Coin Marketing 101 - Serious Edition

ModCrewman

When I opened the other similarly titled thread, I was hoping for a useful discussion of some coin marketing basics, that may have even included some helpful tips for more seasoned collectors.

What are your "Coin Marketing 101" tips?

MidLifeCrisis

Why do collectors need to worry about marketing (he says half seriously)?

braddick

Sell to whom you have purchased from.
It's all about relationships built on trust and loyalty.

keyman64

When I had a Proof Franklin Doily up on GreatCollections, I had a BST thread that I bumped every day until it sold. I also had it in my signature line. Just a little extra effort I put in to maximize the outcome.

MidLifeCrisis

<< <i>Sell to whom you have purchased from.
It's all about relationships built on trust and loyalty. >>


This has worked well for me over the years.

TwoSides2aCoin

... advice is billable at $$400 per hour. This took me 20 minutes to type. Are you sure you want my advice ? Guess how much the invoice is.
eBay
Craigslist
Trade magazines
Internet
Heritage
Stacks/Bowers
Great Collections
Coin Shows
Brick & Mortars
Pawn Shops

...been thinking about this for a while before editing. PM me for my PayPal address. I'll just round it off to $400. Please add 3% for Pay Pal fees.

JohnMaben

<< <i>Why do collectors need to worry about marketing (he says half seriously)? >>



Well..... (half seriously) you don't. That is if your giving it away. Otherwise, marketing is part of every successful sales transaction, in coins, or otherwise.

John

amwldcoin

I have always worked under the premise coins sell themselves!

19Lyds

All at once?

Folks have been shot for A lot less!

BryceM

Good photos, honest descriptions, no games.

That is all.

Coinosaurus

Dunno. If you indicate what it is you are trying to sell, I think you will get more direct advice.

Cougar1978

1. Don't assume or expect the guy you bought it from is going to buy back your coin. My experience with this has often been "sorry, no interest, we are phasing these out." Or "my gosh, who graded that, what a dog. Somebody must have sent this in umpteen times to get that grade" A favorite: "Well we would be buyers but due to current market conditions we are way overstocked on these right now. But if you want to buy something we will allow you a trade in for your coin at full certified bid (bluesheet). We believe in dealing fairly"
2. Learn to shop your coins around the bourse and at shops. Expect them to pull out a bluesheet.
3. Get some experience selling coins on Teletrade. You will probably realize on average 80% of CDN Bid, sometimes less.
4. Get some experience selling coins on ebay. If you don't know how to describe the coin research how other sellers are showing theirs.
5. Learn how to take clear coin pics with a digital camera. Use two light sources one on each side.
6. Subscribe to the greysheet, coin world values, and the CCDN bluesheet. You can get it monthly for $29 for 6 months. Mine shows both bid and market (low dealer to dealer ask nationally).
7. Finally its a lot easier to buy cons than it is to sell them.

RedTiger

It isn't that different from other sales jobs. There is a guy at the local coin club, joined maybe three or four years ago. He is now a part time dealer. and does okay at selling coins. The guy is chatty, can negotiate pretty well, is friendly. He becomes much more friendly if he finds out that you might buy some of his coins. He has a decent memory, remembering what others might be interested in. He is not shy, perfectly willing to take the many brush offs that he gets, because a percentage of his outreach results in sales. As one might expect, this dealer's numismatic knowledge remains relatively low, but the material is mostly cheaper raw material and the personal touch is often lost in this modern age. This is an in person example. On the Internet there are other ways, some of which have been mentioned.

This all presumes that a person wants to become at least a part time coin dealer. If not, consign the lot to one of the dealers that takes consignments and be done with it. The self-selling route often results in getting paid at about the $5 hourly rate that the lower tier of part time coin dealers often make. That's fine if a person thrives on all that activity, not such a good decision if a person values their time, and doesn't really enjoy the selling activities. If a person is asking the question posed, they are often in the camp that doesn't enjoy selling.

/edit to add: unlike other sales jobs, at least half the job of the coin dealer is finding inventory. Someone that doesn't have the sources and/or the skills to acquire decent inventory isn't likely to make it as a dealer.

coppertoning

<< <i>When I had a Proof Franklin Doily up on GreatCollections, I had a BST thread that I bumped every day until it sold. I also had it in my signature line. Just a little extra effort I put in to maximize the outcome. >>



I will give this one a try

Walkerguy21D

My advice for selling, apart from the mass marketing approach (Ebay, BST, etc) that others have already provided info on -
target market your coins to the best 'audience'....the dealers and collectors who specialize in what you have.

Charmy (Penny Lady) pays strong for nice indian and large cents. Rich Urich pays strong for tough seated coins. Glenn Holsenbake
along with other regular contributors to the Barber MegaThread are strong a buyers of better Barber coins. If at show, review the
dealer's inventory before offering your wares. Someone who has a lot of nice material probably pays up for it.

BAJJERFAN

<< <i>I have always worked under the premise coins sell themselves! >>



Good ones do, dreck not so much.

ricko

I do not worry about it since I will not sell any coins (except maybe some gold). Cheers, RickO

Baley

I think that maybe for me a coin's inherent desirability is inversely proportional to the need to "market" it to sell it.

That's what I worry about when too much of a coin's price seems to be tied up in plastic, grading opinion tag, sticker, and advertising costs and profit margin for the "marketer"

A good test: Crack it out and put it in a safeflip and then how much is it worth? divide this by asking price and ask yourself what is the percentage?

another good test: how many of them (whatever coin) are on ebay right now? If there are a lot of them, "marketing" makes all the difference, because it appears that marketing is a lot of what's being purchased, and when you want back out of the coin, that's what you have to add..

there's an industry that buys stuff fresh from the mint, puts it in plastic with fancy appelations, and promotes it as "rare coins".. there's your marketing 101 for you, if anything brings down the "coin industry" it will be what they did to stamps, to sports cards, to beanie babies... flood the market with fake value that taints it all, and make it a one-way market as much as possible, how can the little guy compete with the high volume marketers when the time comes to cash out?