Options
Question about selling world coins.
![[Deleted User]](https://wc.vanillicon.com/c928a3070142e36e101e8ae66688b50d_100.png)
[Deleted User]
Posts: 0 ✭
I have a few hundred world coins I am trying to list them for sale. Well I spent two hours photographing and listing them in the BST only to have a message of " will be posted after approval". It's proven to be difficult to do this and very time consuming. Would it make more sense to just list the entire group for a certain price and let it go?
I've got lots of coins from 1800's Great Britain, France, Germany. I also have many from the early 1900's up to 1960.
I don't want to deal with all this.
I'd sell the whole thing for $500.
Would this make sense?
Do you know of a dealer or collector I could communicate with who would have an interest?
Just to give you an idea this is what I have to deal with-
0
Comments
It's a matter of personal preference. How much is your time worth to you and do you enjoy administrative tedium.
Sounds like you do not. I don't either. It's one of the reasons (secondary one) why I have changed the types of coins I buy. Most coins require too much effort to sell to recover a high enough proportion of my cost, effort I'm not willing to make.
I put them on the BST forum for $100. I just want to sell them. I am sure they are worth much more to someone else. I just don't have the time. Alot of uncirculated coins in there. Thanks for responding.
Hi, Watchtower.
I am in a similar situation and like you, I don't have the patience to deal with photos, listing, selling (hopefully), shipping and dealing with potential returns...and so on. I have been a collector for maybe 60 years and a lot of stuff is sitting in the bank (the box is costing me a fortune). I think I'll pick out the best stuff to list separately and "group" the rest, perhaps by age of coins, countries (or continents) silver content, or other characteristics and take the plunge by listing in affordable groups. I hope young collectors will spot the listings, if/when they appear, as I like kids to get a chance to get some bargains. There seem to be less and less youngsters in the hobby and that is a real shame in my opinion. At the last show I attended, maybe 3 years ago, I made little "baggies" of foreign coins and some U.S. like Buffalo nickels, silver dimes, Indian cents and gave them away to kids. The smiles I got from the kids and the appreciation from the parents really made my day!! Piano1
Why don’t you wait for the BST to be approved and see what happens?
Folks generally don't like this answer, but I typically tell people in your position to just blow the group out as quickly and painlessly as possible. This often means bringing them to a local dealer, if possible, and taking what you might consider a lowball offer. However, and this is a big however, whomever buys these coins from you will then find themselves in your position in terms of liquidation, time, effort and resources. It is an enormous time-sink to sell a large number of low value items that have individually little collector demand. You will sit on them forever, spend far too much time with images, inventory and "value" and will have simply spun your wheels.
In honor of the memory of Cpl. Michael E. Thompson
We sell base metal foreign coins in 30 pound bags on eBay. We buy them by the pound in quantity. We buy silver coins at a discount of their melt value unless they are better.
You could take the entire group and give it to a auction house like Stacks Bowers.
FYI , I just bid on and won lot 26531 ( recent Stacks auction)...a group of 100 british colonial coins ( all denominations) .
Paid $900.
BUT I looked through them before I bid!
I give away money. I collect money.
I don’t love money . I do love the Lord God.
I just received from the recent Stack’s NYNiC auction lot 26531 ( 100 raw coins British colonial all denominations )
I forgot what is in there but there may be some goodies 😊
Will have some fun this evening.
From the Salton collection I think 😊
I give away money. I collect money.
I don’t love money . I do love the Lord God.
Yes, it's better to have not many expensive coins than many cheap.
TomB, you did good thing. And i think collecting antiques in all time was not massive hobby.
Peace.
I'd sell them in a single lot (or perhaps a few lots, grouped by country or type), rather than going through the Herculean task of listing and photographing them all individually.
And I say this despite the fact that I used to be a bulk lot World Coin cherrypicker who did almost nothing but lots like this.
I really enjoyed searching and researching them, and selling my better finds. That's how I built my collection up, over time, when I was really poor. I'd buy bulk lots of cheaper World coins, cherrypick 'em and sell the good stuff, and then use the proceeds from that to buy higher-end single items for my collection, constantly trading upward over time.
I even used that "trading up" method with World coins to effectively get two US 1877 Indian cents for the equivalent of eight bucks in trade, once!
https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/217498/how-i-got-two-genuine-1877-indian-head-cents-for-eight-dollars
But this kind of cherrypicking takes a massive amount of time and energy, and I find I don't have that level of dedication anymore. It only makes sense for somebody who actually enjoys the work to do this, because it's an awful lot of work.
PS- I will say that presorted "old collection" lots in envelopes, like you've got there, are fairly popular with buyers, as World coin bulk lots go. Somebody with the time and dedication would have a blast with a lot like that. I know this because that's precisely the sort of lot I used to go after in my World coin cherrypicking days.
For some coins this might be about the best advice but for many it is not. For large numbers of low value coins that are liberally graded taking them to the corner shop might be best. For a $500 lot you'll get about $50.
But conservatively graded coins and some of a little higher value a different tactic is needed. Selling the nicer ones as a lot would do well.
With BU moderns the difference is even more extreme. $500 assortments in the coin shop might not even get a $10 offer but on eBay can easily bring 60% of catalog with some issues much more.
Most junk silver will have to be sold as silver but better and older silver also does well.
I do agree though that it would be very easy to waste a great deal of time and effort on lower value base metal coins from the 1850's to the 1950's. There are strong markets for few of these coins unless they are Unc. Almost any world coin worth less than $2 will be a hard sell and they often end up in poundage or trash. They aren't necessarily common but they are very low demand and usually very common.
Let eBay decide what they're worth
This and this. Group lots of older/better than typical world junk box material seem to be doing quite well on eBay these days, especially if you mix a few silvers/crowns in there.
Also, if there happens to be any older Asian or Latin American in there aside from the European widget material, that can do pretty well.