Do you still buy circulated wheat cents, buffalo nickels, ...
savitale
Posts: 1,409 ✭✭✭✭✭
I received a mailing from a local auction company that is offering about 200 lots of coins in their next sale. Mostly groups of 90%, "average circulated" buffalos, rolls of wheat cents, partially filled Whitman albums, and stuff like that. It's not all bad, just generally common date VG-F grade material. I suspect this is an estate sale. It occurred to me that there are probably millions of these coins sitting in aging collections, which may start flooding the market in the next 10-20 years.
So my question is: does this stuff still have value (over face)? Do dealers still buy and sell this material? And for how long? I feel like it's just a matter of a few years before anything not in a slab will be the equivalent of "postage" to stamp collectors, i.e., material that sells in bullk at or below face/melt.
Comments
Never did, never will.....
Latin American Collection
Yes, I do...at face value from the cash register till...they are few and far between.
BST transactions: dbldie55, jayPem, 78saen, UltraHighRelief, nibanny, liefgold, FallGuy, lkeigwin, mbogoman, Sandman70gt, keets, joeykoins, ianrussell (@GC), EagleEye, ThePennyLady, GRANDAM, Ilikecolor, Gluggo, okiedude, Voyageur, LJenkins11, fastfreddie, ms70, pursuitofliberty, ZoidMeister,Coin Finder, GotTheBug, edwardjulio, Coinnmore, Nickpatton, Namvet69,...
I find them free in Coinstar reject slots and only pay face value even for teens dated Buffers in rolls.
Wholesale price on wheats is $150-$175 per bag. If you are buying them at face value, you are ripping people off.
Buffalo nickels also have wholesale prices depending on full dates, partials or slicks.
Currently, they are NOT face value. If any of you would like to unload your excess at face value, I will take all you have.
If there's anything else you think the MARKET is wrong about, I'll happily buy it all at less than market value. Canadian large cents. Cull U.S. large cents. Whatever ya got.
Is it common? Yup. Is it going up in value? Nope. But market price is market price.
I don't think paying .01 for something that is worth .02 or maybe .03 max is the end of the world. Also if people are buying and selling at face, isn't that the market working? I would personally never pay for a common wheatie or buff. You can buy a box of cents (costs $25 at a bank) and find 10-20 wheaties in each box if you want to get them at face value.
Buying 1 or 2 is no big deal. But if someone comes in with a bag of wheats - as happens - and you pay them $50 in face value and then make a phone call and ship it for $175, that's an excessive profit.
It's just that people are always calling dealers crooks, even though coin margins are painfully thin. And now here's a bunch of collectors arguing that buffs and wheaties should be purchased at face value. Yet if you bring your MS-65 common date dollar in to the store and I offer MS-64 money (which is like $10 less than 65 money), I'm a crook.
Sorry, just a pet peeve.
I recently sold my wheat cents, so dealers still by them...........not much over FV though
Successful transactions with : MICHAELDIXON, Manorcourtman, Bochiman, bolivarshagnasty, AUandAG, onlyroosies, chumley, Weiss, jdimmick, BAJJERFAN, gene1978, TJM965, Smittys, GRANDAM, JTHawaii, mainejoe, softparade, derryb, Ricko
Bad transactions with : nobody to date
Ill buy wheats and buffs for over face value. I sell lots of them
HAPPY COLLECTING
I wouldn't even pay face value for them. Costs related to selling, which many collectors never seem to either calculate or consider, make them a losing proposition. As an example ... a bag of wheat cents weights 35 pounds ... just think of the shipping costs alone ... and then ... just what do you do with them?
I buy them around .03 shipped and take them to a local coin auction. Which they sell between .05 to .06 each.
My Ebay Auctions
shipping is 14$ for up to $70 pounds
Face on Wheaties and 40 cents on full date buffs, face on anything less.
bob
No, I sell them these days.
Here in flyover America, the market for lots of low -end seminumismatic 'stuff' has simply dried up since 2011 or thereabouts. Only Pollyanna says otherwise.
That's why i always say, throw 'em back into circulation. Let the kids find them and hopefully develop into a new generation of coin collectors.
nope, I still remember getting them in my change
BHNC #203
Checked eBay. In the past couple months about one hundred wheat cent bags have sold for $200 to $300 each. I guess there is still a market, but based on the above comments I’m not sure there still will be one in ten years.
LIBERTY SEATED DIMES WITH MAJOR VARIETIES CIRCULATION STRIKES (1837-1891) digital album
Hope for $10 a pound copper, and no restrictions on melting.
That would be 7 cents each.....I'll go for that, too!
bob
No comment.
Where's this wheat cent auction? I want to sit in the back of the room and snag 2 or 3 VG's when everyone's tired.
Shipping is cheap. You put them in a flat rate priority box for under $10.
I'll buy all the wheat cents you have at 2 cents each. PM me. I'll toss 'em in a bag and wholesale them at $175 per bag. Great money just for carrying them to the post office.
Yes once in a while when I feel like educating myself. I have about 2,000 foeirgn old coins. I have separated some into countries. I have about 80 countries thus far. Big bags are great for learning.
Best place to buy !
Bronze Associate member
When I find them in change, I keep them.....I do not buy them. However, buying a lot for a YN to build a set of Lincolns is a good thing.... Cheers, RickO
no not as a rule
Ok, that answers the shipping question ... but ... just what do the buyers actually do with them once they get them. They are just numismatic junk ... extremely common numismatic junk. Are they trying to appear on "Hoarders"?
Some people like to look through them for "finds" (teens or mint marks). Some people hoard them. HSN/QVC types use them to put together novelties items.
Where do you think I find varieties ? In the spice, man !
``https://ebay.us/m/KxolR5
Are searchable for errors/varieties if not picked over.
When i sell them and make a small profit i don't know what the buyer does with them and I don't care
HAPPY COLLECTING
I do. But only if it's a date/mintmark I need. I don't buy cents often because I hope to find them in circulation. I've gotten every Philadelphia mint cent from 1935-2017 in circulation and several older. When I do buy than it's almost always San Francisco mint. Never have gotten buffalo nickels in change so if I want them I have to buy them.
I think a lot of collectors got started on the lowly wheatie so they are probably pretty important. If you can get them for a penny, spend them or give them to kids.
Successful BST deals with mustangt and jesbroken. Now EVERYTHING is for sale.
What a few of you sneeringly call junk is how many YN's get their start, or maybe not if they read posts like that, jeez. The same ones that wonder where all the YN's are. Sure they are not ways to save for retirement, but I think even they figure it out. I haven't had too much trouble selling excess wheat cents to dealers for 2 to 3 cents each either.
10-4,
My Instagram picturesErik
My registry sets