My favorite way to buy coins for my collection is a wanted add in craigslist. I buy the whole collection and get some real gems. I don't collect world coins and I am getting a big pile of them. I know some are junk and some are worth some serious coin. I thought about listing them on ebay, but I don't want to spend the time to research what each coin is. How much market is there for world coins?
You can sell them at ebay as a LOT. Otherwise, you'll simply have to "spend the time to research" them! Perhaps getting the Krause Publications' "Standard Catalog of World Coins 1901-2000," available at any big bookstore might be helpful anyway. If a coin interests you, just look that one up in the catalog. As far as the market for world coins, well, unless you want to get "into" World Coins, you'll have rely on the catalog for a gist of the market.
That's what I was going to say too. Maybe send half to me and half to Ripley. Seriously though, there probably isn't as big a market for world coins as there is for U.S. coins, at least in the U.S. Probably a small percentage of all American coin collectors are interested in world coins. That being said, there are still a bunch of us out there and we still pay good money for the right coins. There's no way to give you a quick tutorial or an easy answer for what yours are worth though. I guess if you want to sell them in lots, make sure people can see most of the coins in the photo because that will influence the bidding. Show photos of the actual coins being bid on, not just "this is what a pile of coins looks like, and I'm selling a similar pile." A lot of people do that and most buyers have caught on. If you really have a lot, split them up into smaller lots so people can see what you have better.
NO! Not him...Send 'em to ME! I'll pay for postage, too! Sorry, Rip...I'm not greedy, I just like a LOT!
I used to be that way too but slowly getting over it. Its amazing how many coins you acquire when you buy group lots. I believe I have three US mint bags and about 4 other boxes overflowing with world coins I do not really collect. My advice for anyone wanting a lot of coins is look over group lots, find some with at least a few coins you are interested in, and buy the lot. You will be surprised how quickly you will get a few hundred pounds of misc world coins.
I am not daring enough to even use Craigslist - I get mine from the banks I do business with. Lots of stuff ends up in their "over/under" ledger entries and they are pleased to get rid of them.
Something else you can do that might get you a better value is separate them into small groups of similar items to sell. Like maybe take 10 coins from the 1800s and group them together. That way people can better judge what they're buying and you might make more money.
Take your time and look through all of them, you don't know what you are going to find. Selling them by the pound or in lots won't bring you what it should. Won't take you more than 30 seconds to check a coin on the net and see what's it worth. There is a BIG market for world coins. I think going through unknown coins is fun and you can get knowledge not only on the coins themselves, but also the countries they're from.
