What dumb things have you done with/to your coins? (Or someone else's?)

Around the mid 80's my grandmother let me go through her big jar of coins and pick out the coins that were different and old. Well I picked out about 20 Mercurys and a bunch of wheaties. I can only imagine how many silver Rosies and Washington quarters I let go because they looked like every other dime and quarter. At least I got the Mercs though.

 

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Thats too bad. The silver proof state quarters for 1999 have appreciated nicely in value. Same for 2001.

 

When I was a kid I filled my albums but didn't know what I was doing. Wishing I knew then what I know now.

 

I could read these kind of stories for hours! Very entertaining for us but
Not for you

 

When I was in high school I spent several afternoons rubbing my parent's small but old silver coin collection with tooth paste and a tooth brush. After I was satisfied with the result I just put them back without telling my parents. I guess I just liked to clean stuff.......

My parents were not serious collectors. Maybe this is why they had never asked "who did this".

 

First thing... It's a similar story to several others. I has a box of coins I kept as a kid. Anything that was different from the usual cents, nickles, dimes & quarters. Spent them all when I was a teenager. I don't think there was anything too special in there, but I still wish I had them.

Second thing... Last year I went to an auction that was selling a lot of really nice Morgan's & gold coins. I didn't know anything about them, and didn't want to spend the money on something I didn't know about. Smart right? So about 3 months later, they had another auction with a similar amount of nice Morgan's. All were labeled MS65PL. Not professionally slabbed, but still in plastic holders. And the auction house has a certified appraiser label on their website, which seemed to mean something. I did my research this time. Got a red book & blue book. Looked at grade pictures from PCGS, NGC & on Ebay, and the grades seem solid to me. Basically, I learned just enough to get me in trouble. So I went to the auction & bought close to 30 of them. Planned on selling most to make my money back with the hopes of having a few left over for my collection. Of course I've learned more since then. All of them turned out to be common dates, and aren't hard to find in high grades. I still got them for a good price, but haven't had much luck reselling them. The fact that they're not slabbed really isn't helping, but I'm not going to fork out the extra $ at this point to do that. So it turned out to be a bad decision and they sit in my safe. I'm happy to have them in the collection, but would rather have the money back to buy more of a variety.

 

What you end up paying for them if you dont mind me askin?

 

i am glad this thread got bumped back up. the note i spent on a video game was not a silver cert.

it was a 192? Hawaii fed reserve note! the thing that gets me is, this was before i collected. i took all the coins that were given to me to a dealer to sell if they were worth more then face. the dealer told me everything i have is just worth face value. i even offered whatever i had to him for face.. why didn't he buy it? that Hawaii note is definitely worth more then face. i also had a bunch of silver franklins, i am glad i held onto them! i had no clue they were silver.

i could sorta see him not wanting the notes i had, if he had a large inventory of the same things. but for face, he couldn't loose. the silver, just gets me, he would have lost money letting me walk out the door. he could of at least told me they were worth more then face, and he just didn't want them.

 

I paid between $55 & $65 per coin, and got:

6 1880-S
6 1882-S
6 1884-O
8 1885

And when I was buying them, the lots were all mixed up in groups of 2 or 4 with different dates, and I didn't realize there were only 4 dates available. If I did, I would have realized that having so many of any single date would mean the coin was more common. Live and learn!

 

Sold coins...

 

When I was little my mom was in desperate need of money, so she confided in our minister. He was an avid coin collector. He offered to buy my mom's coin collection. I was too little to know what she had. A few years later she found out the minister paid about a tenth what it was worth.

 

When I was 13 I raided one of my dads safes filled with coins.
Took about 10 Morgans, 10 halves, 10 quarters, 50 dimes and 10 nickels.

Got market price but regretted it. A year later my dad gave me half his collection. Never sold any if it and grew my collection 10 fold.
I guess guilt drove me never to sell it and thank god I didn't.

 

i am not religious, so i don't really know, but aint that a real bad thing for that kinda person? lying and taking a financial advantage of someone in need. especially in there own congregation! i guess it wouldn't be lying if she knew he was only paying a tenth of their value.

 

That is definitely bad in any religion. The minister/spiritual leader is supposed to be your close friend and someone you can go to for help.

On the note of dumb things I've done with coins, I dropped a FE which resulted in a nice rim bend of some sort. Not exactly a rim dent, but a spread out, slight gradient in the rim. Also gave a nice small nick on a cheap morgan. Really nothing expensive or stupid to any sort. My worst buy was my very first coin purchase, it was probably sometime early this year (January/February). It was when I first got into coin collecting, I bought an MS63 1888-P Morgan (ANACS) for $40. I guess it isn't exactly a total loss but it still reigns as my worst purchase to this day.

 

But of what "Value"

PCGS price guide?
Magazine Prices?
Grey Sheet?
Prices a Coin Dealer offers?
Prices a Pawn Shop offers?

And how did she know a few years later what the coins were and their grades before TPGers?

There are always 2 sides to the story.
If the minister did take advantage that would be bad but I'm betting it was fair.

 

EXACTLY!
Who set the value of the coin, and was it worth that years later, and not at the time of the sale.
Took the words right out of my mouth