I have lost money on every coin i have ever purchased.

well, first of all why are my comments nonsense? anything, whether it is coins or anything else, is only worth as much as people are willing to pay for it. that is not nonsense. i live in a very small city in michigan. there are no coin shops or coin shows or anything like that near where i live. i am not rich, i don't drive or travel and i don't have many options for selling coins.

 

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how does ownership of any coin raise the grade of the coin by 2 grades? that is impossible.

 

Maybe CT is your best selling option. The fee is reasonable, your home security is not compromised, and everything's done by mail. I am relatively new here myself, and I feel like I've had excellent results in selling U.S. and foreign coins and even books, plus compliments from my buyers. To see the wording, layout, and images of some of my ads, visit the Sales thread; I post an ad almost every day.

But selling's only half the problem, we'd have to see your buying too. The most "recreational" money is usually made by buying large disorganized hodge-podge lots, then reselling them off piece by piece. This requires practice, however. Plus I avoid proof and mint sets, and overpriced bullion concoctions produced by our Mint, and others.

Finally, a small single coin may be SAFELY mailed for 46 cents if you know how, and if the time comes, I'll show you how. But you have to show us your present technique so we can improve it.

 

reply to dukes comments. the collectors make the coin market what it is, not me. i never said that i could change the market. and i never said that i like coins. there is a lot of strawman comments on this site.

 

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To me, this is your problem. If you want to be successful at any business venture, you have to have passion for what you do and for your product. Indifference towards your product and more importantly, a lack of understanding of your customer base will always lead to poor business decisions. Your attitude strikes me as if you could walk away at any time and I would highly advise such before this gets too carried away.

 

There are some that can buy and sell and make a profit but iam not one of them.
I collect coins because i love the hobby its self.
My coins would have little or no value to most on this form but i have little in them and in the long run i feel that empty hole in a coin book same as they.
i have in 15 years bought about 60 mint sets from the mint and on ebay.
Selling coins is an art same as any job you will hold.
There is a way to do it but its not for everyone.
Sometimes i think if all the water in the world dried up and i owned a lake filled with it id never make a decent profit.
Try to enjoy the hobby for what it is learn to adjust to the amount you can put into it and be happy with what you have.
But never give up the dream of owening something better than what you have.
That to me is what makes the hobby fun.
If you started driveing a corvette as your first car then in most cases it was given to you.
Same with coins start out with what you can afford and work harder to own something better.
When and if i can add better coins to the ones i have i feel ill still love the ones i have now as i worked hard just to fill the books i have and the advice ive gotton from people on this site is priceless.
Good luck.

 

if you dont have very strong access to get coins or sell them, why are you trying to make money doing it? you have to have access to quality coins, and you have to have multiple outlets to sell them.

 

Especially the women. Coin collecting really brings them in!

 

I think we should be ready to walk away if need by any time. I try not to get caught up in the need to own things. I plan on selling everything before I die. There are certain coins that I am fond of, but I think I'll sell them in 5 years or so, and let someone else enjoy them. I like to make up collections, but i like to get money for selling things too. I will have a hard time parting with some of them, but I'll be retired and I may need the money to live on, so it's food or coins.

 

Coins.

 

There are some coins I won't part with for a bowl of soup. But if it was a really good bowl of soup, maybe...

 

Oh how the scales have fallen from my eyes......

We tend to think the stuff we have is the bestest.........

 

This isn't 1990. It doesn't matter how small your town is, we all have access to buy and sell coins in a way that was not available 20 years ago.

On the buy side the best/easiest source of coins is the US Mint. You pay no sales tax and no matter how much you buy shipping is $5. You have easy access to weekly sales reports to track current sales, as well as easy access to historical mintage tables to give you an idea of relative rarity.

Also on the buy side you have ebay. Of course for a well-marketed coin it is going to be difficult to make money because of the fees and shipping costs. But there are deals to be had on coins with blurry pictures and/or bad descriptions.

On the sell side there is ebay again. Yes they charge a fairly substantial fee, but it is worth it for access to an entire nation of consumers. And there is also this forum. It is a much smaller group of people, but if you take your expected ebay price and discount most of the ebay fee there is a good chance you could find a buyer here.

I haven't been doing this long, but I have had a couple of wins. I doubled my money on some 2012 S Hawaii quarter rolls. Last Friday I bought a box of 20 2012 W Burnished Silver Eagles PCGS MS69 for $999 shipped within hours of the individual coin selling out. I haven't sold any, but I have seen them either disappear from some websites or have seen the individual prices increase from $55 to $70 so I think I will be in good shape on those.

I also bought a set of 2012 Gold Eagle proofs. Those have held their value despite the price of gold dropping since they sold out. Admittedly I would lose money if I had to sell them now, but I bought them with the intention of holding them for 5 to 10 years or longer.

 

The coins you have posted pictures of are junk bin coins. A dealer is going to put them in their junk bin and sell for $10. So the dealer is going to make $9 off each coin, but the dealer has rent to cover, employees to pay, and a profit to make. In general, the more the coins are worth, the larger a percentage of the value you will get. On a $10 coin the dealer will pay you $1, so you get 10% of the value because the dealer is only going to make $9, but on a $500 coin you may get 80% of the value because it still leave $100 for the dealer.

Keep in mind the dealer is also doing all the work. If you want to do the work, then put it up on ebay and you may get $5 per coin. However, you will have to take the time to take good photos, list the coins, package and ship the coins, and dealer with returns. This all takes time which is why dealers pay less, their time is worth money.

