Online vendors - where do they buy their coins?

ceeveeNJ

Newbie question here. For all of the vendors on eBay (or any online site), who week in and week out have several dozen to several hundred new/used coins for sale, where do they typically go to sources these coins? Basically, if I wanted to become a seller, where/how would I go about sourcing a starting inventory?

Thanks, CeeVee

MICHAELDIXON

When I sold heavily on eBay, I purchased my inventory at local shows, local coin shops and off the Buy-Sell-Trade boards here.

LindeDad

Under grade of the sets I build. And yes there are a few of us old timers still building sets.

TommyType

There are "coin wholesalers" out there....but by saying that, it only begs the question, "Where do THEY get their coins?"

Basically, all coins come, in one way or another, from the public from existing collections. Afterall, nobody is manufacturing the things!

You sell a coin, and it is bought, sold, and resold until it becomes available to the public again. Might be one step....might be a dozen steps.

I'm sure the fewer the steps, the better the deal. In other words, a dealer buying directly from a collector will have the potential to get the coins cheaper than if he buys from another dealer, who bought it from a collector.

It's a big, inefficient, machine. Sometimes even collectors stumble onto coins they think they can "easily" sell for more than they paid. Sometimes, everything looks overpriced.

TwoSides2aCoin

I buy online, at shows, auctions and through brick & mortar shops.

PTVETTER

some real wholesalers have NO interest in dealing with the public.