My old (2002) issue of Krause lists this coin as follows: 2.5g, 0.900 silver, 0.0723 oz ASW Mintage: .560 (aka, 560,000) Estimated value; $20 / $75 / $550 / $1600 (F/XF/Unc/BU) I came across one of these in a melt bin at a local "We buy gold" place. I made an offer on coins that I picked from the bin, and am waiting to see if the offer is approved. I was told they need to run it by the store manager (or whatever actually happens before they try and get me to up my offer on Monday). EDITED TO ADD: Hopefully my offer will be accepted and I'll get the coin on Monday so that I can post pics. How much do you think this coin is legitimately worth in F to VF grade? Was Krause in the ballpark 10 years ago, and how has the value changed? The coin has no rim dings, holes, or suspicious wear spots & appears to be 100% legitimate.
An F/FV with good eye appeal is worth around $5, sometimes they sell for up to $10. These coins are totally overpriced by Krause, IMO. The only time I have seen them even come close is for choice UNC examples that were slabbed by one of the reputable companies. This is pretty much true for all Cuban coins from this time period, with the exception of the rarest dates/varieties.
Since the coin is still in possession of the "We Buy Gold" place, no. I was a bit suspicious of the Krause pricing, so I offered a little over melt for this one (as part of my total offer). I may have to ask about foreign coins at a few more of these stores - the quality of items I found was 100x better than I usually find going through a dealer junk bin. I'd say about 1/20 coins in their bin was silver, and I found about 40 US Philippines coins in an hour and a half of searching (including a 1909-S 1 Centavo in EF that I've been looking for).
Hopefully my offer will be accepted and I'll get the coin on Monday so that I can post pics. Have you had any luck buying coins from the PM dealers that are still popping up all over the place? In my experience, most of the guys running those have strictly limited numismatic knowledge (and I imagine that they get burned quite often, which makes me wince a bit less when I hear them fleece customers).
I figured "What's the harm in asking?" The guy at the counter first tried to brush me off, but when I mentioned that I was a collector & would make them an offer above melt price for anything worth saving, that got his attention. Turns out that this place had a 10 gallon bin in the back with coins that had built up over the last 2-5 years, and no one had ever taken a good look at them. If the offer is accepted, I'll go ahead and put some scans up of what I found. Otherwise, I just wasted an hour and a half giving the guy a free appraisal of what he has.
Was supposed to hear back from them about my offer on monday. When I checked in on tuesday I was told that the decision maker is still out on Christmas break and I should hear something by friday. In the meantime, I went to a local dealer and got some silver to ooh and aww over. I think the biggest surprise in the batch was an 1832 French 5 Franc at melt.
Krause certainly seems to think so, but most Cuban coins that I've seen locally (Texas) sell at melt. And the lesser issues tend to turn up in junk bins. Is there a stronger market for Cuban coins in Florida? Or do they command a premium somewhere else?
Location doesn't matter much for these. Only exceptional grade or being a rare date/variety will increase the value on these mostly high mintage and high survival coins.
So, the bullion dealer negotiated a bit, but accepted my 2nd offer. I went $80 for a good selection of silver (including the Cuban piece, an 1851-O trime and an 1877 dime among others) and a TON of copper and nickel coinage. Here's a preliminary scan of the silver, sorted from sterling down to 30% silver:
