont know what they are. They could be 60 coins from a country where inflation has skyrocketed. So they sell you 60 coins for $7 when the 60 coins may only be woth 1/10000th of a cent!!! or, they could not know what they are selling you, and you get 60 gold coins that have tarnished to look copper-ish .... more then likey, you will get 60 coins worth next to nothing... In my opinion, dont buy them unless you know exactly which coins they are, and have a good idea as to value!
Are you asking about the coins? or are you asking about using Craigslist? If you're asking about the coins then you have sufficient comments above to figure out your next move. However if you're asking about Craigslist, I think its the best thing since sliced bread. I buy and sell on it all day long. You can find anything from used coins to used CD/DVD rewinders.
In avg circulated pretty much any IHC is worth a dollar. I bet the local coin shop you talked to sells them for at least a dollar a piece.
Hi Tightwad, The only coinshop I am able to visit has big buckets full of various foreign coins that I can pick through on my own and they charge $8.50 per pound. So, unless that guy had some real winners in his bag of 60 coins, then it is not something I would consider buying. I am not actively collecting foreign coins, but I find some of them fascinating and take them home to check them out on the internet. I often find coins that are very old and have a great history connected to them. And, I pick out coins with horses depicted for my grand daughters special album. jeankay
With regards to the foreign coins - it could be a major loss and all be demonetized coins from the 60's and 70's. Or it could be full of great, earlier stuff. Buying bags of foreign coins is always a gamble. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. If I were you, I'd buy the bag and skip my usual morning cup of coffee for a week to make up the price.
when I think Craig's list I think 1985 proof set for $50.00 that being said there are good non coin buys there.
Well the bag could have been worth it in the fact you could have found some very interesting coins to put you onto a new type of collecting. Besides collecting Comemorative Candian silver dollars and ancients I have a small collectiopn of foreign coins depicting the animals of the world. so you never know what you mighta found but likely if your looking for value/profit your not gonna find it in that bag
