Does selling make you a better Buyer?
Along
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I usually buy online, shows, and then locally from three dealers. Buying from the local dealers was basically a similar experience. However, when I went to sell a dozen or so coins this week, the experience was very different. One dealer stood out in a positive way. What other lessons have people learned from selling that helped you in your buying? What positive and or negative experiences have you had buying and selling from the same source? Finally does selling make you a better buying?
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Yes it does. You learn how tough it is to get retail or what liquidation value really means. If bids In sheet (market) not going up (or dropping) you question sanity of buying period. Also some material much more liquid / in demand than other stuff.
There are 2 sides of the ball - buying and selling.
It does help. The best lesson I learned from selling is how to negotiate on buying. I also learned how to walk away from a deal that isn’t just right for me.
TurtleCat Gold Dollars
Take your time and find the right buyer, when selling. Always walk away from an obnoxious offer. It's OK to leave a little meat on the bone for the buyer/dealer but don't give him the whole steak and let him force you to eat all bread. Sell because you want to, not because you have to. Do your research and know what your stuff is worth. I think it makes you a better collector, because you can use the proceeds to upgrade or improve your collection, so yes, in a sense it does make you a more discriminating and effective buyer.
Sometimes, it’s better to be LUCKY than good. 🍀 🍺👍
My Full Walker Registry Set (1916-1947):
https://www.ngccoin.com/registry/competitive-sets/16292/
Offering some of your coins for sale, on occasion, can be a valuable learning tool.
Among other things, it can help you better understand market values, as well as the quality, desirability and liquidity of your coins and how fair (or unfair) different buyers are. And if you offer coins back to the dealers from whom you acquired them, you can learn about the practices of those dealers and whether they make a two-way market.
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
Yes.
m
Fellas, leave the tight pants to the ladies. If I can count the coins in your pockets you better use them to call a tailor. Stay thirsty my friends......
One thing you learn when selling is the relative ease of moving various types of material at or near market prices. You'll become wary of stretching to acquire illiquid coins when you realize how hard they can be to get out of. A corollary is to avoid paying "sheet" prices for coins with negative eye appeal.
Selling lets you know what has demand and what does not. Knowing this exceptionally important if you collect things in thin markets.
Yes.
Looking for Top Pop Mercury Dime Varieties & High Grade Mercury Dime Toners.
You'll figure out your mistakes and "trap" coins a lot sooner. We all tend to buy those in our early years. The sooner you find out and minimize repeat mistakes, the better. In the 70's I learned very valuable lessons from my 2 local major dealers....to last a life time.
When I went to back to dealer X to offer up some high grade type coins she sold me, she claimed she had never sold them to me....and I was liar. We're talking my only Bust Dollar and a BU RE half. You don't forget who sold you stuff like that. And this was only a year or so after buying them.
Dealer Y was selling me "gem" commems in the late 70's. He was buying those as BU and selling as Gems....par for the course. They were nice coins....though maybe more like 63/63+ than true 65's. When I went to offer those back to him during the early 1980 coin boom after major price run ups..... he wanted nothing to do with him. Told me he had "no market for those." No one buys them.....LOL.
Dealer X took some coins on consignment from me. We agreed upon general prices of value. When I saw her case at a future show, the coins were marked WAY up.....with almost no chance of ever selling. What's up with that? I took them back. She claimed she needed more profit and it was normal for the selling dealer to determine what to ask....regardless of the %.
In 1983 I offered up a $1500 package of various Unc/choice type coins to several dealers for offers. Some were Coin World advertisers proclaiming "highest buyers nationally." Shipped them around the country. Phillips and Co., David Hall Rare Coin Group, and RenRob. Needless to say that really opened my eyes. The offers were $375, $800, $1200. Ron Iskowitz of RenRob made the best offer by far. He took the time to tell me the coins I under-priced and which ones were over-priced. It was a good lesson for that period. And I continued a relationship with Ron for another 25+ yrs.
Basically dealers X and Y were canned immediately after those experiences. Never stepped into their stores again or would give their bourse table a 2nd look. One of them is still in business today. They haven't had my business in 40 yrs. And I never went back to DHRCG after giving them that one shot. Sometimes that's all you get....one shot to earn a new customer....or to lose one. I'm lucky I learned those lessons early enough. In one respect, you ought to sell stuff (or simulate it) before you ever think of buying....if that were possible.
I really like road runners comments. Yes it will make you a better buyer, but more importantly, it can give you great insight into the dealers you are doing business and determining if you want to do business with them. I had two LCS that I did business with, one made fair offers and if his view was different then my expectation, he explained his view. The other remarked the coins 1/2 of which were bought buy him, were either over graded, had poor eye appeal and that he didn’t even want to stock that type of coin. Needless to say, one dealer get a lot of business from me each year, the other I don’t visit anymore.
