Hi all, I've been reading these forums for a few weeks now trying to answer questions and get some ideas, but thought the best solution was probably to just write it all down. I have recently been give a huge collection of coins by my father-in-law. He was colecting coins between 1950 and 1985. The collection is massive (at a very rough guess 10,000+ coins, but could be much more ) ranging from single coins, to mint sets, to unopened rolls. Fortunately he has documented the whole collection in a book. He has asked me to sell the entire collection so that he can give the money to my wife and her brother as an inheritance, but I just don't know where to start. Question 1) The first task is to get the collection onto some form of database. What do you recommend? I've looked at those available but many people say it's best to just keep an excel spreadsheet. The idea of entering everything onto a spreadsheet is very daunting and I'll have to buy a book with the information in anyway. Something where all the basic information is there already and I just select the coin and put in quantites would be helpful. The Coin Collector's assistant looks good for this. Question 2) When I sell, is it best to keep a) sets together and b) rolls together, or break them down? I'm assuming to keep them together is best. Also I have some complete sets of sets. For example, I have every mint set issued by the Vatican for the entire reign of Pope Paul VI. Should I sell these together? Question 3) How to sell? The decision I've come to is it's probably best to work out those coins/sets of value and try to sell these myself on e-bay, and then sell all the other coins in bulk to a dealer, or in bulk on e-bay. Any suggesions? Sorry for the very long post, but I would really appriciate your help on this. By the way none of the coins are American and 70% are Italian. Any other questions? Thanks!!!!!
Some really quick response Question1: That is where you get a Krause and quote the reference number. Question2: Don't ever forget to put in pictures!!! But it does help to sell them altogether as there might be some insane collectors who just wants them all. Otherwise, it might be difficult to sell them one by one. You might want to ask a dealer to give an estimate of your whole lot. Question3: You can sell it at ebay, but if you have zero feedback, that honestly can hurt as people aren't too willing to trust new people on ebay due to alarming scam issues etc. You can always try a dealer but note that he usually offers some crappy prices. You can try to sell it on the forum here but do note what is required to sell at the forum here. Cheers.
"He documented the whole collection in a book"… that’s good. If he did a good job at it, there’s no need to make a database. If he can help you on grading and value you’ll be ahead of the game. Use Ebay and other action sites to establish prices. If you sell all those coins you or you father-in-law will probably have to pay some taxes so recorders are a must. Even if its just sell reseats. Sounds like a good plan to me. Feel free to ask questions, no matter how stupid they seem. Most importantly, be respectful to the forum roles. It seems a lot of fokes get swallowed by big bad Moderator for trying to sell to us with out adding anything to the community.
This is a tough situation. Collecting, buying, and selling coins responsibily requires an incredible amount of knowledge and discipline. I find myself in a similar situation as emtoucan. Not quite as many coins, but my ignorance of coins is almost dramatic. I have been unwilling to dedicate enough time to sort-out and reduce the size of my modest "horde" of coins. As it stands, I have not emersed myself in the hobby, therefore nothing significant has happened. I enjoy this website and the history lessons provided.
Thanks guys for the replies. Regarding the documentation, it's just a list over every coin by country adn date. He only collected the coins as an investment, and there's no detail on grading. The more I look into it though, it's like opening a can of worms. I'm trying to get my head around the grading process. If I was to open up a roll of coins, would these be graded as Unc or XF? Also I've got lots of set (and I mean lots). Unless I cn see some reference to 'Proof' on them, I'm assuming they are Unc. Also I'm unsure of the tax aspect. As far as I'm concerned I'm a private seller, selling what's mine to sell. When does this become an income? Surely most people who sell on e-bay don't pay tax on it? Oh well on with the grind......
With all due respect, that's like "investing" in wines without recording the vintages. The value of a high-grade MS coin can be a very large multiple (100x +) of the value of the same coin in XF, so without grades you haven't got a clue as to value. Or even G if they were taken from circulation. The legal answer to that question is "When the sale price exceeds the cost basis+costs of sale." A practical consideration is that you can just bet there are IRS agents cruising EBay and other auction sites watching for large dollar sales to investigate. The "no one else pays" defense won't hold up in a trial for tax evasion. Bottom line - talk to the professional who does your taxes, and if you don't have one, get one.
It's a bit more than a can of worms - it's the whole worm farm !! It's pretty hard to sell something when you don't know anything about it. And the intricacies of this hobby are not something you can pick up in a few weeks or months, it takes years - even a lifetime. To be quite honest the best advice I can give is for you to contact a reputable coin dealer and sell the collection as a whole. When it is sold, you just act as the agent for your in-law - have the check made out to him. That would relieve you of any tax liability. Hopefully your in-law kept records of what he paid for the coins and when because he will need them for tax purposes. But as suggested - have him contact his tax advisor or accountant. There are many reputable dealers throughout the country, but if there is not one near where you live that's not always a problem. If the collection warrants it - dealers will come directly to you even from clear across the country. But as I said - it depends on the value of the collection. That can be partially determined over the phone in your conversations with them. If you can post a better list for examples of what you have - I can make several recommendations of dealers you may wish to contact.
I've had a quick chat with him and there is a rough grading system in his note book outlining those coins that are Unc or Proof. As the book and notes are in Italian I didn't realise I'm thinking this is going to be a long term project, possibly a few years to be honest. Almost all the coins are still in Italy and I'm based in the UK, so just getting them here is going to take some time. I think that's why I'm struggling to grasp the grading concept without having the coins in front of me. I went to the library and copied a couple of page of the Catalog of World Coins last night to see if it would be useful before I buy and so that I can start to create an excel spreadsheet. I must admit that I found the whole thing fascinating and really enjoyed logging the coins and finding out a little more about each one. Maybe cataloging the whole collection won't be as daunting as I first thought. I think all the rolls are from the mint, but again I'll have to confirm this. I'm going to visit a coin dealer here in London this week just for a chat and to ask him questions directly. Thanks again for your advise. I'll keep you all updated on the status and once I catalogued some of the collection I'll give you some idea of what I taking about.
Lets see, I spent and average of 10min looking up, grading and cataloging each of my childhood foreign coin collection….10minx10,000coins=yep, your going to be at it for a while. Sense you’re dealing with mostly Italian coins maybe someone can recommend an Italian coin book. I know the world catalogs I have are very general. In the case of Mexican coins the world catalogs I have only show half the coins minted between 1900-2004.
