I’ve inherited a coin collection
DMLasher
Posts: 11 ✭
Hundreds of barber dimes,
The following in square, stapled cardboard with viewing window:
Half dollar marked “Comm 1925 unc p”
Silver dollar marked “1878 cc vf p”
Two Lincoln pennies that appear to have mint errors (the note said both double rim, but I can’t see it), one 1944, the other 1972.
I’m trying to help my daughter buy a home, so what would you suggest as my best course of action to sell these? I obviously don’t want to sell them to someone else that is going to turn around and sell them (because everyone needs to make something). I want to sell them to an actual collector so I can get top dollar, but also because I’ll feel better that they end up with someone’s who truly appreciates them, like my grandpa did. I SINCERELY APPRECIATE ANY advice you’re willing to give.
Thank you!
Answers
List them on eBay and hope a collector sees them.
@DMLasher Welcome to the forum!
If you can post photos here the members may be able to give you some good feedback.
Because you have no history here I would suggest you go to a local coin dealer or go to a coin show in your area. Many who inherit such collections look online and have expectations that without history, knowledge and any information on you will be hard to meet over the internet. You can start by taking good pictures and post them here. Then you might attract some buyers who search these boards. If they are graded coins then it will be easier to unload your windfall. Good luck and welcome to the forum. Also post in the section label Buy/Sell on this board.
Best place to buy !
Bronze Associate member
Put up a few photos to at least give an idea of what you have. While selling directly to a collector may seem like a way to maximize your take, there are reasons it might not work. If you're a new seller, people may discount what you're selling to some degree. Coins also aren't easy to photograph, and if you can't get good ones, you might not get full value (do still show us something). You might also find that selling a ton of coins is a lot of work, and it might not be worth it for lower priced items. The key is figuring out if you can truly make more money selling on your own, or if it's more lucrative to just find a good buyer of the whole lot and save the hassle.
Whatever you do, do NOT clean the coins or otherwise do anything to them. Doing so will instantly drop their value. Let us see them exactly as they are.
Welcome to the forum @DMLasher.
Post some pics of the coins.
Do not expect the coins to be enough to buy a house... expectations from Youtube and other hyper-sensationalized websites are not a good source for valuations of coins.
Get a copy of the Red Book of US Coins as a starting point for research.
Good luck!
You have some nice collector coins there. Can you take a bulk picture of the dimes?
That’s a pretty decent looking flying eagle cent.
I also like the family history on the 78cc. Morgan.
They would sell on eBay with those pictures.
Obviously these should have never been taped (I’ve learned that much) so now I have a bunch of loose coins and idk what is what.
Maybe an ebay seller here would be willing to take them on consignment; if you ebay them yourself chances are you will lose money. Foreign coins aren't worth much usually. Unless the person who collected them paid strong money for nice coins, I doubt they will bring enough to buy anything substantial.
Watch those pointy staple prongs like on the back of that 28 Peace dollar. They’ll scratch the coin next to it and can ruin value
Edited to add. Is that an s mint mark on the 28 Peace dollar. It’s a little fuzzy in the pic. (Under the ‘ONE’ on the reverse)
Depending on what it is, you may NOT get more from a collector than a dealer.
With the examples posted, I think it’s possible for some nicer barbers to be in the mix. Any Barber dimes with readable ‘liberty’ on the head and 1800s dated pieces?
If you search the "sold" listings on ebay you can get an idea of value.
