Wow what a find.

DustyBooth

When i was visiting an older gentleman that i work with today, we started talking about coins. He told me that his wife collected them and had a few stored up in the top of his closet. He brought out 8 boxes that he could barely carry from the room. I was shocked to see what was in the boxes. The first box had about 40 rolls of Mostly unc kennedy halves from 64-67 and a couple of circulated rolls for franklins. One box contained only rolls of circulated Silver quarters. The remaining boxes were full of rolls of everything elese from indian heads to morgans. He told me that he had totaled up the face value on all of these coins and it was nearly 3000.00. To top it all off he pulled out a coffee can that was full of paper money, there were silver and gold bills and even a few large 5 dollar bills. Also there was a box full proof sets from the 60's and 70's- there are some nice cameo coins in these.

So now the hard part comes in trying to come up with a fair value on these coins, because he wants to sell them and does not want to take them to a dealer and would rather sell them to me someone that collects them.


Justin

Placid

Ask the guy how much he wants for it first. Then see if the price seems fair to you.
If he dosen't have any idea make a list of everything with rough grades and then figure it out using the greysheet and online auction results.

DustyBooth

There is a very large amount of material there it might take me a while to figure out just what exactly is there.


Justin

ldhair

I lilke the idea of asking what he wants first. I have been in this spot many times over the years. It's nice to know what the seller is thinking before spending lots of time working on it. Several times I have found something I just had to have and it did't work out.

dorkkarl

yeah, right. next your going to tell us the old geezer's name is "harold"! everyone on the forum knows that hoards like that DO'NT EXIST.

who're you trying to fool???

K S

silverandvinyl

Dorkkarl: You never know what people have stashed away.Here's an example.My friend who I grew up with has a small safe(about 2X2x2) full of Indian heads, Ben Franks,Mercury dimes,Ikes, Lincs,Libertiesand you name it.I know this because I just happen to tell him about my 1798/97 dime then he started to tell me what he had in that little safe of his.He didn't really know what he had in it.One day I stopped at his house and he started pulling these coins out.I was shocked.He had rollsand rolls of Ind.heads,silver Quarters dime and halfs.He also had a Ma.pine tree coin and four 1909svdb.Then he pulled out this cloth bag full of old 2 dollar bills,5 ,10,20 and 100.He would not let me go through much of the stuff becauce he did not want to know what they were worth.Once I told him about the 1909svdb and the pine tree coin(what they might be worth)he said that's enough and put the coins back in the safe.He said got most of them from his Uncle and Father.So,I know first hand about stashes people have hid away some where.

dorkkarl

hey silver&vinyl, believe me i was being 100% sarcastic w/ my post! but there are plenty of cynics on here who flat out do not believe there's any such thing as an "old man w/ a hoard of old coins".

i don't doubt the story one bit!!!

K S

mrdq

I agree, i've seen some NICE stashes in the last year. Coins over 300 years old, almost complete sets of different gold denominations, one guy with 500 rolls of merc dimes, absolute hoards of wheat cents, cans upon cans of indian head cents, and right now i'm being invited to a bank to look through a guys safety deposit box of canadian currency. He owned a store on the border in Michigan and kept every Canadian dollar he could get his hands on. Granted it's likely to be circulated "junk" but it's fun to look and you never know what will be there.

DustyBooth you lucky DOG

dorkkarl

a few months ago, was at a coin show & heard a coin dealer from columbia, illinois. he was talking about an old couple that had a dresser under the bed, and the old coot had been throwing change in there since the 1940'S! if you think about it, there has to be some unbelievable stuff in there, because in the 40's, barber coins in high grades were still showing up, commercial unc buff's and slq's, etc.

no doubt about it, that stuff is out there, probably a lot of it, too.

K S

petertdavis

Sadly, every "hoard" I've gone through was all common stuff. Of course, you might expect that being on the east coast. Your chances are better on the west coast of finding some key dates, I'd guess.

nwcs

I wish someone who had a stash would feel generous towards a certain 29 year old TN Vol fan sitting at work right now typing a message to the PCGS board at this moment. I would even promise not to sell them!

Trime

This should be great fun.
Please be fair in your assessment. There are so many indignant posts about others that treated people in a shabby fashion; if this acquaintance is trusting you; deserve the trust.

DustyBooth

Well ill add to the post that when i arrived at work today the older gentleman brought in the box full of rolled wheat cents and told me to go through them and if i needed any i could have them. There is probably 100 rolls here, this could take me a week or two to go through them all. How come there is always someone out there that has somthing sarcastic about everything and has to doubt stuff like this......





Justin

nwcs

I won't be sarcastic, I just want it to happen to me!!!!

dbldie55

Any Liberty Nickels in there

cdwegner

I don't think I've ever met anyone else that collected or collects coins.

Must be the crowd I hang out with.

