I am thinking of selling my collection -- Need Advice Please!
Romankow
Posts: 146 ✭✭✭
Hi everyone.
I have an extensive collection of US classic coins that I am thinking of selling in order to buy a smaller set of higher grade coins. I am about 50 years old, and my kids are not very interested in my coins. So, when I die, I don't want to leave them with a safe full of coins that they are not interested in, have no idea of the value of, etc.
However, I am interested in putting together a US type collection, and already have a nice start. For example, I most of the basics from the late 1800's to present, a few gold coins, a few bust coins, etc. But I need to purchase more bust coins, gold coins, seated coins, and other pricier types to complete a type set.
So, I was thinking of selling the bulk of my coin collection, and using the proceeds to purchase coins for my type collection.
Here is what I would be interested in selling. Most of these are run-of-the-mill coins for their category (i.e., no key dates, G to VF condition):
- 20 Indian head pennies
- 1000 wheat pennies
- 5 three-cent pieces (nickel)
- 30 Buffalo nickels
- 5 Liberty nickels
- 100 Jefferson nickels
- 5 Barber dimes
- 30 loose Mercury dimes
- Mercury Dime album (about 85% complete, no key dates)
- 50 Silver Roosevelt dimes
- 4 Barber quarters
- Silver Washington Quarter album (about 85% complete, no key dates)
- 15 Walker halfs
- 6 Franklin halfs
- 50 non-silver Kennedy halves
- 150 Morgan/Peace dollars
- 40 Eisenhower dollars
- 50 oz Englehard silver (five 10 oz bars)
- 25 proof sets (from the early 1980s)
The big question is: how do I go about selling these? I am knowledgeable about their value, so I can put them on ebay and try to get the most that I can. But it is a daunting task. Do I create a single lot of silver Washington quarters, a single lot of Walker half dollars, a single lot of 150 Morgan/Peace dollars, etc.? Or do I separate them somehow into different sorts of lots? Or do I try to sell the whole collection? Or forget ebay and bring them to a coin show or meet with a private collector, etc.?
I live in the NJ/NY/CT tri-state area, if that helps.
I would appreciate any and all comments and suggestions. Thank you in advance!
--David
Comments
The silver items including all of the .900 fine silver coins will be easy to sell at the going rate. You just need to make some calls to dealers in your area to find out what they are paying. Most of the rest will be a tough sell and may not even be worth the time and effort you put into it.
Come to the Parsippany NJ show next week sunday and you will have a good shot at selling everything
To me, this looks like a walk into a brick-and-mortar coin shop or into a coin show and sell it all at once situation. You will leave a fair amount of 'money on the table', but it will save you some work and probably save a great amount of frustration too. No doubt some people here will disagree.
Do not rush to sell the silver dollars or the small Englehard bars separately - you will probably need them in order to entice a dealer to make a reasonable bid on the whole thing.
When you have been through this exercise, you may be more ambivalent about making future coin purchases.
I'd see if you could get objective grading/pricing on the coins individually if possible. If there are better date coins, they should be worth considerably more than common money. The problem with one day shows is most dealers will low ball you, or don't have the time to do the dd; unless you got an ethical person like Tom Hyland to go over the collection and I'm not sure he is doing Parsippany. Make haste slowly and it will get done at the right price. If you have a knack for photography, you could do buy it nows on ebay, do not do auction without reserves. Also do not do trades, the shrewd buyers always come out on top with those
Do you have a job?
If you dont;
Put it all on ebay one a time.
Get a camera digital a cheap one. Learn to use it ect. You can do this. You got 50+ years to go!
if you do sell small maybe 5 to 10 pieces all by them self's. Figure either 3 or 5 or 7 days. Figure that most people get home at night so thats when you want the sale to end but not late at night. Between 6pm to 9pm. Ending Friday or Saturday when us hard working people have time to buy. Make sure your aware of the time zone. You want both East and West Coast people.
Learn the work unless your incapable or indigent.