Without a doubt.
Latin American Collection
I am not surprised to see all of the "yes" responses...and you can count me among them as well.
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It can be depending on the specifics. If you are selling, it is best to have an understanding who the best players are for what you are selling. You have to do your homework first and be prepared because selling is not always a pleasant experience.
Experience the World through Numismatics...it's more than you can imagine.
It absolutely does. It helps you understand the market better, and what the market will bear for what you like, thus refining your eye relative to your budget.
"It's like God, Family, Country, except Sticker, Plastic, Coin."
Another anecdote. A dealer friend of mine who I was doing sporadic business with was shown some of my gem type coins at a Baltimore show around 2004. Call it a mercy sale to help him out. He had interest in all the coins. He wrote down the prices, then turned around and visited a couple other bourse tables to see if those guys needed them....all the time with me waiting there at his table for him to come back. I was aghast....lol. Hey, I can do that too buddy. Don't need you. It's one thing if he had expertise in those coins and knew the highest buyer on the floor. He didn't. He didn't even fully understand the coins I had given him. I never did that again.
Most of us learn how to walk our own coins around to the higher paying players. If you don't know them, then in that case you work through a favored dealer who you trust with your life. When I couldn't attend particular shows that guy would get my coins and take them on consignment at my asking prices. His cut was 1.5-2.5%. Many times these sales paid his bourse fees, even some of the travel. So a win-win for both of us. And he liked the fresh contacts he made and maintained selling these 5 figure deals to other dealers. He also was a FAR better negotiator and reader of people than me....a valuable tool in being a top coin dealer. No one ever squeezed him for an extra dollar....on anything. He knew his stuff. He might have not had the name of Sid or Kevin Lipton....but he was (and still is) tough. Deals find him. Uncanny. Find yourself a go to guy like that to help your selling when needed.
Occasionally selling items should force a collector to learn something about the business side of the hobby. There are many business models that dealers use, there are direct sales vs. auctions. I have had similar experiences to ones that Roadrunner noted--particularly regarding attempts to sell dealers back the coins they sold me. Lessons like these are important, and sometimes painful, ones to learn. What they did for me was to harden my view of marketing in the coin business. NEVER take a dealer's representation of a coin as the truth if that dealer is trying to sell it to you.
I have seen 8 older collectors lose substantial portions of their net wealth because of blind trust and failure to learn how to sell intelligently before cashing out. In each case, they bought overgraded coins and did not understand that they were doing this until the end, when it was too late. I foolishly sold a nice set of AU55-58 Barber halves to a local dealer years ago, only to belatedly discover that he took the set to Long Beach and broke it up. Many of the tougher pieces were sold to other dealers. That was an important math lesson. Learning to sell, in some respects, is more important than learning to buy.
RMR: 'Wer, wenn ich schriee, hörte mich denn aus der Engel Ordnungen?'
CJ: 'No one!' [Ain't no angels in the coin biz]
What has surprised me is how many coins I've bought from other dealers that I had sold in the past few years. Many times I bought them for less than I paid for them the 1st time!
Is there a stigma about offering coins back to the dealer you bought them from?
Not sure selling made me a better buyer. But buying sure made me a better seller.
Yes, for sure it does.
Absolutely yes. Not only do you learn what to buy, but also who to buy it from and for how much. Most of the money to be made or lost in a coin happens the second you buy it, not eleven regrades, four stickers, and three decades later.
There are bunch of dealers I see at shows that always get my business and some that will never get my business again. You can do OK never selling, but if getting value for your money is an issue, what you learn will inform your buying decisions.
Yes! Selling has helped to teach me a few things. Most of what I've learned has been set out in detail and explained by previous posters, so I've nothing to add really except to reiterate and emphasize my yes.
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Yes, but I sell very few as I have to like a coin a lot to buy it in the first place. The coins I have sold did well because I sold them at the right time, mostly through blind luck.
Yes it does.
Agreed. After about the sixth regrade and the second sticker, the coin is usually maxed out...
