Bit of a mini rant...

As I said before there is no coin shop in my town.

Somebody said that the Antique Mall sells coins..

So I go there and they have a bunch of coins, but their prices are god awful. $5 each for silver dimes, $13 for silver quarters.

I've been wanting to put together my Roosevelt from all BU coins, but the kind of prices eBay sellers and other online dealers want for silver BU dimes is ridiculous. Book Value on BU is about $3.45 each, but dealers want $4.50 on up.

I guess not having a coin store in my town puts a stunt on album collecting.

 

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I've seen the same thing in virtually every antique store I've visited. I think most of them want to apply the same buy/sell pricing they use on general merchandise to coins. Or, maybe people that shop antique stores don't know much about coins and are willing to pay 2x the going rate to take home a little piece of history.

The only two stores I've been to that I didn't see this happening in, was because they didn't have any coins...

 

Detecto, where do you hail from?

 

Antique store owners typcial don't know what they are selling. They just look at value from book or ebay and decide that their worse condition collection worth same as valued. Often when I tried to negotiate with them, they said they will lose cost of what they did bought them for. Really? I believe they did brought them in wholesale price and jack them up. I usually avoid antique stores. Post what you want in want page and I think you will get better deal from us.

 

When you visited the antique mall, did you inquire about the possibility of employment?

 

I used to sell stuff at the Antique mall here. The rent was quite high but because it was a tourist destination, you could ask for higher prices than in a regular store. And the surprising thing was you would get what you were asking.

If something wasn't selling in the shop, I'd mark the price higher, put it in the mall and it would sell within a week (during tourist season).

You might consider sharing a showcase with someone if you want to unload some of your stuff.

 

But.......but........Detecto doesn't have any "stuff".

 

Perhaps you could get an employee discount?

 

Illinois.

 

What part? There are shops in the Chicago area. If you're downstate or in the western part I don't know.

 

How far to the nearest coin shop?

 

80 miles round trip.

 

Perhaps you could plan a trip once a month or once every two months?

You could even give the dealer your wish list and he/she can notify you if something comes in.

 

His best bet is to pack up his car and drive down to LA or Hollywood and see about getting into show business. Because this isolated small town thing isn't working out for our resident rosie collector.

 

IDK - I have bought lower end silver coins at antique malls at prices that looked usurious until you factored in the current melt value of silver and realise that the fool seller must have used some price guide from the early 1990's or something. Yup, bought semi slick SLQ's for 4X instead of what was then should have been 20X.

 

Find a trading buddy or save up and go buy a couple months worth at a time

 

Here's an idea. Save up and go to a coin show. Much more you can do there. More variety and you don't have to go on a ton of trips when you go to purchase coins.

 

That is a great idea, especially if you can get to Chicago the next 3 years for the REALLY BIG ANNUAL COIN SHOW.

 

I went to my first coin show! Was great, also, do you have a local coin club, mine holds shows, and there meetings have auctions, tables to sell things, and to buy things

 

Why do you have such a problem with dealers making a profit?

By "book value" I take it you're relying on an annually published price guide?

If so, this is why I, and others here at CT, state those annual guides prices are useless as far as accuracy and reliability. Whatever prices are listed in those guides for silver coins, and even gold ones, can't be taken with any degree of certainty due to the daily fluctuation in the precious metals market.

The other thing you have to realize is most dealers, if not the majority of them, don't follow annual price guides for silver, or gold, coins. They usually follow the market for PMs and price their raw coins accordingly.

$4.50 for an uncirculated, and ungraded, Roosevelt dime is not really bad considering what the price could be if it were slabbed.

Ever hear of haggling? Negotiation? If it were me, I would make an offer to the dealer, "Would you take $3 for that?"

It's a starting point, and opening for haggling.