Found a collection from the 50s

So I've been married for almost 7 years and I've gotten to know some of my wife's extended family a little better in the last couple of years. One of her uncles found out I collected coins and mentioned he had a tiny collection. After much reminding, he finally brought it over to my house a couple months ago. One Peace dollar, a bunch of wheat pennies and not much else. After that his wife, my wife's aunt, told me that another aunt had a coin collection that she didn't know what to do with. Naturally I told her to let her know I'd be more than happy to check it out.

Time passes and we have that same aunt and uncle over for dinner on Friday. Again the aunt talks about her sister with the collection. That was all I could take. The next morning, I made my wife call her up and ask if I could look at her coins. We went to her house and she trusted us to take about half the collection home, so I could inpect it at my leisure. Like the other uncle's collection, I expected a bunch of wheaties, few silver dollars and maybe a stray $2 bill or something. My guard was down.

She explained that her late husband started a business in the early 1960s and moved into an old building downtown. Inside the building was a wall safe. The previous tenants couldn't be located, so they broke into the safe and discovered a coin collection. After more research without finding the collection's owner, her husband took the collection home. He liked it and began adding to it over the years. He got a brain tumor and died over 15 years ago. It's all been sitting in the bottom of her closet until now. She had no idea what it was worth or what to do with it. She didn't want to get ripped off, so it just stayed put.

So I lift the lid on this long, heavy box and see two very organized rows of dimes, quarters, halves and dollars. They are all in little envelopes and inside the envelopes, the coins have been slid into loose plastic sleeves. No PVC, no damage, thank God! I pulled out a few to see before we left and it was nothing special. Common date Merc dimes, a Peace dollar and some Franklin halves. On the drive home I told my wife if her aunt decided to sell, it would probably just be melt value she'd get for all these.

Get home and curiousity gets the best of me. I want to look at a few more and so does the wife. Same thing...common date stuff in VG-VF. Then I get to quarters and pull out a VG-F 1877-CC. I was like "WHAT!?!!? WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN HERE!?!?!!!" Then I noticed some Barber quarters and Standing Lib quarters. No key dates and not unc, but I was still blown away. Then I found a VG-F 1932-D quarter and a VG 1932-S quarter!!! At that point the dog thought something was wrong because I was making so much noise.

So I take a breath and start pulling out the first envelopes from the row marked halves. I was expecting maybe a couple Barbers and a few Walkers. No...not yet...wouldn't find those until I got past the 5 bust halves!!! Clean too. 1824, 1827, 1830, 1833, 1834. I was on full freak-out mode after that. So I take an even longer pause before I get to the small row of dollars. Any guesses? There were several XF-AU San Francisco mint Morgans and about 15 common Peace dollars, but the first envelope said 1871. It was beautiful...if not XF, very close...great color.

So we called the aunt back and told her she had more than just peanuts in her collection. Asked her what she wanted the result to be and she said she probably wanted to sell it all. I suggested I take the collection to a shop to see what they would pay for it and she agreed. In my city there are three main coin shops. One is owned by a guy in his late 80s that cares a lot more about stamps than coins...heard bad stories about him low-balling people. Second shop is odd. None of the coins have prices on them(you have to ask), most are kept in the "back room" and it's never busy. Third shop is great. Kid friendly, always busy and fair with their prices. Years ago I took a collection to each of those shops and the last one offered about 5-7% more to buy than the other guys. I told the aunt this and she said a buy offer from just the last store would be good enough. We stopped by her house again to get the rest of the collection to take to the shop. There was another box like the first with nickels and more dimes, but a disturbing lack of pennies(she doesn't know what happened to them, or if they were ever there in the first place). Then two books and a shoe box. The two long boxes were from the wall safe and everything else her husband had added later. At a glance I could see a 1921 Merc dime, about 12 proof sets from the 50s & 60s and some other odds and ends.

When we got to the shop, I explained the story and told them because I quit my job last month to return to college full-time to finish my degree, I wasn't going to be able to buy everything and they would probably get what I didn't...assuming the aunt still wanted to sell. 2-3 guys sorted it out for almost a couple hours. I watched them go and saw some other interesting things. An XF-AU 1855 half cent, VG 1806 half cent, the common 20 cent piece...1875-S I think, 1883 N/C nickel unc, 1857 flying eagle cent fine, etc. When the dust cleared, they offered a little over $2300 for everything. A bunch of the common date G-VG Roosevelt dimes, Washington quarters and Franklin halves they wanted at 11x face for the silver.

