What about foreign silver? It doesn't require deep knowldge to see if that's in the mix. Is even that problematic?
My impression is that foreign silver is a bear to sell. Maybe that’s wrong, but that’s how I interpret it.
Some foreign silver is heavily debased. When I was in high school in the mid 1960s, I used to wonder how Mexico could have a peso represented by a silver coin when the peso was worth so little in foreign exchange. Despite the fact that coin looked and felt like a nice piece of metal, it contained only 10% silver. I’m sure that there are foreign “silver coins” that look good, but are heavily debased. It makes picking the good silver pieces out of the pile harder.
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I used cull out foreign silver, damaged US silver, silver tokens, jewelry, trinkets, silverware, etc. Agree, some of the Mexican was 10%, and a lot the items listed above had no social redeeming value at al, as it was wrong county, wrong era, whatever.
It was real easy for me. I just took it, plus war nickels, 40% Kennedys, etc. and put them in a container, and periodically dropped them off at the local smelter. They paid 95% of melt, and and the junk was removed from the earth once and for all.
I am retired, but play with old cars and parts, and attend a lot of swap meets. I buy what I call gas money. Last weekend, at a car swap meet, bought a late 60's Chevy Truck Copper radiator, holed, $5, 2 20" aluminum wheels (scraped) for $8, and an old wave form generator for $1. The radiator brought $63 in scrap copper, the wheels brought $16, and the wave form generator brought $35. Right at $100 profit for buying junk and either scrapping or repurposing it.
The goal is not to get rich, but clean up the environment a bit and pay for gas and lunch while having fun at a swap meet.
@291fifth said:
Bulk foreign at $5 per pound ... no way ... far too generous for what is mostly junk, junk, junk. Never assume that there will be "something good" hidden in such material.
Bulk wheat cents at $150 per bag ... no way ... why would you even want to buy bulky trash like common wheat cents? You should probably charge the seller to haul them away.
Because you can easily sell the foreign at $7 or $8 per pound amd you can easily sell the wheats at $180.
Sorry. I guess I shouldtry to rip more people off.
@AUandAG said:
Most foreign I come across is worthless crap that can't even be spent in the country of origin. Don't even bother to look at that unless you really know foreign. I refuse to buy bulk foreign as my luck is not good. If I buy a collection and it has foreign coins, I tell the seller I'll give away to YN's for him if he wishes. Otherwise he can keep.
Good luck,
bob
What about foreign silver? It doesn't require deep knowldge to see if that's in the mix. Is even that problematic?
My impression is that foreign silver is a bear to sell. Maybe that’s wrong, but that’s how I interpret it.
Some foreign silver is heavily debased. When I was in high school in the mid 1960s, I used to wonder how Mexico could have a peso represented by a silver coin when the peso was worth so little in foreign exchange. Despite the fact that coin looked and felt like a nice piece of metal, it contained only 10% silver. I’m sure that there are foreign “silver coins” that look good, but are heavily debased. It makes picking the good silver pieces out of the pile harder.
Foreign silver will range from 0.100 fine to 0.925 fine. It's not that hard to sell in bulk. It will sell back of melt for the scrap and debased stuff, but you can bulk it out
Any collection that I look at, I start with the high denomination first.
Break them down into groups...
Gold, silver dollars, silver half dollars, etc.
slabed items, then loose coins.
Foreign coin (gold,silver VS change)
You get the idea, from there do a quick review and adjust your offer.
I its 100,000 choice coins take more time with your assessment, BUT your time is money...even if you work cheap, make it worth your time.
@Namvet69 said:
I agree with I2, armed with numismatic knowledge, are you going to get some time to examine this quantity of coins? Is a clock ticking on this situation? Gold and silver US are easy to spot, 25K is a lot of your money. Are you the only potential buyer? The quantity of coins is irrelevant, it's how they were accumulated and stored that could be a clue. Peace Roy
I am the only potential buyer right now and his son said they are meticulously maintained in books and holders.
@Namvet69 said:
I agree with I2, armed with numismatic knowledge, are you going to get some time to examine this quantity of coins? Is a clock ticking on this situation? Gold and silver US are easy to spot, 25K is a lot of your money. Are you the only potential buyer? The quantity of coins is irrelevant, it's how they were accumulated and stored that could be a clue. Peace Roy
I am the only potential buyer right now and his son said they are meticulously maintained in books and holders.
If the son is telling the truth, sounds like his dad put a lot of time into the accumulation.
If your going to make an offer, leave enough room to account for your time, depending on what is there could take a lot more work than you think to move it.
