Entire Collections or Key Dates?

Do people ever buy entire collections of well-worn coins (G-4, VG-8, F-12, VF-20), or are they only interested in key dates?

 

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I would say it depends on the series.

 

Large cents, Indian head cents, Mercury dimes.

 

People and dealers buy complete collections all the time. However, the price will mostly be determined by the key dates with the rest "along for the ride".

 

Do they pay you what the collection is worth?

 

That depends what you mean by "worth." If you mean retail...then no.

 

No, wholesale (Whitman Blue Book).

 

Well, obviously not. Anyone buying a full set is looking for either a bargain or to resell it. You can expect a dealer to offer about half of the retail value.

 

Those books really aren't that useful. The truth is, they will probably offer you around 50% of their retail estimate. Some dealers a little more, some a little less. But, those annual Whitman publications aren't very useful when it comes to current prices. Most dealers will use something like the greysheet.

 

I wouldn't expect to get retail for my collection, but I would like to get the full wholesale (Whitman Blue Book) price. I'm not looking to sell my collections, but I am always curious what they are worth.

 

Yeah, I know the Whitman books aren't official. I have noticed the Blue Book on average values coins at about 46% of the Red Book prices for my coin collection.

 

Don't go by either the redbook or bluebook for prices. Look at realized auctions for coins, and on ebay you can usually find entire series that have been sold, but don't expect to get that from a dealer though.

 

I thought auctions were for very expensive coins. I have well-worn large cents, Indian head cents, and Mercury dimes.

 

For lower grade coins, eBay will give you a ball park idea. If the Mercury Dimes are common dates and worn...then they are probably only worth melt in which case the dealer will have a standard percentage of melt he pays.

 

Some buy sets to upgrade the set they are working on. Pick out the good ones and sell the rest.

 

My Mercury dime collection and Indian head cent collection are full. The cents are mostly G-4 to F-12. The dimes are better than that, though only one of them is uncirculated. I'm just wondering if there are people out there who buy full collections at the full wholesale price of the individual coins in the collection. I'm not looking to sell; I'm just wondering what my collections are worth.

 

I don't want to sell. I'm just trying to figure out what people are willing to pay for full collections of worn coins.

 

It depends on the dealer...some might. But, like I said they almost certainly won't use the Blue Book. They will use the grey sheet or something like it.

 

not to shamelessly self-promote, but I deal with that very subject on Episode 43 of The Coin Show (available on the player to the right).

Prices don't stay the same for very long, centsdimes. Therefore any book with prices is not very likely to be accurate. It would be nice to have a single place to look up the value of something but the truth is that the value of anything is not established until an actual sale takes place.

 

So would many, many others. The truth is that the prices in Bluebook are too old to be accurate.