I am 74 years old and dug out my old coin collection when I was a teenager. Yeah we road horses to school too. lol I decided to start collecting again and a friend of mine, yes I do have a friend or two, has a ton of wheat pennies she is starting to let me go through. I have the new 2021 Red & Blue Books. I want to be fair with her but don't want to overpay for the ones I want to keep or sell for her either. Dealers here in St. Louis pay 2 cents apiece for bulk amounts of Wheaties. THAT isn't going to happen. So do I offer her Blue Book depending on grade or how would you handle this dealing with a friend. I'm new to the Forum and have been hitting up YouTube nightly on error varieties, etc. I am looking forward for the various advice. Jhnby1017 here.
Pull out the ones you want and pay her what you think is a fair price. Pull anything else that you think might have value ie. S mints, pre 1940 that are in relatively good shape. Pull out her birth year. 2 cents on everything else is a GIFT.
Welcome to Coin Talk. Good advice was given to you by @tibor. The Blue Book is only a guide and usually doesn't reflect current buy prices. When you find something you'd like to buy, check the sold prices on eBay and base your offer on a percentage of that. I would probably offer about 75% but it's your call. Depending on the grade I would seriously think about buying any coin minted prior to 1925 and higher grade coins after that date. Just my opinion. Happy hunting.
Welcome! The advice above is good. My suggestion is to spend some time teaching yourself to grade those cents. It is fun to learn. Photograde is great. https://www.pcgs.com/photograde/#/lincoln/grades I would not put much trust in YouTube for learning about varieties. I find they exaggerate. Check out Variety Vista https://www.ngccoin.com/variety-plu...-cents-wheat-reverse-1909-1958/820453/?page=1 Speaking as a lover and collector of pennies living near St. Louis I would probably buy your bulk pennies for more than a dealer would pay but less than what eBay would charge.
I have no idea what you are trying to do for her, are you just going through it for better dates/coins you need, or are you trying to liquidate her pile of wheaties? and would like to keep some, sell others, and what's left of the commons,,,, sell? To get maximum value for them when you go to sell them, they have to be sorted. If it's not sorted, the LCS will call everything .02 each. I've made a chart but this isn't XL friendly for copy/paste from the cells so I'll try to format the info by hand. This is based on "minimum value" common coins in common circulated condition. Some places are on the low side of the minimum values, some are towards the maximum. I've never found one that pays top cents though! LOL. the shops will sell them for more than these minimum values, like as a roll of 1916-1919 for $6.00, but they will take that roll, remove a dozen coins,, throw in a couple better dates from the teens and sell it for $10 or more, there's guys selling rolls like this on ebay for $15-$25 a roll. These are the only dates worth minimum value by decade, all other dates in the Teens-Twenties-Thirties are valued higher. 40s and 50s are all minimum except these few noted circumstances. Teens-12 to 20 Cents 1916 1917 1918 1919 Twenties- 8 to 15 Cents 1920 1924 1925 1926 1927 1928 1929 Thirties- 4 to 7 Cents 1930 1934 1934-D 1935 1935-D 1935-S 1936 1936-D 1936-S 1937 1937-D 1937-D 1938 1938-D 1938-S 1939 for 40s and 50s, it's easier to tell you what's worth more than minimum (30s likely also should have been done this way) Forties and Fifties- 2 Cents 1943 .05 1943-D .10 1943-S .15 "S" Mints .03 AU 40s+50s .05 Now, if left in a bulk pile, everything is going to be .02 each and the LCS will sort them for the better dates, and set up how they want to resell them with much harder work involved which is why "everything .02". What I do is sort and roll them up in this manner to maximize value for the common dates, I do the sorting for the coin shop, he's just going to verify it is what I said it is. I set aside anything that is worth more than minimum value to keep or sell separately. I could stack rolls and sell them on ebay for top dollar, but I'd rather just dump for better than .02 each and not do the hard work of finding customers and shipping, let him do that part and resell and make that money, and I walk with my cash in hand without losing to a flat rate ".02 cents each". As far as paying your friend for what you want, same rules apply, a dealer/LCS is somewhere in this range for the commons, and better dates are worth what they are worth.
Pull out what you want or need. Show them to her and be fair in your pricing of them. You could even take them to a local coin shop and ask how much you can get for them, then give her that amount. As long as you realize that all coin books which list prices are nothing but a guide you'll both be fine. Welcome to CT.
If you really want to be fair, ask neighbor if you could take a picture of the "lot" to post here on our very conservative site for bids. Offer to sell the lot complete at a half cent under high bid, or pay that price. !5% under "advanced" eBay high sold price, generally is a fair market price, which I use, often losing a sale off of that eBay site. JMHO
All of the above sounds like reasonable approach. I would tend to think your friend is we willing to let you cherrypick the best of s ton of pennies. I think that should be worth something since yo out are friends. Treat her like you would like to be treated. Just my 2¢ worth.
I am overwhelmed by the wealth of knowledge shared here. You are all very kind in your responses. I believe I have a handle on this now. Thanks again.