On the other hand it could include some nice coins. Either way this is a good example of why we all need to leave written instructions on what to do with our collections after we pass.
@291fifth said:
Bulk foreign at $5 per pound ... no way ... far too generous for what is mostly junk, junk, junk. Never assume that there will be "something good" hidden in such material.
Bulk wheat cents at $150 per bag ... no way ... why would you even want to buy bulky trash like common wheat cents? You should probably charge the seller to haul them away.
Because you can easily sell the foreign at $7 or $8 per pound amd you can easily sell the wheats at $180.
Sorry. I guess I shouldtry to rip more people off.
When dealing with numismatic garbage like bulk foreign or wheat cents a seller should be looking for jewelry store-like margins. There is absolutely no reason to be generous when buying low value junk like that.
Because you can easily sell the foreign at $7 or $8 per pound amd you can easily sell the wheats at $180.
Sorry. I guess I shouldtry to rip more people off.
When dealing with numismatic garbage like bulk foreign or wheat cents a seller should be looking for jewelry store-like margins. There is absolutely no reason to be generous when buying low value junk like that.
Generous? I'd say fair.
Of course, if those coins are all in 2x2, that is another story. You might have to pay me to take them all out of the 2x2s.
@Wabbit2313 said:
It's crazy to ask if a hundred thousand coins are worth 25K When you don't even know what the coins are!
Well, face value alone on the coins has to be worth many thousands.
Really? 100,000 cent's is $1000 nor many thousands
Every single coin was a cent? what if half were nickels and dimes?
What if half of them are canadian small cents? Obsolete Italian Lire or French francs?
10 Lire aluminum coins go about 300 per pound. So, 100,000 coins is only 330 pounds of aluminum which is about $150 in recycling.
All kidding aside, while 100,000 coins should end up being worth a few thousand, it could be a few thousand that is difficult to realize. Especially if it is 3 cent coins in 2x2 holders, just the time value of processing the collection makes it a loser.
And, I've seen an accumulation of memorial cents that was in the MULTIPLE hundreds of thousands. The guy's father would go to flea markets and buy up rolls of cents. Not even unc rolls. He also had tens of thousands of wheat cents, many of them mixed in with the memorials.
How did the forum come to the conclusion that the coins are all memorial cents or aluminum lire? while it is possible, it is also possible some nice coins could be in the mix.
The original advice given to the OP of taking a look at the accumulation makes a lot of sense, spend a few hours, get some decent facts, then decide how to proceed. Could be a great find or waste of time, no way of knowing until hes see's what is there.
@tyler267 said:
How did the forum come to the conclusion that the coins are all memorial cents or aluminum lire? while it is possible, it is also possible some nice coins could be in the mix.
The original advice given to the OP of taking a look at the accumulation makes a lot of sense, spend a few hours, get some decent facts, then decide how to proceed. Could be a great find or waste of time, no way of knowing until hes see's what is there.
We didn't come to that conclusion. We did suggest to some people who were overly enthusiastic that it is POSSIBLE that it is an accumulation of junk worth well under $25,000 and not necessarily worth time.
@Wabbit2313 said:
It's crazy to ask if a hundred thousand coins are worth 25K When you don't even know what the coins are!
Well, face value alone on the coins has to be worth many thousands.
Really? 100,000 cent's is $1000 nor many thousands
Every single coin was a cent? what if half were nickels and dimes?
What if half of them are canadian small cents? Obsolete Italian Lire or French francs?
10 Lire aluminum coins go about 300 per pound. So, 100,000 coins is only 330 pounds of aluminum which is about $150 in recycling.
All kidding aside, while 100,000 coins should end up being worth a few thousand, it could be a few thousand that is difficult to realize. Especially if it is 3 cent coins in 2x2 holders, just the time value of processing the collection makes it a loser.
And, I've seen an accumulation of memorial cents that was in the MULTIPLE hundreds of thousands. The guy's father would go to flea markets and buy up rolls of cents. Not even unc rolls. He also had tens of thousands of wheat cents, many of them mixed in with the memorials.
Weird, What if? What if? 100K has a face value. If they are all cents, no. If the 100K coin hoard is world coins, no. Got it. Since we don't know, either of us guessing is rather pointless.
Don't you keep your 3-leg buffs, red unc 09-S VDB's and 14-Ds in stapled 2x2s?
Seems you can look them up on the Barber dime page of the redbook too
Looks like bait to me.