Cam40

I,m in the same sorta dilema myself.A friend of a friends` grandfather willed all his stuff to him.
He claims not to be a collector so wants to sell all the coins.I have to feel him out about what he expects for these coins,which have yet to materialize.They will I know.Sadly he may be under the impression that a big bag or two of `uncirculated?`1971 Ikes are worth maybe alot.I shake my head.Not if there just clad Ikes.
I think they.re Ps or Ds... very doubtful there Ss.Anyway,I,m not sure what all is in the collection.I heard lots of IHCs and Lincolns, old silver halfs,and the bag(s) of `71 Ikes.

I,ll eventually follow up on this post with all the news.
It is exciting to have the good fortune to have an offer at some old-time collectors collection.
I,m just wary seller wants full-blown retail...I cant hang with that.
I wouldnt want to go and plop down $8,000 on mostly junk coinage.(AG IHCs,and Lincolns)

hrlaser

Visitng a friend of mine in the MidWest a year ago, he told me his grandfather had left him a huge collection, and he knew I was a collector, and did I want to see it, and he didn't have to ask me twice.. so he brought out box after box after bag of stuff.. unbelievable.. dozens of old blue Whitman folders that had been stacked and wrapped in brown butcher paper and taped shut.. obviously decades ago since the cellophane tape just crumbled off..

I started going through the stuff, which also included tubes, and boxes, and other stuff, and in every case of a full run of something, the KEY dates were all missing. FULL Whitman books of Lincolns with the S-VDB and other keys missing. Full Whitman books of Mercury Dimes with the 1916-D missing in both of them.. and on and on.. A couple of Morgan books with the 1893-S and other keys missing.. and what was interesting was that on close inspection those key date holes DID at one time have coins in them.. you can tell that sort of thing from an old Whitman folder.. he gold me his grandfather fell upon hard times, so he probably pulled out the most valuable coins in his collection years ago and sold them for walking around money, and then just wrapped up everythign else in that brown wrapping paper and stashed it away and never looked at it again..

Some of the coins, mainly the dollars, because their faces sit flush with the level of the hole in a Whitman folder, not pushed down below it as with smaller coins like cents and dimes, had been in those folders for so long, that the ones touching the flap where the description of the coin's history is had been touching the ink on those flaps for so long, under the pressure of being in stacks, that the coin toned everywhere but where the ink was touching it, leaving readable text in a lighter color, backwards, on the coins..

I shot some photos of what happened to some of these coins, sitting in Whitman folders for decades.. take a look..

MastaHanky

Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa, you guys missed the most important part:

<<He told me that his wife collected them and had a few stored up in the top of his closet.>>

His WIFE collected them.

There are female coin collectors out there.

I guess I have hope after all!

Pushkin

My parents had a hoard of silver collected over a 30 year period. Everything from Morgans and Peace Dollars, Walkers and standing liberty quarters to enough rolls of Franklins, Kennedys and other silver to fill the freezer area of a large refrigerator (guess where they kept them?). When my father died I was right out of college and didn't have the money or the interest to buy them from her. She sold most of it at bullion - I did get two rolls of Franklin and Kennedy Halves. A friend of my father's had a stash two or three times my parent's. My grandparents had several thousand dollars face value in gold US coins that an alcoholic aunt sold to the local banker at face value (not bullion value!). So, there must be a lot of these "hoards" out there. I was never fortunate enough to inherit any (almost any) of it.

ursabear

DustyBooth - Ask him what they are worth to him. This should tell you quite a bit about where his mind is.

Make your best estimate based on rough to medium market value, all written down by group, type, roll, etc. Don't just hit him with a price - give him the estimate sheet you've written and then let him see the total. It sounds as though he is comfortable with you, so I think retaining his comfort is paramount. It will probably work out to be a wonderful deal for both of you. I would bet that he values all the time you will put into it, and he values your opinon as a collector. (IMHO, of course.)

Have fun, and don't forget to rest your eyes often while pouring over the coins.

mbbiker

My friends grandpa just passed away and left all of his coins to him. His grandpa owned a gas station during the 30,40,50,60's and saved all the coins he was given. Probably between 6-7 thousand $'s face
the only problem is his mom won't let him touch them (she won't even consider letting one of his friends to look through it) any ideas on how to make her give him the coins (they were willed to him and he is over 18)

hrlaser

<< <i>My friends grandpa just passed away and left all of his coins to him. His grandpa owned a gas station during the 30,40,50,60's and saved all the coins he was given. Probably between 6-7 thousand $'s face
the only problem is his mom won't let him touch them (she won't even consider letting one of his friends to look through it) any ideas on how to make her give him the coins (they were willed to him and he is over 18) >>



Did the will state any conditions such as they were to be held in trust until he was x years old?

The laws vary from state to state, and the condition of the will, legal guardian status, blah blah etc. etc. I'm not a lawyer, and I don't play one on teevee, but if your 18+ year old friend is directly named in the will as the beneficiary of the coins, without stipulation or other conditions, then he should talk to a lawyer, with a notarized copy of the will in his possession..

Harv

Pushkin

Beware of family feuds. Ours and other people's.

relayer

You should offer him $9,730.19

Assuming he had the $3,000 in coins since the early 70's at only a 4% annual yeild he would have earned $6,730.19 in interest over 30 years.

If he put it in the stock market and earned 12% $3000 would be worth $89,879

Now just try selling them for $90k