@DNADave I’ve posted pics of some of the barber dimes, but I guess the post is waiting on approval. I’m definitely willing to look through them with my white gloves (I was also given those and haven’t touched anything directly without them) for a readable liberty from the 1800’s. 😊
I sincerely thank everyone who has commented. If I was unclear, I didn’t expect to be able to buy a home, just scrape together a down payment. I’m selling a lot of other stuff I have too. 😉
@airplanenut how would I go about finding a bulk buyer? Just look up local coin dealers? Btw, I have tons of other stuff, I didn’t want to go crazy with the picture posts.
numismedia.com
This will give you an idea of value for items.
https://www.pcgs.com/photograde This shows us coins in various grades
My suggestion is to get a copy of the Guidebook of United States Coins, otherwise known as the Red Book. The collector did you a favor, as the coins in 2x2's (the white cardboard holders) are clearly labeled with the date, mintmark, and grade (e.g., F, VF, etc.). With that information you can easily get a good estimate of the retail value of each coin from the Red Book. You can expect a dealer to offer you about 20-30% less than the Red Book value as they need to make a profit.
Although one can't say for certain without seeing them, most likely the coins not in individual holders are worth only their bullion value. For example a silver dime is worth about $1.40. The foreign coins are probably worth very little unfortunately.
Once you have done some work on your own to have a ballpark estimate of the collection's value ($100, $1,000, $10,000 ...) you will be in a much better position to sell them without being ripped off or disappointed.
You can post a picture of any coin if you need help identifying it. Your pictures are pretty good for this purpose.
LIBERTY SEATED DIMES WITH MAJOR VARIETIES CIRCULATION STRIKES (1837-1891) digital album
Some interesting items in the mix that I'd be interested in.
Keep in mind that if your looking to sell the lot, they may not bring ALL the money.
Doing the research and selling the better items would net you the most money.
Research comes at a price, what's your time worth?
"Waiting on approval" is some kind of glitch - it will never be "approved". You need to type something above the image when this happens. Try again with the Barber dime image(s) please!
To post the pics this usually works when it doesn’t show up:
-Edit a previous post, click on the gear-wheel looking device at the top right of your post.
-Insert the pic, but precede the image link immediately with an emoji
Thank you for posting the photos.
Retail prices, if they were in a PCGS graded slab:
1878-CC $1 VF-20 to VF-35 ($149 to $165) https://www.pcgs.com/prices/detail/morgan-dollar/744/grades-25-60/ms
1928 $1 F-15 $225 or 1928-S F-15 $37 https://www.pcgs.com/prices/detail/peace-dollar/26/grades-1-20
So at best you have around $400 if you could sell them for full retail and if they were in PCGS slabs (which would cost you $60), so at best net $340.
The foreign coins are all common - what you would pick up as pocket change as a tourist.
The Barber dimes.
The median grade of a circulated Barber dime is AG-3.
The AG-3 grade is when the reverse is nearly worn flat and the rims merge with the wreath.
If they are mostly this grade, they are likely not worth much above silver bullion value.
If you have 100 of these, this works out to about $134.
http://www.coinflation.com/coins/silver_calc.php
As others have mentioned, if you can read some or all letters of LIBERTY, they are in grade VG-8 or F-12 or higher, and worth more.
Or if they are from the 1890s with a mint mark.
Usually you won't have these, but if you do, you can look them up:
https://www.pcgs.com/prices/detail/barber-dime/702/grades-1-20/ms
"Comm 1925 Unc P"
This is probably the 1925 Lexington commemorative half dollar.
Retail in MS-60 PCGS slab: $85.
But you would pay $30 to put it in a slab, so net $55.
https://www.pcgs.com/prices/detail/silver-commemorative/789/most-active
1857 1c flying eagle VF: $70 to $100 https://www.pcgs.com/prices/detail/flying-eagle-cent/664/grades-25-60
So net $70 at best.
So most likely the total is $585 or less for the above.
For more coins, you can follow roughly the methods above to estimate their value.
Not a down payment on a house or car, but actually better than many collections I've seen.
Here are my thoughts:
And, IF you are going to try to sell by yourself, educate yourself REALISTICALLY. In other words, find material to teach you how to grade (reasonably...instead of just guessing or assuming that a price guide saying $1000 for MS65 would work for something like your morgan dollar, which would be a lot less (I would agree with the above that it is probably VF (very fine)). Learn dates/mintmarks and if there is anything special for that series/year/mintmark (for instance: 1955 Lincoln cent....if the date makes you think you need glasses because it looks doubled, it very well could be a doubled die obverse and worth MUCH more than a regular one.....
