I just visited the widow of a recently-departed cousin in a distant city. The widow mentioned that her husband had an large and extensive coin collection that was started in the 1970s and was now locked away in "several" bank boxes. On questioning her, she doesn't know much about what coins are in the collection -- some gold, silver, some in slabs, some medallions. There was not enough time for me to go to the bank to see them and she doesn't have a catalog. Her sons are not interested and she needs to liquidate the collection. I didn't feel qualified to give her advice on such a large collection other than suggestions to catalog the collection and use a well-known auction house such as Heritage. There are two local small dealers but her husband didn't like either one. I would like to give her more substantial advice, which is the reason for my request here. What should she do? What are her options? Are there people who act as estate agents for coin collections? I'll pass along any serious advice you can offer. Thanks in advance.
I think the first step is for her, or someone else in the family, to do an inventory. It's a shame her husband didn't, but it needs to be done if you want to get anything close to their real value. I say this because I know of one reputable auction house which apparently 'found' a sizable number of coins in their safe that they were suppose to auction off a couple years earlier. I don't know exactly how they resolved the issue, the point is that you need to know what you have before you try to sell it.