There shouldn't be. They should be happy to get them back if they were nice coins. But if they work on high commissions the last thing they want is for you to come back and learn that truth. Hence they will turn you away with the excuse of having poor cash flow at the moment or having no buyers ready for those coins. In one case when I bought some monster coins from one National dealer, they had me swear I'd bring those coins back to them someday for 1st shot. When I did just that, they actually chuckled when I showed them the same coins they had sold me. They didn't want them back. Everyone says they want to see their old coins back....that's salesmanship. In 80-90% of the cases dealers don't want their coins back because they know they buried you in them. That view considers the ENTIRE coin market, dregs and all. And the last thing they want is to have that come to light via a low ball offer. Even the most honest dealers who work on 10-20% commissions can't usually afford to have all those coins coming back to them as a market peaks out. Makes for some ruffled feathers too. When markets get frothy like in 1980, 1990, 2008, etc. how many dealers want to be buying hand over fist at record prices with an overflowing inventory.....then get into cash flow situations when the market freezes up overnight. That can happen in one weekend - like in April 1980 at CSNS iiirc. KaBoom. And it was over.
For coins that are truly epic and pop tops those are usually welcomed back - though probably not at the moon money you paid for them unless the market has moved forward considerably.
It's always good to know both sides of the game.
Successful BST deals with mustangt and jesbroken. Now EVERYTHING is for sale.
To be fair, dealers who buy whole collections (read: they don't cherrypick collectors when they buy) are bound to wind up with coins they don't really want all that badly. They have to sell those coins to someone- doesn't necessarily mean there's anything wrong with the coins, even if they don't want to buy them back a second time.
Just sayin'.
i stick to one simple idea buy whatever gets my notice and with in my price range, selling is just something i do on the side really doesn't alter my general ideas of buying coins
COINS FOR SALE, IN LINK BELOW
https://photos.app.goo.gl/KCJYQg9x5sPJiCBc9
It reminds me that selling a lot of work and that I shouldn't buy too many coins lest I have to sell them.
IG: DeCourcyCoinsEbay: neilrobertson
"Numismatic categorizations, if left unconstrained, will increase spontaneously over time." -me
Absolutely. Without selling, you’re basically flying blind. You quickly learn if your view of material aligns with the market. Some might call it the school of hard knocks.
Dave
Yes. You learn what is truly desirable and what will sell when the time comes (even if it is merely to dump a duplicate).
Well if they know you often pay less than before .......
I give away money. I collect money.
I don’t love money . I do love the Lord God.
Absolutely! I learned more from selling than buying. I learned what to look for the next time around when I was buying.
One thing that hasn't really been discussed is "having to sell" versus "wanting to sell" to fund another purchase. I've been on both sides of this too. In 2012 I had to sell off the bulk of my type set. Fortunately, I knew a few good dealers... from whom I purchased the bulk of the set... and I didn't do too badly. I also sold a few pieces here on the BST and on ebay and managed to make out ok. Prior to that, I had to sell some Morgan dollars and went back to a B&M shop that I frequented. I realize the guy needs to keep the lights on, but I was only offered a small fraction of what I had paid. I shopped around. Also, it was "funny" how spots that we're no problems when I bought the coin, suddenly became the kiss of death. This made me evaluate coins much more stringently in future purchases.
Successful BST transactions with: SilverEagles92; Ahrensdad; Smitty; GregHansen; Lablade; Mercury10c; copperflopper; whatsup; KISHU1; scrapman1077, crispy, canadanz, smallchange, robkool, Mission16, ranshdow, ibzman350, Fallguy, Collectorcoins, SurfinxHI, jwitten, Walkerguy21D, dsessom.
@bidask I think he was saying that when he bought the coin the 2nd time, with the mark up from the other dealer, it was cheaper than before, meaning the dealer he bought it from must have paid considerably less...unless I misinterpreted that.
Exactly! How do you know how much someone is willing to pay if you don't get an offer from them!
I have so VERY much to learn.... seeing as how I have this large collection and do not sell at all.....Maybe I am afraid to learn of all my mistakes?
No, though I am sure there are some....Just thinking about selling any of my coins starts a huge attack of separation anxiety.... 
..."Oh no... I can't sell one of 'my precious' coins... Cheers, RickO
Upgrading and selling off duplicates can be a good way to stay informed to where the market is at.
101- Sell like an auction house and then price in your time and convivence. Youre not a retail seller. Many collectors think they are entitled to full retail Learning the spreads between outlets will let you know what real retail is and what is opportunity cost.
102 is figuring out what is worth the opportunity
11.5$ Southern Dollars, The little “Big Easy” set
It should be a requirement.
Nope.
If for some reason I don't want the coin anymore, it goes to DLRC.
Occasionally, I check my balance there.
I like what I like and don't have a problem paying a premium to get it.
My Saint Set
Yes, You learn real fast who are the good guys and who is not.
It also teaches you are the real value of your collection.
It only took me selling once to figure out one of the local shops were not nice guys.