What would be a fair wholesale price to pay (percentage wise) when acquiring average coins lots? Coin lots containing a mixture of things such as bullion, junk silver, proof/mint sets, silver dollars, etc... ect... Using past eBay sales as a "retail" number.
I would probably do a quick estimate of the melt value and offer 75%, you can always go up but not down.
I have a guy that buys abandoned storage units. When he comes across jars or bags of old coins he calls me. The way the deal always goes is something like this..... He will set the bag down, we trade greetings... Then it is on.... I don’t even plunder the bag. I give it a quick look and make a mental note that I think maybe $200.00 in melt silver is in the bag. I get my wallet and peel out eighty bucks. He laughs and tells me he needs $150.00. I tell him a hundred is all he will get out of me. The deal is struck and he goes on about his business..... Now I typically make out well on these deals. I know all he wants from me is whatever he paid for the unit. Point being is that if you take the time to inventory each item, examine and discuss it, you will end up buying at a fair market price. If you are looking for a deal then you need to trust your instincts and start dealing from there..... Now this isn’t a tactic I would use against a family that is liquidating granddads collection. I would have to be much more fair in a transaction like that.
If you're trying to sort through and re-sell it... your price has to include your time to go through it. Figure out what you think you can get reselling it, subtract your costs for profit, time, packaging, shipping, sorting, etc., and then base your whosesale price on that. If you're buying it to have some fun... base that on how much fun you'll have, the likelihood you'll find something that you think will make it worth it, and how disappointed you might be if it's all UK and Canadian small change.
It's pretty much industry standard for dealers to offer 10% less than spot when buying, and sell for 10% more than spot for bullion and or junk silver - give or take a couple of percentage points, depending the dealer. Some go a little more than 10, some go a little less than 10. If you run across somebody doing much different than that then you need to look elsewhere.
