today at the bank, i was given the opportunity to purchase a small bunch of foreign currency from a customer. included in the lot was: 1 - 1963 canadian dollar 6 - pre-1967 canadian quarters 3 - pre 1967 canadian dimes 1 - 1918 us-minted filipinas one centavo 1 - 1954 canada $1 bill 1 - 1954 canada $2 bill and a bunch of other random coin from canada and mexico i figured up the melt value of the silver to about $50, and the lot holds about $15 face value altogether. i had considered offering $20 for the lot. my question is, to someone that sees no value in the old coin, is $20 too high an offer? too low? i have doubts that the seller has any knowledge of the value, and he also has no desire to keep any of the coin. i bought two silver canadian quarters and 7 non-silver ikes off the same guy yesterday for $8, and he came back today with the rest of his "old junk". i don't want to insult the guy, but i doubt that any offer above face value will be refused. thoughts?
Don't want to insult the guy, and yet you are thinking of offering $20 on $65+ worth of stuff? C'mon man.
Give him the melt value on the silver and take the rest of the coins off his hands. That would be fair i think, considering he doesn't even really want them.
@numismat- well, this is why i'm asking. i see a lot of people offering half of melt value to sellers trying to unload old coin (and this is when the seller knows his/her product). i'm still pretty new to collecting, and have never made a purchase outside of ebay. take it easy on the new guy. if the consensus is that i should offer 100% of melt value, then i'll do that. but i still feel that that's a bit high, considering i don't need any of these coins, and the seller just wants to get rid of them. the only two i'm interested in are the canada dollar ($18 melt) and the filipinas centavo.
update: my seller was a bit more informed than he originally let on after i inormed him the value of the silver to be $50 and that i had all of $30 cash on me, he said his coin dealer (from 90 minutes away) normally pays him 70% of melt value for silver. so i offered him the same, $35 for the silver, and an extra $5 for the rest. no 90 minute drive to his dealer required. sold for $40.
Silver should go back up and if it does, you'll be up a few bucks. The rest? Sell it on Amazon or eBay.
before he offered the 70% figure, i said the dealers i knew of usually offered in the 40-50% range for silver. i've had the coins since yesterday, and i figured the silver value myself at yesterday's silver prices. i didn't want to pay more than $30 for the lot, but i knew anything less than $50 was at least a break-even for myself. i probably could have haggled the price down to $30 but other posters to this thread gave me the impression that $30 was a lowball. oh well, i have some new silver for my collection and a few other interesting pieces as well. to add: in rural downstate illinois, the collector's market is a bit dry. i don't know if that would push prices up or down.
My local dealer here in Brooklyn buys silver at $1 per ounce below current melt. He goes the very high volume and low profit margin route, but the high repeat customer rate means he always makes good money at the refinery. I usually sell my junk and bullion silver to him and purchase any better foreign coins for around 75% market value (book value is useless for most foreign coins). In general, if buying a bulk lot that has collectible value a fair offer is no less than half of what you think you can sell it for. If buying just a few high end coins, consider around 75% as there is much less time/work and higher profit involved than with a bulk lot of cheaper stuff. Bullion and legal tender are a different story. In this case it's basically buying money, so anything below 100% value is already a good deal and no real work is necessary.