My wife and I decided it was too good an opportunity to pass up, so we told the aunt we were interested in buying her collection. I explained some of the coins she had and gave her a copy of the coin shop's semi-itemized buy offer. She liked the idea of keeping it in the family and she said we could have it for what the coin shop offered, minus $50 for our trouble. I told her it was certainly no trouble, but she wouldn't budge...that was all she wanted. So we wrote a check and that's it. Over the next day or so I'm going to scan and post some of the coins for you guys to see before they go to the safety deposit box. I'm curious if the shop missed anything. Two hours is awfully quick to look at that many coins. The 1830 bust half has me especially curious since the large letter variety is so valuable.

One last thing. The aunt said she would look through the stuff in her closet and basement again to see if she could locate the pennies and promised to give me a call if she found anything. I've got my fingers crossed. Hope you guys enjoyed the story. I'm going to try to pace myself and take my time sorting through and taking inventory of everything.

 

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Wow. That's a great story. I frequently hope I get to run into something like that.

I was a little bummed to read that a couple of hours of time was wasted by coin shop employees on a collection that they weren't going to get to purchase, but I suppose that's part of the game.

 

Exactly my thoughts. I hope the coin shop guys charged you for the assessment time or that you at least go back and pay them for their efforts - 10 man-hours @ $20/hr seems reasonable.

 

Don't worry. My wife and I have already discussed that. There was also a bunch of foriegn coins and currency that they valued around $30. Since I don't collect non-US, I'm going to go back and just give it to them with an extra $20 bill for their time.
I honestly guessed their assessment would be over $3k and that would have been out of our reach. Had that happened, I would've bought roughly half and let them buy the other half.
Besides, I go to that shop all the time and spend a gob of money there. While we were there, I spent $60 on a birth year set for my father-in-law's birthday. Last week it was $100 on some currency.

 

Great story. I think many of us would like this to happen to us someday. It sometimes pays to let the word out that you collect coins!

 

Nice story, thanks for sharing. And appreciate your honesty, some people would have ripped-off their Aunt who wouldn't have known the value of the coins.

 

Great story.

 

Love the story and I can't wait to see the posts down the road, of some of the ones you liked most out of the collection. :thumb: I bet you feel like a kid in a candy store with a blank check.

Ribbit

 

Or a toad in a swamp with a bunch of flies.

 

But why not me, why not me, why not me?
Great story but why not me?
The only thing any of my relatives ever gave me in the way of coins was those Missouri Mills. Any of my relatives would have told me to pay double for those coins.
Great find and nice relatives.

 

It's a fine line we walk between not telling anyone and missing out on stuff like this or telling too many people and possibly getting robbed. Wish we lived in a world where I wouldn't have to consider such things.

Yep. It's nice both ways. She got fair market value and I got a really neat collection with a great story behind it. I guess that's another reason we decided to make the (financial) stretch to buy the entire collection and keep it together. And if I find something major that the coin shop missed, you can bet I'm going to tell her about it. I meant what I told her about it staying in the family. I started my collection when I was 6 years old, and the only coins I've ever gotten rid of have been foriegn ones. My collection might not be as organized as some, but I love the memories that come back when I look at a particular coin I bought when I was a kid.

Dude, I felt the exact same way. Usually when I read the roll searching threads. I've searched hundreds of rolls without much to show for it. I always get jealous of the people that make the big finds. If this deal happened for me, just hang on and I'm sure something cool will come your way.

 

Awesome story! For me, people talk about these kind of collections. I never get to look at any though. Glad someone finally did AND it gets to stay in the family!

 

Carl:
You are ahead of me, the only thing my relatives ever gave me was heartburn.

 

Nice story. I'm sure we all would like a scenario like that to happen to each of us. Me, I'm one of the oldest in my family and the only one that collects coins. Not much chance of a windfall for me.

Bruce

 

Great Story!!

 

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This is the half that I mentioned earlier. I'll scan more later when I have time.

 

your photo skills aren't bad

Ruben

 

I would love to take credit, but I can't. My photo skills are pretty awful. I scanned those pics with a new HP 3-in-1 printer. :smile

 

hmm

Good scan. To me it looks like a photo. Scans usually wash out the luster more. But with a Bust it might work better.

Ruben

 

{drools on keyboard}
B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L half!