How Do You Make Any Money Selling Cheap Coins?
matteproof
Posts: 722
Can someone please explain how it's possible to make any money selling inexpensive coins? What are the advantages to selling inexpensive coins (say, $5-$100) over selling bigger ticket coins 1k and up? Does it make sense to have a large inventory of inexpensive coins? If so, how does anyone make any money with such an inventory? I can't figure it out. Yet, I see people selling this stuff all the time. Thanks! 
matteproof
matteproofRemember Lots Wife
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Of course, I average about $1. per hour.
The part of the equation that you are leaving out is that this is a hobby to me. I would do it even if I didn't make money because it is something I enjoy doing.
Joe.
K S
The collector they introduce to the hobby today by offering less expensive items and getting the "Coin collecting bug" into them with affordable less expensive coins, will be the big dollar collector of tommorrow.
When I was young, some many decades ago, I could go down the street to a local mom and pop shop and look through boxes of circulated buffalo nickels, or through binders full of "moderns" that I could afford at the time. I filled my little Whitman folders, and discovered the joy of coin collecting. The seed had been planted. Today, I cannot take my son anywhere, and do the same thing. He gets an allowance, and cannot afford to collect seriously yet. There is not one dealer within any reasonable driving distance of our residence that we could walk into and say let me see your Jefferson Nickles, or Memorial Lincoln Cents. This is an opportunity lost. The opportunity to introduce new blood to the hobby. Even as an experienced collector, I like to put together high grade modern sets while I am waiting on a nice piece for my more serious collections to show up. Modern sets need all of the so called "filler" or "common" dates too. Whats the fun in purchasing just the keys and having half an empty album? But I have to really scour the on-line sources to find dealers who offer nice pieces of broken mint and proof sets so I can fill those spaces. Most dealers cannot be bothered, and only wish to deal in the big ticket items. I have to ask, what would be more advantageous in the long run? Selling a nice Morgan for $200 to a collector that may never buy there again, or having some young beginner stop by and drop $35 on a fistfull of Kennedy Halfs and Jefferson Nickels once a month? Which was more expensive to obtain and stock in the store? With the type of money that flows today in the coin business, stocking a shop with nice common material would not even phase their bank accounts. I think it would be wise for any dealer who can do so, to stock both common and inexpensive stock as well as the more highly prized items. Remember..... Todays beginner may well be tommorrows big collector.
Having said that one still has to sell a lot of this stuff to make a living. Volume is the key along with high mark-ups.
Aside from play games with the grades, there is nothing unethical about this. It's just the economics of the business.
Given this, I think that its easy see why those buy lower grade, inexpensive coins are often disappointed when they get ready to sell their collections.
I sell mostly on eBay, if you're interested.
<< <i> As a collector, non-dealer, the only way I've found to make money on common junk is to buy it in larger lots and split it up for sale on ebay. I've done a little of this, basically making up for the things I've overpaid on. Like someone a little bit ago said, a dollar an hour or less -- but if you enjoy working with lots of coins, there is some pleasure in it. >>
I agree. I've bought some big lots of Indian cents, and while I can make a few bucks by separating out semi-key dates and better grades and then re-selling the problem-free average circulated commons in bulk at or near cost, if you looked at it in terms of dollars per hour it would be a joke -- I could make more mowing the neighborhood lawns by a long shot. But I enjoy it, so I do it.
For example, I bought a lot of several hundred Indians a while back for about 90 cents each. Not a great price, mind you, but I knew this lot had several 1859s, a half dozen other copper nickels, an 1866, 1868, 1870, and all of 1873-78 except 1877. I'm selling these for $5-30 a piece, depending on date and condition -- which makes the net "cost" of the rest of the coins about 55 cents each. I stripped out the problem coins and eBayed them in a small lot for about 50 cents each. Then what I was left were nice, problem-free commons ranging from Good to XF. I broke these down by grade and started selling the problem-free lots by grade (about 140 G-4/G-6 coins, 50+ VGs, about 25 F/VF coins and 10 XFs). If I can get even 60% of current retail on these lots I'll come out considerably ahead.
By the time all is said and done, I think I'll probably net about $500 on a $300 investment. But there's a lot of time and patience that go into it as well.
jim
less than $10.00 - I'll buy them by the truckload.
Collecting Morgans in Any Grade
Lets say a guy sells a coin for $10 that he bought for, say, $5 (a 100% markup) he would still need to sell ten coins like it per day just to make fifty bucks! Over a five day week, he would need to sell 50 coins like it, all making a "double" from $5-$10, to make a whopping $250 bucks per week (and this assumes that he will be making a 100% markup on every coin he sells). Scary thought! Of course, 100% markups may not occur so often, and some coins could even sell for a loss, thus lowering the total amount earned - yet not lowering the heavy amount of work and cost involved. Consider the following often tedious work involved in selling a coin:
taking photo of the coin obverse and reverse, cropping photo, connecting the obverse photo with a reverse photo, uploading the photo to the web, writing a description, writing html code, uploading all of this to Ebay for listing, responding to emails (if any), contacting winning bidder (assuming it sells), receiving money from winning bidder, taking money to the bank, packing the coin, going to the post office, filling out the forms at the PO, posting feedback for the bidder. Man that is ALOT of work! Of course, if something does not sell (which is often) then all of this work was toiling for the wind (and the Ebay fee losses add up).
Yet, I see people on Ebay selling all kinds of certified coins for under ten bucks or slightly over! Even PCGS certified coins. The cheapest PCGS slab is $15 isn't' it? How can anyone logically sell ANY coin for far less than the slabbing fee let alone the cost of the coin? When you factor in the cost of the coin, the slab, etc, it still seems to me that they must be losing money. Yet, the same Sellers do many listings like this all of the time. There must be some angle to all of this that makes them money - new customers? Perhaps. But in the coin circles that I've seen, this is probably not the case. Last thought, while I certainly understand that someone might enjoy being active in coins for the love of it, why wouldn't that same person sell, say, a $300 coin that he bought for, say, $250? It would bring the same "selling satisfaction" but it would be with far less work (fewer coins to list) and arguably much nicer coins too. Thank you again for your input.
No body in their right mind (except perhaps for registry purposes) would send in a coin for slabbing that will be worth less than the slabbing fee. Such coins are the “mistakes” that result from high volumes of submissions or “mistakes” by those who are less than competent graders.
I don't what they pay for these coins, but one dealer's market strategy is to mark them with a price and sell them for half what they are marked to all comers. If you are a dealer and are prepared to buy a number of pieces, you can get them for a discount below that.
make it up in volume.
Steve
Sell them for more than you pay for them
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since 8/1/6
<< <i>Go to a bar with a junky 2 cent piece and take bets that you have a 2 cent coin. It's good for lotsa free beers!! >>
Thanks for the advice, counsellor.
<< <i>I lose money on all my cheaper coins but I
make it up in volume.
Steve >>
Steve:
Neither you nor I try to make a profit when we sell off our inexpensive duplicate dimes on eBay. When I break even or make a slight profit, it is often because the buyer adds $1.30 for insurance (USPS rates) and I pay less than that for U-Pic insurance and delivery confirmation. You have been honest to a fault, charging actual postage rates or less.
Steve's comments are right on target for those professional sellers who recoup their eBay and PayPal fees through handling charges.