Hi, we recently purchased an estate which included old American coins. Within the coins was a 1894 Morgan Dollar. I have been told this is a highly desirable coin. We took the coin, along with some others we acquired and listed them on E-Bay. We're wondering if we made a mistake listing them. Do you think they will realize their full value? Do our pictures give the coins justice? Any estimates on what these beauties will sell for? Thanks for your help. We are pretty new to all of this! EDITED--Sorry but you can't post links to your own auctions unless it is in the AUCTION forum and then only after you have 10+ posts.
1894 may be about $4,000 or more. The other one about $4 to 500 or more. Yes you made a mistake. You should have contacted this forum or purchased a Red Book on coins. Other suggestions would be to check out if there are any coin shows in your area, go there and ask questions about the coins you have. Do not sell them to the first person that makes you an offer. Other coins you have may be worth a real lot of money so best find out what you have. There are other web sites that list coin prices such as the PCGS web site but you must know the condition of the coins to be able to figure out what they are worth. Starting here would have been the first step, not ebay.
It would probably be worth your while to cancel the auction and send the 1894 to a top tier grading service. From the pictures it looks like it has problems with the fields and other areas, and might be bodybagged by PCGS. ANACS and NCS do slab problem coins though (correct guys?).
The 1894 looks like it was cleaned and it retoned in some areas... but otherwise still looks pretty nice.
Yes, the 1894 looks cleaned. If you did this, please don't clean any others. Also, there are several varieties of Morgans, and you should get a reference and a 10X loupe to see if you can determine this. Also, only handle coins by the edge, wearing cotton gloves. There is a lot of research to do, but it's better than selling a coin that you dont know anything about.
Troodon, I disagree, it looks like it was cleaned with a wire brush, the hairlines are very heavy and exceptionally distracting. This is one ugly coin! In addition to the harsh cleaning it appears that the toning has been manufactured, it just looks wrong. I'm gonna say it is VF/XF details net grade of Fine. It's really too bad, it was a nice coin once. CoinChamp, The other coins that you listed are photographed so poorly that the condition of the coin cannot be determined, I'm surprised that you have as many bids as you do. A good rule to follow is that any coin with a price tag of more than $100 is worth having professionally graded. If you were to send the 94 and the CC Morgan to ANACS then I expect you would get more for them even with the problems.
Thank you for all of your comments. I appreciate that you took the time to reply. In regards to the coins, they were not cleaned by us. That must have been done by the previous owner? We were offered a nice sum of money for the 1894 from a professional coin dealer. He was the one that suggested we list it on E-bay because he was sure it would bring in more than he could offer us. Cave Troll, your gradings are right on to what the dealer told us. He said in the condition it is in, it should bring around $1250 or more. We didn't know what to think. We only paid about $7 for the coin to begin with. In terms of the pictures, how do you suggest we improve the quality. What is the problem with the current photographs? Thank you so much for your help. We appreciate it!
Well caught it was cleaned at least... not nearly an expert at these kind of things, lol. But looking at it more closely the scrathes are pretty obvious. Whoever cleaned it though at least had the sense to leave the details alone. Not sure how you'd tell if the toning was natural or not. However the cleaning would account for the uneven toning, I can see places where whoever cleaned was trying to avoid the devices. Am guessing whoever did it assumed it would be OK to clean the fields but didn't want to mess with the devices. This looks like the kind of coin I often pick out if it would otherwise be too expensive... a coin that shows the details well but has problems that lower its value enough to be into my price range. See my thread about the bust half, lol... though when that particular coin received its damage I'm not sure. From the wear it looks like the damage happened quite a long time ago and isn't recent damage caused byy an attempt to clean it. On this one... wish I could go back in time and get it before someone tried to clean it... but as it is, would still have to say the $7 paid was an amzing bargain. I'm sure soemone who otherwise wouldn't even get to see an 1894 would be happy to own this one... if nothing else it's a great filler if you're trying to complete the series.
No problem! We love looking at coins. I'm glad to hear that you didn't clean them, at least you know that you haven't damaged their value. It is common for non-collectors to damage their coins because they just don't know better, unfortunately. It is no doubt a rare date and it will retain a fair amount of value based on scarcity alone, but unfortunately it is irrevocably damaged. No matter what you do you will make a tidy profit on your find, but I contend that you would make MUCH more if you were to send it to ANACS (www.anacs.com) to have it graded. I recommend cancelling the bids and ending the listing early so that you can have it graded. The flash is washing out all the surface details in your photos (with the exception of the 1894 dollar) meaning that a prospective bidder is left to guess what the details of the coins look like. Since there can be a large price difference between one grade and the next it is important to be able to see exactly what the coin's details look like. The first thing i would recommend is to shut your flash off. There are numerous photography threads on this site that you would find very helpful in finding more improvements that you can make. Once you master the art of coin photography your pictures should look as good as this one: Yours don't need to be quite that nice to be successful on eBay, but they need serious improvement if you want to get the proper value for your coins. Good luck! P.S. Photograph above belongs to leadfoot and was lifted from another thread on the site.
well, the 1894 sold for more than $2000, so it appears that barring a return the eBay route worked well for you. Congrats on your very fortuidous find! All of us who search estate sales dream of a find like yours!
Heck...I was just gonna ask you if you wanted to trade for mine...maybe I can get $2000 on ebay.. Are you guys laughing at me??