Yes its work but I guarantee you every time you sell one you get a little bit better. When you sell them all you will be an expert and you get the whole world looking at your stuff! Not just 1 city. If they gobble it up fast maybe your prices are too low you can change them once you have your auction underway. It will track how many looked at them and how many is tracking the auction. A kid can do this don't use your age as an excuse. Learn 1 step at a time. I sound a bit harsh but its the truth at least in my opinion.
They have a nice place here you can start. Snap a picture and let it happen. In fact I see some stuff you got right now I like.
all of the material you list would be best sold on the BST. Silver moves fast at market price. I suggest using a flat rate envelope or small or medium flat rate box for shipping depending on the lot sold. I suggest placing the lot with an image and set a price. Make offer post without a starting price sit for a while most of the time I never waste time on them anymore.
What condition are we talking about regarding the 50 Roosevelt Dimes?
Later, Paul.
This is sound advice. As a collector I have faced much the same circumstance. Find someone you can trust, and sell the lot. Like taking off a bandage. You may not like the result but the market is the market.
all depends on condition and the time you will invest in the effort of liquidating.
Latin American Collection
Post the proof sets on the buy sell board. The rest go to a Brick and mortar coin store and sell them. Check for better dates first! Good Luck!
Do not break it up. Sell it in one deal!
Maybe less money buy a whole lot less hassle.
Time is money sell it all don't let ANYONE pick just what they want!
Go to a brick and mortar shop and get the cash. No checks.
****> @Stooge said:
"Here is what I would be interested in selling. Most of these are run-of-the-mill coins for their category (i.e., no key dates, G to VF condition)"
Please do not take this the wrong way, but all the listed items are "stuff". They are not key dates and are generally circulated, which makes them inexpensive on a per-item basis. You will expend serious time breaking this apart for ebay or the BST and will also face ebay, PayPal and shipping expenses and these expenses can cut into your gross greatly.
The best thing to do is either go to a local coin shop, which can be a hit-or-miss venture, or go to a coin show and shop the coins yourself. The Parsippany show has already been mentioned by @joebb21 and that is a brilliant idea. Go to the show and sell all these coins in one morning without the hassle of images, listings or shipping and with none of the associated expenses of ebay, PayPal or the USPS. Unless you have either wildly overestimated the values or you have an emotional connection to the coins, everything will sell quickly, easily and painlessly.
In honor of the memory of Cpl. Michael E. Thompson
Take the list you provided. Add a price next to each post it to the Buy sell section of the forum put a total price discounted a little for anyone who agrees to buy it all ask anyone interested to PM you. Done
Best place to buy !
Bronze Associate member
I would take joebb and TomB's advice and divest all at the show. I think you will feel greatly relieved.
Selling at a coin show or on the BST will be fine, but it won't be completely painless. If you tell us more exactly where you live, perhaps we can suggest a local dealer that can be counted on to make a fair offer, and you can be done with it in one short meeting.
Doggedly collecting coins of the Central American Republic.
Visit the Society of US Pattern Collectors at USPatterns.com.
Have you ever considered trading them with a dealer who has inventory in what you are looking for?
I’ve slowly divested material like this over the years. I’ve sold to brick and mortars, at shows, at auction, and over eBay. It is somewhat humbling. I’ve learned it is easy to buy this sort of stuff, but it is hard to sell now that the market is all about slabs and CAC. If I had to do it again I would take the whole pile in one lump sum to a dealer or local auction house if you have one. Unless there is a hiddem gem in there you’ll probably get melt for the silver, 100 bucks for the proof sets, and a few times face for the pennies and nickels. You might get 25% more selling items individually on eBay, but it will take hundreds of hours of your life. Up to you if that is worth it.
All together though, you’ll be able to get some beautiful type coins with that money!
LIBERTY SEATED DIMES WITH MAJOR VARIETIES CIRCULATION STRIKES (1837-1891) digital album
A few of these may be best unloaded by taking them to the bank, or spending them. I cannot see any dealer paying above face value for circulated Ike dollars and non-silver Kennedy halves. (If these are uncirculated, proof, or the Ikes 40% silver, the preceding comment does not apply.)
And silver is not too high these days. You may get less than you paid.
Last point - check the proof sets for varieties like the 81-S type 2 dollar that are worth more.