A number of years ago, I made the mistake at looking at a friend's "old coins." Spent 4-6 hours. Mostly Wheat Back Lincolns from the 40s and 50s. Dimes were mosty late date Mercs. Most 19th Century coins were either bad Chinese fakes, or IHCs, Liberty Nickels and Barber Dimes with corrosion, or if not, in AG-G.
The only coins worth looking at were an 1865 3 Cent Nickel in F-VF that was lumped in with the Mercs, and an 08 S IHC that would grade VF-XF, except it had a lot of gunk on it.
I will never do this again under any circumstances.
"Vou invadir o Nordeste, "Seu cabra da peste, "Sou Mangueira......."
@SanctionII said:
Any further update and/or photos?
You guys will hear for sure, good or bad. The guy has been busy, he did call to say he hasn’t forgot about it but will call. On a side note we have another common friend I talked to the other day and he saw the collection and he said it was large quantity with lots of boxes with individual coins in 2x2’s. He did say the guy was paranoid about getting hosed on the sale. The guy apparently mail ordered a bunch of Coins so it could be a bust. We shall see.
Until you can analyze it possibly inventory it I would not have high expectations.
What they say and the reality of what they have can be very different. They can be deer in the headlights with over expectation. Also the relative they got it from could have blown out the good stuff for girls, travel, booze leaving just the junk.
His being paranoid is not your problem. Let him take it to a coin shop if he does not like your offer if any. He as already told what he would take. I doubt it’s even worth that.
I would ignore what he has said, inventory it / price it out (when back at home) then make him an offer (that works for me) then he can take it somewhere else if not interested. What is key to me is what can I sell it for quickly and how long this will take. My offer wb a pct of that factoring in any risks. Of course my goal is a happy ending which yields the estimated profit.
If you don’t feel competent to handle project bring in an experienced partner who knows how handle these people you can divy up deal with - otherwise refer him to somebody who can handle it. Bear in mind he may make a counter offer so leave yourself plenty of room. Or he may decide shop it around then come back to you unless they won the deal.
Question for the group...was it common to mail order Coins in the 60-90’s? I met one other guy that did that and he Had a surprising number of decent date Coins in OK condition.
@Bigbuck1975 said:
Question for the group...was it common to mail order Coins in the 60-90’s? I met one other guy that did that and he Had a surprising number of decent date Coins in OK condition.
Usually it's Littleton coins. I mean, there are other mail order houses, but they were the biggest especially for bulk. Littleton coins are usually solid but pricey. One of the most difficult discussions you can have is over a purchase offer on a collection purchased from Littleton. Of course, in this case, it is the son not the buyer so unless he has the receipts he may not know how much his father paid.
His paranoia is also going to be a problem. With someone like that, you need to be the second offer not the first. He will likely end up angry at you for "low-balling" him. It's better to be the second person after the first person has angered him and lowered his expectations.
@Bigbuck1975 said:
Question for the group...was it common to mail order Coins in the 60-90’s? I met one other guy that did that and he Had a surprising number of decent date Coins in OK condition.
Usually it's Littleton coins. I mean, there are other mail order houses, but they were the biggest especially for bulk. Littleton coins are usually solid but pricey. One of the most difficult discussions you can have is over a purchase offer on a collection purchased from Littleton. Of course, in this case, it is the son not the buyer so unless he has the receipts he may not know how much his father paid.
His paranoia is also going to be a problem. With someone like that, you need to be the second offer not the first. He will likely end up angry at you for "low-balling" him. It's better to be the second person after the first person has angered him and lowered his expectations.
If he goes somewhere else I am OK with it as it needs to fiscally make sense for me to do it. Thank you for your input, i appreciate it.
Usually it's Littleton coins. I mean, there are other mail order houses, but they were the biggest especially for bulk. Littleton coins are usually solid but pricey. One of the most difficult discussions you can have is over a purchase offer on a collection purchased from Littleton. Of course, in this case, it is the son not the buyer so unless he has the receipts he may not know how much his father paid.
His paranoia is also going to be a problem. With someone like that, you need to be the second offer not the first. He will likely end up angry at you for "low-balling" him. It's better to be the second person after the first person has angered him and lowered his expectations.
If he goes somewhere else I am OK with it as it needs to fiscally make sense for me to do it. Thank you for your input, i appreciate it.
Just telling you what's happened to me. It doesn't have to go that way for you. Couple true stories:
75 year old man was buying 3 of everything for his 3 kids. All from Littleton. Proof/Mint sets. A set of Susan B. $s. A set of Sacs. State quarters. He had started a set of Peace $s. Sets of modern nickels and cents. He had paid over $3000 for 3 shoe boxes worth of stuff. He took it to a coin store, they told him the truth. He got mad, got in an argument. He came to my buddies shop who called me. I told him the same story the other coin store did. He went from mad to sad. Sold it to me for about $700 because he needed the money.
