Coin show or help a friend sort through an inherited coin collection?

Tramp

What would you choose?
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Last weekend I was in SD to attend my 40 year Class reunion, which coincided with the annual AMA in Sioux Falls SD. However, the day before the show, my long time friend, invited me to help him go through a coin collection he's inherited and he knows little to nothing about coins. Unfortunately, there just wasn't time to do both the show and go through the collection, so I chose to help my friend. Plus, it was an opportunity to dive into the unknown. He had no idea what was in all the safes and lock boxes stuffed full; about 10 of them.
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After about 4 hours of combing through all the contents (absolutely no rhyme or reason to this collection) I was able to separate what had higher value e.g. bulk silver (Engelhard), 4 oz .999 silver plates (5&10 dollar replica), rolls of silver Mercs & Roosies, Washington's, roll of WLH and Franklin's, roll of silver Kennedy's, about 10 Peace and Morgan dollars along with a few standing and seated liberty Dimes and quarters. Most of the coins were common date MM in very circulated condition.
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Nonetheless, it was very exciting and fun to dig into this unknown collection to see what it contained and provide my friend some history of the coins he has.
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Hopefully, the collection is around the next time I visit to search further. More time needed than available to filter the thousands of coins further e.g. mint sets, rolls of pennies, dimes and quarters, hundreds and hundreds of wheat cents, medals and foreign coins, which I'm not familiar with.

For my help, I was offered my choice of a coin. Cool! I didn't choose anything outlandish, just a Lincoln cent that I was missing, 1911-S, for my circulated Lincoln set. I wasn't expecting anything other than the fun of diving into this collection and helping a friend.

Onastone

What would I choose? Absolutely help a friend go through his unknown collection!

anablep

You chose wisely...

Would much rather help a good friend with little to no knowledge of coins than fart around in a stuffy coin show any day.

mark_dak

Go help your friend and have fun sorting, hit the AMA show... skip the reunion. Still time to spare.

Mark

Walkerfan

You did the right, selfless thing.

You may have had more fun, at the show, but you probably got a better feeling from helping an old friend.

jfriedm56

Best choice to help out an old friend. Always fun to go through an old time collection to find that hidden treasure.

Conshyboy

Yeah choosing the friend option would have been the choice for me,i wish I had another chance to hang with some of my close friends who have passed way too soon. Cherish the time with your good friends there will always be another show,