I have 2 5 gallon buckets full of late 1800s coins till now but mainly early to mid 1900s. I have pennies, nickels, ... half dollars, dollars, all variety of coins. There are mostly older ones but there are so many of them to research each one. What do you guys recommend being the best way to get the value of all the coins that I have. I have so many of them and don't know where to go to get the value or if its not worth all the hassle. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
There's no easy answer. How did you come across them? There may be rarities worth hundreds or thousands or they may all be scrap. Grab a handful, take some pics to show what you have.
If you sold them just sitting in those buckets you would get common prices for them, since chances are there would be no rarities in them, if you sorted them first chances are you could get more for them than leaving them in buckets, and if there were any rarities you would find out, for instance an old wheat back cent could be worth a few thousand dollars, or it could be worth about 2 cents, a dealer will not take the time to do the sorting, he will assume that they are worth about 2 cents each.
Welcome Ssbon! What do all those coins mean to you is my first question? Did you buy them, inherit them? Can you post a pic? You can google key dates and that way you'll at least know which ones could be valuable but that's also a bit haphazard. Post some pics and you will get some answers.
My great uncle just passed away who served in WWII and born in 1924. Threw his travels and age had many different coins of many different years and different curencies as well. He has japanes, mexico, britain coins and more. I inherited the coins and am not too sure if anything has any value. I posted some pictures of some of the coins: 1890 and 1896 Dollar coins 1943 pennies 1 dollar bill series: 1957
The top 2 are morgan dollars and on the back on the bottom is a mint mark, it'll be a O or a S or a CC or none at all. That will matter on those coins. If you turn it over and give us a pict of the reverse that will help. They are silver and worth at least 15 if melted. As for the wheat cents early dates are the harder ones...09s, 14d you could get a red book and check them as a worn out right date could be 1k plus but you have to look at all of them to know. And the last is a silver certificate. Those will depend on some stuff too but most are 2 bucks pretty much. If I were you I'd love going through the buckets big time...good luck and have some fun.
Welcome to the neighborhood! I've always been the curious sort, so if it were up to me, I'd be sorting through all of them. Since you have literally thousands of coins in those 5gal buckets, I would use Zip-Loc bags and sort them by denomination, first. It would be too much of an "organized mess" to try to separate them by denomination/series at the outset. Once you have them sorted by denomination, I would tackle the dollars, half dollars, quarters and dimes next and use more Zip-Loc bags to sort them each by series since many of them are made of silver. Even if some of these silver coins have no legible date, the melt value is considerably more than face value. NOTE: You might want to start a "No Date" baggie for each denomination and/or series. 1) Morgan and Peace dollars are 90% silver. 2) Barber, Walking Liberty and Franklin half dollars are 90% silver. 3) 1964 Kennedy half dollars are 90% silver. 4) 1965-1970 Kennedy half dollars are 40% silver. 5) Barber and Standing Liberty quarters are 90% silver. 6) Washington quarters, 1932-1964, are 90% silver. 7) Barber and Winged Liberty (aka Mercury) dimes are all 90% silver. 8) Roosevelt dimes, 1946-1964, are 90% silver. Once you've completed this, the only denominations left to sort out would be the nickels and cents. 1) Liberty Head nickels, 1883-1912. 2) Buffalo nickels, 1913-1937. 3) Jefferson nickels, 1938 and on. Note: Jefferson War nickels, 1942-1945, contain 35% silver. 4) Indian Head cents, 1859-1909. 5) Lincoln Wheat (Reverse) cents, 1909-1958. 6) Lincoln Memorial (Reverse) cents, 1959-1982 are copper-based. Now that you have completed sorting all of the coins by denomination and series, you can then proceed to look for some of the more valuable key date and semi-key date coins within each series. This is where the Red Book of United States Coins by R.S. Yeoman will be of immense help, and of course, any more questions that you may have can likely be answered here by other members who specialize in any or all of these various series. Please be aware that if you have questions about a specific coin, it is best to include quality photos to enable us to give you our best opinions. Chris
Good advice you've been given here. If you don't go through them yourself and just sell them in bulk, you will always wonder if you have been taken advantage of later ... Good luck! Personally, most of the folks around here would love to be in your shoes, standing at the starting point of a treasure hunt!
Have fun with this, stay away from dealers, don't invite friends to help, get yourself knowledgable, try to keep it quite (THIEVES), and did I mention no dealers. I wish I was in your shoes, good luck...
As someone who just loves looking through hoards of coins I would welcome the opportunity to go through those buckets. It's just like treasure hunting, even if you don't find the gold enjoy the experience, but I'd bet you're going to find at least one "Key Date," if not more. You just might find it pleasurable as well as more profitable to figure out what you really have before you try to sell. A lot of us here got bitten by the coin bug going that route. Chris gave you a good head start as far as sorting the coins out and finding generic values for denominations. The Red Book is a price guide, and has good grading advice for each coin, but you might also benefit by getting Photograde by James Ruddy which has pictures of every US coin in all circulation grades. I don't think you'll be finding any uncirculated coins in those buckets. If you're really ambitious, I also recommend getting The Cherrypicker's Guide to Rare Die Varieties, Volumes 1 & 2, Bill Franz and J.T. Stanton, and a magnification loop. They're are also bound to be some Varities in there so learning about Die Varieties, Double Dies, Repunched Mint Marks, Overpunched Mint Marks, Die Rotations not to mention die-cracks, cuds, clipped planchets could add to both the profit you make and the pleasure you get from searching these lots. Good luck and be patient, It sound to me like you have a few months worth of sorting and searching, or both fun & profit.
David, I didn't bother mentioning any of this since it should probably be saved for his Freshman 2nd semester or his Sophomore 1st semester. Let's not confuse him with too much at once. Chris
I'm so sorry for my poor English first! Can you please let me know what 1k equal for? An pls use real amount, for instance 1000 USD
1K is a common abbreviation for 1,000. It is derived from the prefix, "kilo", as in kiloton = 1,000 tons or kilogram = 1,000 cubic centimeters. Chris
If there are lots of world coins, (coins from countries other than the usa) your local library might have a copy of World Coins. If they do not have it most libraries can order a copy from another library. The prices are more ballpark than exact.
