Selling outright to Heritage

dan1ecu

Has anyone sold coins outright to Heritage? They claim to offer top dollar, but what is your experience?

Dan

gmarguli

They want stuff that can be turned fast.

Their prices are OK. Not great, but not bad. You can probably do better if you shop it around a lot or find a buyer in need. However, they have a large customer base and they might be willing to make a small profit on a quick sale.

I've offered them stuff in the past at shows and the offers were fair.

Depending on the coin you might do better putting it in their auction of selling it on eBay.

dan1ecu

Thanks, Greg –

That’s a good point about their costumer base - and it’s growing fast. They currently have 62,422 members. When I joined about a year ago I think it was in the 40,000's.

Dan

Spooly

Selling to Heritage is like selling to any other dealer. Heritage will give you wholesale prices. Sell them on e-bay and cut out the middle man.

BigD5

What are you selling? Throw it up on the Buy,Sell and trade board first, then Ebay. Depending on the coins, you should do better going that route.

gemtone65

If you have nice type or pattern material, want to sell it at a large show, and prefer to avoid shopping it around, then find Jim Halperin at Heritage. He'll offer close to the highest bid you'll likely receive from any of the of the other dealers there. If you're not satisfied, you could put it in auction with Heritage. Just ask them to get a new scanner.

dragon

Yes, I have offered coins to Heritage and never will again. I offered them an 1884-O Morgan PCGS MS66DMPL and an 1885-O PCGS MS65DMPL which were both average to sightly above average for their grades IMO. Some guy called me after receiving them and made me a very lowball offer on both of them telling me that they were low end pieces and one had a light fingerprint on the reverse and so on and so on..........he offered me $1175.00 for the 1884-O and $800.00 on the 1885-CC, I told him I would not sell at those levels and he puts me on hold for a couple minutes and then tells me that they can go up to $1475.00 on the 1884-O and $950.00 on the 1885-CC and this was their 'best' offer. I ended up selling as I just wanted to liquidate those two pieces and be done with it.

Two weeks later, I notice the 1884-O for sale on Heritage's website now listed as a very PQ, JH Exceptional coin for $2475.00 with a pic that made the coin look better than it was IMO. That's a 68% markup for a coin that they tried to tell me was low end and would be near impossible to resell. The coin was sold quickly off their website I presume as it was no longer listed after about a week.

Dragon

northcoin

Scott Travers in one of his books identifies Heritage as having perfected the art of cracking out coins and getting them upgraded. Although probably impossible to prove, many smaller dealers feel that sometimes the grades that come back are based on who submits the coins. Just assume an MS-65 being sold by Heritage was probably a MS-64 before they got it reholdered and that if you had sent it in it might even have come back as an MS-63. A more likely possibility is that the Heritage buyers are expert at recognizing which coins have the potential of meriting a crack-out for a higher grade. As an aside I have found from personal experience that while the Heritage auction department will go to great lengths to point out deficiencies in the same coin, their retail sales department will fail to mention those negatives. The auction and retail sides seem to apply a double standard.

dorkkarl

i have only ever tried to sell raw coins to heritage. their offer was fair, but each time, i was able to get a higher offer elsewhere. but i've only tried maybe five times.

K S

heavycopper

Thanks Dragon for sharing your experience with us. I've sold maybe 80 to 100 coins total so I don't have your experience. I received a letter from Heritage wanting to buy coins. I gave them my list of things I wanted to sell and they never replied. I sent them off to Teletrade and got $800. I guess I was too small for them.

It was amazing how they made 1 offer and then offered another $500. They my be large but not that fair. Then they talk down your coin to buy it and then talk it up to sell it. That's rather insulting.

