I have a question to ask members who use Teletrade. Do you prefer selling on TT rather than ebay? If the answer is yes, could you elaborate? If the answer is no, please elaborate? If you want to PM your answer that's totally understandable as I can appreciate honesty and some of you are easily identified. please feel free to PM me thanks
I have not sold on TT, but I do buy regularly on both. Teletrade is convenient because I know exactly what to expect - you are always dealing with the same company. The company is good, service is good, shipping is fast. The pictures leave something to be desired, but once you learn to interpret their images, you know what to expect. Ebay is much more of a gamble - which gives it some excitement, but you never know what to expect. You're always dealing with a different seller, the pictures are highly inconsistent, and the service is always different. As for the price you'll get for your items - you'll probably get about the same price, and pay about the same fees in either place. This is all my perspective as a buyer, take it how you will.
I have sold on Teletrade. It wasn't much different than eBay except it took forever for my consignment to come up for auction, then it took about 3 weeks to get my money. BUT Teletrade is LEGIT all the time. Whereas eBay....well, you just never know.
I use Teletrade to buy coins and I have never sold them on Teletrade but maybe someday I will use them.
In paring down my collection, I have sold on Teletrade and am generally happy with them. I believe their sellers' fees are lower than Heritage and I have found them very responsive when I have had questions or issues. For coins in the price range between $100 and $2000, they seem like a very good option to me. For coins worth more, I might think about their sister company, Bowers and Merena, or Heritage. My experience has been that they list the coins in auction fairly promptly and I have been paid within a month or so of the auction. Two things to keep in mind: 1. The photos are uneven in quality, particularly with respect to how accurate they are. Unlike Heritage, there is no pricepoint where they start taking better, larger photos (at least not in my experience). 2. You are allowed to bid on your own coin before the auction begins but there is a bit of a science (or maybe art) to this. Set your bid too high, and no one else will bid on it and you are stuck with a buyback fee. Set your bid too low, and you may get a single bid above yours and you may feel you let the coin go for too little. I suppose this is no different than with Heritage or other places where you are allowed to set a reserve, but it is an interesting part of the selling process. I have no experience selling on Ebay and so cannot give you any points of comparison. As Doug and others have said on here, it is good to sell a few of your coins once in awhile. You learn a lot more about a coin when you sell it than when you buy it. Good luck.
As Doug and others have said on here, it is good to sell a few of your coins once in awhile. You learn a lot more about a coin when you sell it than when you buy it. Good luck.[/QUOTE] VERY well said!
I overlooked this thread, very good answers. I still haven't made up my mind about selling or not. That said at least now I have more to add to the thinking process, great!!
See this thread by Mark Feld. Personally I think it teaches you to be more aware of the costing aspect of collecting. I have sold one coin back to the same dealer - big lesson to make sure you understand problem coins and how they price them. I know from selling my moderns to the dealer how they handled those, but raw coins are different. I think if I ever sell those I will consign them to a dealer or use something like ebay.
Thanks for the pointer to that thread. I guess I'm like that one guy in that thread: I enjoy collecting and don't really want to sell anything that I have. I'm not really in it for the money.
Me too - I sold my modern commemoratives, but most of that was bullion anyway. Other than that I sold 2 coins - one purely for profit and the other cause it did not fit my collection anymore. I see their point, but don't really adhere to it.