The above paragraph assumes you are willing to spend the time learning though and it wouldn't be overnight. It would also mean you are probably buying a few reference materials (ie...putting money into this) or spending a lot of time online finding resources.
However it does go, I wish you the best of luck. Getting any type of coin collection is something many dream about, but few realize.
I've been told I tolerate fools poorly...that may explain things if I have a problem with you. Current ebay items - Nothing at the moment
@DMLasher....Welcome aboard.... Forum members have given excellent advice above... I cannot improve upon what has been offered....You have a lot of work ahead of you, unless you can find someone to purchase the entire lot...and even that will take some effort. Keep asking questions here, post photo's when you can... Best of luck, Cheers, RickO
The "OPA red point" and "OPA bluepoint" tokens I had to look up, they were change given for ration coupons during WWII. https://scvhistory.com/scvhistory/signal/coins/soltaylor080908.html
Generally not worth much ($1 at most), but apparently some letter combinations (MV on a red one) and "errors" can be worth more. There's 200 of them for $90 on ebay, etc, so you can see what you're up against. If they are tokens saved from grandpa's family during WWII rationing, they might have more sentimental value than actual.
Ugh. I hate to say this but many of us who deal with "estate" coins find most are circulated silver from change, commonplace and worth little more than "melt" (precious metal value, no collector value). Old, worn copper like early wheat cents and Indian Heads are rarely worth more than a nickel or dime each. Maybe a dollar or two for something nicer or special.
Often there are tokens and medals and Franklin Mint stuff that are almost worthless.
It is hard to deliver this message to heirs hoping for a windfall.
Most circulated silver dollars -- 100+ years old, have very modest worth.
Certainly there's the remote possibility of something rare and valuable. Said another way, it is rare and remote there is something valuable.
With where you are, @DMLasher, my guess is you will need to spend many, many hours learning about coin values and coin grading and then selling on sites like ebay. All for the potential of something well less than $1,000.
My advice is to take everything to a coin shop and try to get an assessment. Then choose between accepting 50% less than you might get if you spend many weeks or more selling privately.
Lance.
Have you checked to see if you have a 1894-S? That one would get your daughter a mansion.
Even an AU 1905-O with a Micro O would help get her a decent down payment.
My point is....you'll never know whether you got a good/fair deal for your coins or if you might have given away a couple of substantial/valuable coins for practically nothing if you never bothered to do your homework. To wander uneducated up to anyone to ask them what they will give for your coins when you don't have the slightest idea what you have and you accept some offer because...why?...the number/amount sounded big enough to get you to agree and sell? No one will ever ask you if you have checked your coins for varieties before they buy your coins. Most anyone affiliated with buying anything, you're just a dumb one arm slot machine to them. And once you get sold on the BS they fed you, down comes your arm and all your stuff falls out onto the table and it becomes theirs. You must take each coin at a time. Learn it's name, date, mint mark, origin, composition, mintage, about it's strike, condition, luster. Perhaps a few of your coins have interesting toning or are more lustrous than most of the other coins. One usually takes more interest in certain coins if something about them have caught their eye and attention. Hits, nicks, abrasions, gouges, scratches, polish lines from a cleaning, the severity of them, their locations. The fewer marks, the better a coin will grade. Find someone in your family or a friend you can grow to trust. But you really need to do your home work because what values are on a sheet of paper or web search is not the same for what each coin holds in strike, condition, mintage and eye appeal.
Leo
The more qualities observed in a coin, the more desirable that coin becomes!
My Jefferson Nickel Collection
If you give your approximate location, chances are people here could help you find a reputable dealer and/or alert you to disreputable ones in your area.
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars • Variety Attribution