RELLA

I offered them a number of nice small cents a few months ago just to get a feel for their buy prices. I don't remember most of their offers but I do remember a few...I'll mention one in particular that shows how much they pay to acquire PQ coins:

The coin in question was a 1914-S Lincoln in PCGS MS64RD. The coin was very PQ. Since it was in the box with the rest of the coins I was showing them I just figured I would let them make me an offer. I got back a "final" offer of around $1100...since I wanted $2200 for the coin and that would have been a bargain for the buyer (IMO) I didn't even try to haggle. This same coin is now residing (quite comfortably) in a PCGS MS65RD holder. It seemed to me from this and other coins in that group that they consistently offer buy prices as if the coins were low end for the grade...I guess it helps their bottom line. It wasn't the only coin to upgrade in the box either...and the one coin they liked and called PQ was not a nice coin for the grade, and it seemed that the fact that they called it PQ didn't make them feel like they needed to quote a better buy price than any of their other nutty lowball offers.

All in all still a better selling experience than others I have had. Sorry to have to say this but if you ABSOLUTELY HAD TO sell to a major national dealer I would still recommend them over most others...just goes to show how bad it really is to sell outright to an "old school" dealer.

RELLA

dragon

RELLA,

You probably confused them by offering them nice high end, PQ coins. I think they are more accustomed to being offered the low end dredge that other dealers can't sell and simply wholesale away.

Dragon

dan1ecu

The advantage of selling to Heritage (or a similar operation) is that you don’t have to deal with returns from unhappy costumers or costumers who refuse to pay, etc. I think friendships have been strained as a result of transactions that have not met expectations. For those who are in a hurry, it might be the best option to just accept Heritage’s offer. Of course, I hope that I never HAVE to sell...

Dan

EVillageProwler

Folks,

I am not a fan of Heritage (nor do I dislike them). I think it's important to remember that they are no better and no worse than pretty much every other firm.

Assume that they don't know you. That is, they have no real relationship with you... You offer them a coin, and expect them to high-ball you? If a stranger offered you a coin, would you high-ball them? Most of us would offer something at the low-end of the fair price range.

I know this thread is about Heritage, but if you're looking to sell your coins at a show, your best bet is to offer the coins to a dealer with whom you do have a good relationship. If he can't do you right, ask him to recommend someone. Then, take the coins to that dealer and say that he's been recommended. There is a chance that the second dealer would recognize this largesse and not make an arse of himself by insulting the seller and perhaps even the first dealer.

EVP

dorkkarl

what always worked for me before i established certain relationships was to scour a show floor & look for dealers w/ specialties. then, sell them your coins as appropriate, ie. don't bother offering your morgans to tom reynolds (a copper specialist), etc.

it's more work, but worth it, esp. because it forces you to get a look at a variety of dealers, & you may stumble on something you weren't really looking for (it's happened to me many a time.)

K S

bloodhound1

I did not sell outright but went to an auction. Sold about 15 coins... About ten of them came back bidded higher than I would have expected, three right on, and two under what I expected.

Not sure about this but the auction I sold to was the Bullett auction which ran concurrent with a major signature auction... Maybe that combination worked in my favor - don't know...

There has been some posts earlier in the year about someone who auctioned with heritage and received bottom-of-the-barrel prices.. The coin(s) as I remember were pretty pricey. If you have pricey ones, perhaps you may wish to set a minimum although I believe that heritage would prefer that you do not.

I guess the big question is why you would sell outright as opposed to auction... Just a thought anyway. Good luck. Whatcha selling by-the-way? PM me the coin list and what you want to sell them for...

dan1ecu

Hello, bloodhound1 –

I’m actually not planning to sell anything at this point. I was just wondering how others view Heritage in case I do want to sell some day. You have a good point about auctioning coins instead of selling outright. Of course, there are fees involved with doing it that way...

Dan

bloodhound1

The fees are not that high... only five percent of the coins total auction price. About three months ago, Heritage added a 15% buyers premium which the buyer pays... so bottom line you net loss outlay is still only five percent.

Petescorner

I took about a dozen slabs to their booth at the FUN show in January. One by one they looked at them and gave me individual offers. About half of their offers were 10-20% more than I had paid for them on eBay, so I sold those coins and kept the others. They wrote me a check on the spot which I used to pay for a really nice slabbed Buffalo nickel at another booth. Overall, it was a great experience!