A lot of info is needed can be all junk silver may be all Unc . Need info with pic you can take your items to a dealer or a auction house and they can give you prices you can always say no let me think about it then come back after. I can say a number but not seeing what you have is hard so let's say $3000 $3500 not seeing it in hand.
Hoard the keys.
G-VF coins will not have much value if the dats are not scarce. Way toooo much effort on your part to sell on eBay or BST. I would suggest that you package your coins in groups as you have described and sell them at a coin show to those dealers that make market in them.
You may end up with coins that you would rather own than give away.
OINK
With the limited information given, that price range seems very likely. Save a real surprise, the bulk of the value is in the silver dollars and the Englehard bars.
You can spend five hours or 150 hours working this group and it seems to me the outcome would be about the same.
There seems to be a variant of the 'Pareto Principle' at work when it comes to the liquidation of small modern U.S. coin collections: 20% of the items will make up 80% of the value.
TomB gave excellent advice... unless you have lots of time and enjoy doing detail work. That collection has some interesting material and a lot of bulk material. If it were me (and I have time), I would unload it quickly and with the least amount of work. The potential difference in 'profit' is really not worth the definite investment in labor/time. Cheers, RickO
Agree in principle, but sometimes I have spent the time, even though really "not worth it", to move smallish items on eBay. And on occasion have been pleasantly surprised, other times disappointed, but on the whole it was worth it to me to maximize what I would get out of "stuff". Not trying to earn a living at it, just move a particular group of pieces. Beats when I took a box of my prized coins to a dealer as a kid and he politely informed me he had less than any use for the dreck he had happily sold to me. YMMV.
@Romankow I feel your pain as I'm basically in the same boat as you. I inherited my great uncle's coin collection. My mother used to say that he was a collector of coins as opposed to a coin collector. I have draws and draws of all denomination of coins. Probably many thousands of coins in all plus Whitman Books most of which are full. There are many valuable coins but the bulk is nothing more than "loose change" that would take a very long time to move on ebay. Nothing is slabbed because that didn't exist 60 years ago. I've sold some mint sets to my local coin dealer and was satisfied with the amount I received but there's always that feeling that 'could I have done better'. I think the advice that you received here about locating a reputable dealer and sell in bulk might be the way to go. As others have said selling coins individually on ebay is a tedious task.
Good luck to you which ever way you decide to proceed.
Joe
Successful BST transactions with lordmarcovan, Moldnut, erwindoc
Unload those pennies - quarters in one lot to the dealer. And rest of half/dollar/ silver through BST or ebay. You will have a very low offer from dealer but it will cut down all the hassle while the rest of silvers are easy to sell anywhere with higher offer.
Thanks for all of your comments and suggestions, everyone! You gave me lots of food for thought!
I would go to proxibid and find an auctioneer that sells coins and is relatively close to your location. They almost all seem to accept consignments, you just have to negotiate terms.
I unloaded ALL my "dreck" with Russ a few years ago.
No regrets.
My regrets are that Russ isn't around any more. He made this SO easy.
BUT..... I think it's a good move to go from common to better.
Ebay Auction - start at 99c - just let em rip.
If you are in NJ I can help you out
Thanks
Frank D
Romankow: Depends on the amount of time you have. If time is not an issue, you can drabble a few coins out on Ebay over time when you have time. Speed release is costly. Suggest BST for nicer, interesting items with rare dates or conditions - there are good collectors here for those. If you love the items, you would want your children to go into a home where they will be loved. Local coin shop might be a good way to unload sets or small runs that have been collected or finished. For me, coin shows can be painful (physical, mental, tiring, travel, ugghhh) - I also don't like hauling my stuff (safe deposit or home safe, trunk, security, etc.) around so my preference would be to avoid that avenue.
A Barber Quartet is made up of Nickels, Dimes, Quarters, and Halves.
I agree with many of the comments. Try to post pics of groups of the dollars and ask for comments on here. Most of the value is in those so spend some time figuring their value and that will tell you of someone is trying to rip you on the deal.
Only if you want to sell at 99 cents.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.