Questions about selling coins....long post.

I'm looking to sell off a bunch (somewhere between 500 and 1,500 coins) of raw, lower-to-mid-grade (say, AG-3 to EF-40), common-date coins. I'd like to organize them to make it easier for someone to put prices on them. Obviously, first tier is to put them into groups by type. Second tier is to put each type in order by date/mm. But, third tier to me would be to put them by "bulk" vs more "special" (for lack of better term) coins (e.g. coins that will get me only melt or bulk value vs coins that would get a higher price for numismatic value). I'm assuming dealers have some sort of system or cheat-sheet where they'll just count up your coins and give you melt value (or some percentage under melt value) or bulk rate (say, $0.80 per coin), vs at some point (is that VF-20?), they'll give you some percent under retail value. I understand that they have to make money, so I'll get some percentage under, say, numismedia.com or Greysheet prices, so I have no grand illusions that I'll get the listed prices for raw, common-date coins.

I quickly chatted with a couple local dealers to see if they could guide me in how to organize my coins to make it easier/quicker, but they just told me to bring in the coins and they can evaluate them and give me prices.

What do you say? As a dealer, or maybe someone who has sold lots of coins to dealers, what grade is the breaking point that determines whether the dealer would count coins and pay bulk price vs looking at each coin individually and applying a price to each individual coin?

Also, what could I reasonably expect for those "bulk", common-date/mm coins?

• Steel Cents
• IHC's
• Liberty Nickels
• Buffalo Nickels
• War Nickels
• Barber Dimes - assuming melt value is $2.40
• Mercury Dimes - assuming melt value is $2.40
• Roosevelt Dimes - assuming melt value is $2.40
• Washington Quarters - assuming melt value is $6.00
• WLH's - assuming melt value is $12.00
• Franklin Half Dollars - assuming melt value is $12.00
• Kennedy Half Dollars - assuming melt value is $12.00
• Morgan Dollars - assuming melt value is $33.00
• Peace Dollars - assuming melt value is $33.00

Would I be right to assume I'd get about 80% of melt value from a dealer? 90%? 100%? Are there any I should NOT sell for melt value? What's a reasonable bulk rate to expect for the others (not silver)?

 

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My experience with my local shop. I once sold buckets of silver coins at the local shop. Basically they told me set aside any key dates or mint marks. Other wise it would be just spot price. Now all of the stuff I had was from fire. Coins had to be identifiable - as franklin or peace dollar. You bring in a 1000 half dollars they will not search them just run thru a machine and make you an offer. Now if you brought in like 10 they might look thru them. My case we literally had 4 to 6 five gallon buckets of coins - all low grade common dates. We had very few morgans - maybe 20 to 30 and all were common date low grades. We did look first. So basically everything got spot price.

Now for my IHC dansco album and my liberty nickel albums. They reviewed all the coins both albums - did not break out prices. So something like a key date 1877 they will look at no mater what. Same with 85 and 86 liberty nickel. But with low grades common dates they just make an offer - seems to me it was not much on IHC and Liberty nickels. In my case I had albums and most coins were xf to au.

Basically if you bring in a hoard they will not search it - so if you want real attention to something set it to the side. When I took in a bag of Lincoln cents - they basically just ran it thru a machine, counted the coins and offered 3 cents coin. I even asked what they did with them - they told me they just fill a bag with like 3000 cents and sell it on dealer network. That is my local shop and just my experiences not sure how yours will be.

 

Thanks for the info. I figured the counting machine was about what would happen. But, I'm trying to figure out what the cut-off point is, where they wouldn't put them thru the machine, but rather would look at them individually. Those, I'd want to pull aside to avoid the counting machines. Then, I could bring those better coins another time, to be looked at separately.

 

I'm sorry if I made it look like I'm trying to sell my coins here. Let me make my intent clearer: I am NOT looking to sell here, or online.

I am really just looking to understand how the coin shops treat incoming coins, and where the break-point is where they send them thru the counting machines vs look at coins individually. That way, I can organize my coins in groups that it's ok to send thru the counting machines, and hold back the nicer ones for a second visit, to be looked at more closely.

 

You can always do a controlled sale. Take a batch you know will go thru a counting machine and see what each shop will offer. I did that once with some scrap gold and silver jewelry. I basically took it 4 places - 2 pawn shops and 2 coin shops. In theory all the offers were about the same - but what I call my local coin shop was about 20 dollars higher than the other 3. So I only use them now - I know how they work on both graded and raw coins from selling to them. I can't speak for dealers but I get how the local shop works to make money and I am okay with it. Other dealers may operate differently. I can't say every dealer is the same, I get what you are asking - but can't answer for sure on the break point that gets special attention. Hopefully some others will provide input.

 

I helped a church friend whose father had passed and he wanted to liquidate his dad's collection. The man had hundreds and hundreds of Walkers.. Maybe a dozen boxes of rolls or them. Among his dads accumulation was two large glass jars of wheats. These were the big jars like a restaurant would order bulk condiments in. I had to move them with a hand truck..... Anyway, point being I played intermediary with my coin shop buddy. He counted the Walkers and paid spot and weighed the wheats and did the arithmetic that would have come up to something like .03 cents each. He didn't look at any of the bulk coins at all. That's been a few years back. But I would go the dealer route with a large collection. Preferably someone you have traded with in the past so he will be more inclined to treat you right at selling time.

 

Did you search thru the walking liberty halves for a 21-D? I probably would have done a quick search for it - to sell separately.

 

No I didn’t. I spent a week in his dads coin room and that was barely time enough to prepare a very rough inventory.