As far as selling to collectors go, the coins you have posted are of very little interest to collectors. In many cases your coins are dateless, beat up, or otherwise very low quality. Quality is king when it comes to selling coins, it makes coins sell for higher values and sell quicker. If you think you could have done better on ebay, then you should have tried to sell them yourself. But, if you search completed auction listings of similar coins you would know your coins are not worth $10-$20, you will find them selling in the $5 range:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1803-DRAPED-BUST-LARGE-CENT-EARLY-TYPE-/390558433102?pt=Coins_US_Individual&hash=item5aef18bf4e
http://www.ebay.com/itm/US-Large-Cent-Draped-Bust-1796-to-1807-/181097816756?pt=Coins_US_Individual&hash=item2a2a4562b4
http://www.ebay.com/itm/1803-DRAPED-BUST-LARGE-CENT-SMALL-DATE-210-YEARS-OLD-/350710854061?pt=Coins_US_Individual&hash=item51a7fef1ad
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Draped-Bust-Large-Cent-No-Date-/321076377082?pt=Coins_US_Individual&hash=item4ac1a4b5fa
http://www.ebay.com/itm/1803-DRAPED-BUST-Large-Cent-/150998977194?pt=Coins_US_Individual&hash=item23283d8aaa
http://www.ebay.com/itm/1807-Draped-Bust-Large-Cent-Filler-/121069562924?pt=Coins_US_Individual&hash=item1c304eec2c

Now onto the positive side. If this is something you are interested in doing it can be done. Ebay is a wonderful place to buy undervalued coins which can be sold for a profit, with one large caveat. You have to have knowledge, specialized to the area of the market you are trying to deal in. For large cents, this will require you to spend a couple hundred bucks on reference material and a lot of time studying the series. Then, once you have that knowledge, you will have to spend a couple hours a week looking at coins on ebay to find the undervalued coins, of which only a fraction of them you will buy because other knowledgeable people will also find them and drive the price up.

From personal experience, and this is the area I collect, I look through roughly 4,000 to 5,000 large cents each week and usually find 10 coins of interest. Of those coins, I am usually only successful at buying 2-3 of them which I can sell for a profit. Here are some real world examples:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/321065349359?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649 - just sold in Baltimore to a dealer for $100 who will turn it around and still make a profit.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/200903916650?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1438.l2649 - found and bid on, but got outbid by a friend. This is the kind of specialized knowledge you need, Do you know why this coin sold for close to $500?
http://images.goldbergauctions.com/php/lot_auc.php?site=1&sale=72&lot=567 - I just sold this at auction, picked it up on ebay for around $30 a couple months ago. Again, this is the type of knowledge that will pay off.

It can be done, and it can be done on the budget you have, but only if you are willing to put in the time to gain the knowledge and search for the coins. You can't just randomly buy things and expect to turn them around for a profit, you need an edge over other people that adds value.

 

LostinSweden hit it right on the head. If you don't care about coins, you are never going to understand what makes them valuable and desirable to others, so you won't be able to make any money. You wouldn't take a guy who hates driving and make him a car salesman either. You need to really understand the product, not just as an abstract intellectual problem but viscerally. Personally I could make money selling coins, because I get it. I know what appeals to others because it appeals to me. I'm a collector though, so most of what I buy I keep instead of sell, but the capacity is there. And I don't know who told you they were a good investment. Anyone on here will tell you that's not the case. We collect coins because we love the history, not because we are wealthy. Some of us might be, but certainly not all. We are people who are passionate about our hobby, just like anyone else is about theirs, whether it be model trains, antiquing or golf.

 

I see coins as a kind of antiquing. They are small and easily stored, which is a plus. It's fun for me to find a coin in the junk bin that I know is worth much more. I got a 1775 English half penny in a foreign coin bin. It had a hole in it, but for 12 and a half cents, how could I go wrong! Just like antiques you won't make any money until you sell them, but that's part of the process too. I found a Charles Hunt print and tried to sell it for the three hundred I thought it was worth and eventually ended up selling it for $100. That was 2 and 1/2 of the price I got it for, so after thinking about it for a while I am happy about it.

Any trade where you don't lose your shirt is good. There's the price you think things are worth and the price they will actually sell for. Fortunately with coins you will get a feel for what things are worth and then a realistic idea of what things go for eventually. The Red Books and Grey sheets are a good thing to check out before buying, and the blue book before selling. And don't beat yourself up over things that are sold. Just chalk it up to market research.

 

lol Yea, thats where I just clicked the unsubscribe button. :dead-horse:

 

i never buy any modern coins.

 

you forgot to mention the shipping costs of the ebay examples you have given here.

 

nobody seems to be reading what i have already said. I HAVE SPENT WAY TOO MUCH TIME SEARCHING COINS AND REASEARCHING COINS, PERIOD.!!!!! CLEAR ENOUGH???????????????????????????????????????????????? i bet that i have spent thousands of hours searching on ebay alone, not to mention all of the other research that i have done on coins and all of the books that i have read on the subject, ect. most of you seem to think that the examples of the low grade large cents that i posted are the only coins that i have bought and sold, wrong again. those are just a few of them. i have bought and sold many different types of u.s. coins in many different grades including your precious NGC and PCGS graded coins. and the results are almost always about the same as far as losing money on the coins goes. as far as research goes, i had done too much work researching coins and searching for coins and in 2009 i had developed a heart problem from too much worry and stress over the stupid coins. so don't try and tell me that i have not put enough work and time and energy into coins. because i HAVE. but i still got bad results when selling the coins anyway.