what to offer for silver nickels

first off I work in the business of estate sales on a daily basis so i find a ton of things, today I found a jar of nickels which contained (9) 1943 silver nickels, 1920 buffalo, 1935D and 1938D buffalo nickels all in average condition with full dates and details. my boss asked if i wanted them and i told him to hold them back for now. just wondering what i should offer as a fair price for these 12 coins?

 

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Offer $13

 

Yup, that'd be about melt value. I'd say don't go over $15 though.

 

$10. WHy pay melt for war nickels? They don't even sell for melt.

 

I'm perplexed that you work in the business of estate sales but don't know what you would pay? But really wonder why you would ask a forum of people you don't know how to run your business...

Try conflation.com for the melt value of common coins. Other then that it's up to you what your cost are.
Good luck

 

first of all i said i work in the business of estate sales not the business of selling coins, second i WORK in estate sales i am not the boss or the one running the show i just help, i dont do pricing. we sell entire estate contents but rarely come across coins, my boss is an antique dealer and mainly specializes in furniture and glassware (Victorian more than anything). I assumed people on a coin forum may know about coins. silly of me to assume.

 

Of course we know about coins
That website I gave you will tell you the melt price of them. It states that they melt for $1.50 right now. And as for "what is a fair price" that is up to you.
There are many debates on here as to what fair is.

 

+1

These can be found for $1-$1.25.

 

Current melt on these is $1.51 each, that's $26.85 x .05626 oz. silver. The melt on 9 would be $13.59. However, these sell for $1 - $1.25 most anywhere so I wouldn't go higher than $10-$12 for all of them.

 

The only problem with that is, there's only 9 of them being silver, the other 3 are Buffalo's.

 

Buffaloes which sell for about the same as the silver war nickles, and I stick by the $10-$12 for all of them.

 

I'd find it hard to imagine being in estate sales to know something about anything and everything that is found in such estate sales. Hence the person came here to get insight in what he found, he's doing the right thing, seeking knowledge in the field he's not an expert in.

I work with computers, that doesn't mean I know everything that involves computers!

 

I've been involved in estate sales/purchases as a side line for a number of years and being an expert in everything is impossible. So you do the best you can with educated guesses. Sometimes you're right, sometimes you're way off but in the long run, it averages out.

 

And if you just don't know, you come to sites like this, study up on the item or find someone who does know about the item in question.

 

Oh I know, I was just pointing out that it's not 12 silver nickels, only 9.

 

Thank you for the replies and to clarify farther I have been employed doing estate sales for only 4 months now and collecting coins for about the same time so i am not very educated in either but I am trying to learn all i can about the hobby. at my job i basically do the grunt work carry heavy items, help people load things, clean the houses and stage them etc.. but of course i get to be the one to find all the good stuff while digging so i cant complain.

 

Nobody should ridicule the act of seeking knowledge, I have spent most of my life trying to learn what I didn't know. I still have a long way to go down that road.

 

And welcome to CoinTalk!!!

Lucy

 

a few months back, when Silver was a bit higher I believe, I paid $27 for 55 silver war nickles AND a 1938 S I needed to complete a circulated set. I don't think I could pay over $5 for the batch you got. I think it would be a good deal for the estate and you are not really risking a lot of money. Nickles, unless you are talking graded slabs are not worth a lot.
My opinion, anyway.

 

Usually you don't have the luxury of taking time to investigate every single item. Some estates are the huge eg. contents of an 80 year old house. You have a few minutes to make your offer before the other dealers come snooping around. If you snooze, you lose.

With the coin estates, you have to do a quick scan of what's there and make an offer. You have to feel out what the seller is looking to get for it and if it's realistic, then you come to an agreement and make the purchase. I've missed some by minutes because another dealer came in, made his offer and took the whole works.