Bag of dollars

I have an unopened bag of 1,000 silver dollars that was bagged by a dealer in 1966. I have to assume that it was cherry picked at that time, but could I have some guesses as to whether it might be worth more unopened or as individual coins?
Thanx,
Harry

 

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Welcome to CoinTalk :thumb: ok 1st guess LOL $1000 x the price of silver Have to say that must be one big bag, and even if they were CP'd then who knows what dates you have in it or what condition they are in

De Orc :thumb:

 

Hi Harry, and to CoinTalk.

With a melt value of over $8,000 at current prices, you may have trouble finding someone willing to gamble that the bag really contains 1,000 dollar coins, let alone that there are key dates, MS65+, exceptional VAMs or the kind of tarnish that some folks call attractive "toning" in it.

My belief is that you would do better to open the bag, see what you have, take the good stuff to a major show and shop it around to the dealers. Then dump the commons to a dealer for around melt, or on EBay for a little more if you have lots of time on your hands that you don't value very highly..

 

Roy beat me to it, but my first reaction would be to open the bag to make sure it actually contains silver dollars. But I can't see any circumstance where the bag is worth more unopened. Something relatively cheap in 1966 may be relatively dear now. I'd open it and start to sort out the contents and try to place an estimated value on each coin.

 

just open the bag already...

Pour them on the bed, jump on top and make silver dollar angels

 

First Welcome to the forum.

If you dont collect coins yourself. I say list it on ebay unopened. The fact that its unopen is its best selling point. If you opened it, that would be gone. As for "perhaps" a way to find out if theres actaully 1000 silver dollars in there would be to try and get it weighed. Add the silver weight to the weight of the bag. I would have to beleive that there is little chance of any higher grade dollars in there or let alone any key dates at all. By the sounds of it ( being a large amout of slver coins just put together in a bag) that it would be just scrap coins kept for there silver contant. Silver is still a good metal to have in your porfolio. If your grandfather bought them in the 60's at the price or around the price silver was selling for as an investment, he/you, would be looking at 1000 oz of silver at 13 or 14 bucks an oz today. Thats mostlikely a gain in value from 1966 to 2006 of 600 or 700% in market value. Silver cost about $1.20ish an OZ in the mid 1960's. Its been around 13+ an OZ for the past year. Now knowing all this, even if the bag only has ( LIKE I BELIEVE IT TO HAVE ) Scrap silver coins, saved for there silver content alone. It still a good resale rate considering what it could or could not have in it. Also I should note it and has always been a practice to hoard beat up none collectable by standerds coins for te pure metal content.

Natesdad

EDIT TO ADD THIS >This is just all IMO of course.
Also. the amount of time it would take to sell all those 1 coin at a time could take a VERY VERY long time. ( Say ) If you listed them on ebay 1 coin at a time, you should expect to spend the next few years dealing with to many people and maybe lossing some of the actaul value. Good luck with wat ever you do. Id be interested in knowing what you end up doing with them.

 

Baldeagle,

IMHO, if I had a $1,000 bag of Silver Dollars that I knew without question was bagged in 1966, then I would have to open it and look for BU Certifiable coins, Key Dates, Semi-Key Dates and VAMs. You are talking about 40 years that the Silver Dollars have been stored away and since then, quite a few Morgan Dollars (depending on the Date and Mintmark) have significantly increased in value and some may be even considered Key or Semi-Key Dates now but were not back then.

Once you have pulled everything out of the bag that is either worth keeping for yourself, having Certified for resell or have a significant value in raw for resell, then you could sell the remaining coins in the bag or sell them in mixed Dated/Mintmark rolls by grades (i.e. 1878 to 1900 F-VF, 1878-1904 g-f, etc.) on eBay and make a fairly nice profit. You could then decide what to do with the rest of the coins that you plan to sell.


Frank

 

My advice would be to open the bag an examine the coins in there. With the amount of uncirculated Morgan dollars found in bank vaults in the 1960s, there's a real possibility that it could be a bag of uncirculated dollars. Even if they are all lower quality uncirculated pieces and common dates, you will still get much more than silver melt for uncirculated Morgans. Some dealers are paying as much as $26.00 each for uncleaned, common date uncirculated Morgans.

If you havethe time, you could always purchase a Red Book for coin pricing and examine the coins for any better date pieces. Never know what you may find.....

 

Do you want to enjoy exploring beautiful old silver dollars or look at a "bag"?

 

Heck, yeah, how do you know that the bag isn't full of slugs?

Also, I'd be interested in helping sort dates!!!!!!!

:smile:

 

Well you have a lot of opinions form some highly regarded members, but I have to throw my two cents in:

You send me the bag of coins and I will send you my 2005 D well circulated nickle I got in change today


Sorry I had to make an offer, you cant go anywhere but up now

 

Open that puppy up and go through them WE WILL never know what you have in there until you do.

Bruce "THE FRANK GROUP"

 

Baldeagle, when and how did you get the bag and how do you know it contains 1000 silver dollars? I don't ask this argumentatively. I'm asking because I'm really interested in knowing how this came about.

 

EDITED--No offers to buy/sell/trade

 

As stated earlier, you have to answer a question for yourself first: Are you a collector or an investor (or both)?

If you are a collector, then this is an easy answer -- open the bag! I know I would have had that bag torn open so fast all you would see would be threads.

If you are an investor you should assume that the dealer (even in 1966) would have taken out the rare mintage coins and most likely left common circulated coins. I'm sure with the increase in VAM prices you are bound to find some great coins, but all things equal, I think the bag would be worth around $15-20 per coin, on average. Therefore, in order to squeeze out a value above the 1000 common date circs you could sell the bags with the so-called "mystery" premium. While I probably would pass, it seems to me many so-called "mystery-lots" brings buyers willing to pay a premium in hopes of getting something special. I would guess you may be able to get a $2-3 premium per coin ($17-23) by selling like this.

Of course, how would you handle a situation where the coins are all culls? What if the buyer takes the bag, removes the dollars, and replaces with culls and demands a refund? How would you prove what was in the bag to begin with? Given the total momey involved, I have a feeling you could end up in a courtroom over this one (not an ebay arbitration service).

Weighing all options, I would easily open the bag if I were a collector, and would weigh heavily toward opening even if I was an investor. Get a good VAM book and go to town!

Good luck!

 

Welcome, glad to have you!

I doubt that I could resist opening the bag. Just the idea that it's been sealed for almost as long as I've been around would be too hard to pass up.

 

so, What have you found?
Huh? HUh? Huh?

Let us know!

 

What does 'VAM' mean?

Aidan.