60 year old guy inherited his father's accumulation of crap. Easily 100,000 coins+. Very few of them nice. His father liked volume over quality. He went to every coin store in town. Got in arguments with all of them for "low-balling" him. Ended up at me. I spent HOURS explaining things, showing him how to grade, showing him the Greysheet.
He started selling stuff to me, but still made me justify every price. I spent dozens of hours negotiating with him over every box of junk he brought over. Sometimes it was a bunch of cleaned silver. Sometimes it was piles of bulk foreign.
He would spend even more hours trying to find everything on eBay first. After TWO YEARS, he finally learned to grade, realized I wasn't cheating him and become easier to deal with. But I spent HUNDREDS OF HOURS with him and the collection, ended up spending almost $50k on it and, at this point, I'm barely even on what I've sold and still have piles of garbage I need to move.
I could also tell happier stories, of course. Although my happiest stories usually involve buying a single coin (sometimes at Heritage or Great Collections, by the way) and selling it for more than I expected. Buying large accumulations rarely have good margins because of the amount of dreck that you have to dispose of.
Story #1 always bothered me because that poor guy needed money and tried to do something nice for his kids only to lose thousands. Story #2 was really more about my unwillingness to walk away early. LOL. He had a couple interesting pieces in the early lots along with a lot of junk. I kept waiting for something good to come along. It never did. I spent way more time and money than it was worth in the end.
Usually it's Littleton coins. I mean, there are other mail order houses, but they were the biggest especially for bulk. Littleton coins are usually solid but pricey. One of the most difficult discussions you can have is over a purchase offer on a collection purchased from Littleton. Of course, in this case, it is the son not the buyer so unless he has the receipts he may not know how much his father paid.
His paranoia is also going to be a problem. With someone like that, you need to be the second offer not the first. He will likely end up angry at you for "low-balling" him. It's better to be the second person after the first person has angered him and lowered his expectations.
If he goes somewhere else I am OK with it as it needs to fiscally make sense for me to do it. Thank you for your input, i appreciate it.
Just telling you what's happened to me. It doesn't have to go that way for you. Couple true stories:
75 year old man was buying 3 of everything for his 3 kids. All from Littleton. Proof/Mint sets. A set of Susan B. $s. A set of Sacs. State quarters. He had started a set of Peace $s. Sets of modern nickels and cents. He had paid over $3000 for 3 shoe boxes worth of stuff. He took it to a coin store, they told him the truth. He got mad, got in an argument. He came to my buddies shop who called me. I told him the same story the other coin store did. He went from mad to sad. Sold it to me for about $700 because he needed the money.
60 year old guy inherited his father's accumulation of crap. Easily 100,000 coins+. Very few of them nice. His father liked volume over quality. He went to every coin store in town. Got in arguments with all of them for "low-balling" him. Ended up at me. I spent HOURS explaining things, showing him how to grade, showing him the Greysheet.
He started selling stuff to me, but still made me justify every price. I spent dozens of hours negotiating with him over every box of junk he brought over. Sometimes it was a bunch of cleaned silver. Sometimes it was piles of bulk foreign.
He would spend even more hours trying to find everything on eBay first. After TWO YEARS, he finally learned to grade, realized I wasn't cheating him and become easier to deal with. But I spent HUNDREDS OF HOURS with him and the collection, ended up spending almost $50k on it and, at this point, I'm barely even on what I've sold and still have piles of garbage I need to move.
I could also tell happier stories, of course. Although my happiest stories usually involve buying a single coin (sometimes at Heritage or Great Collections, by the way) and selling it for more than I expected. Buying large accumulations rarely have good margins because of the amount of dreck that you have to dispose of.
Story #1 always bothered me because that poor guy needed money and tried to do something nice for his kids only to lose thousands. Story #2 was really more about my unwillingness to walk away early. LOL. He had a couple interesting pieces in the early lots along with a lot of junk. I kept waiting for something good to come along. It never did. I spent way more time and money than it was worth in the end.
Run forest run!! I hope that isn’t going to happen but you are probably right.
@Bigbuck1975 said:
Question for the group...was it common to mail order Coins in the 60-90’s? I met one other guy that did that and he Had a surprising number of decent date Coins in OK condition.
In the 60s through late 80s coins were sold raw, it was like the wild west, lots of cleaned and overgraded coins were sold to uninformed collectors, especially mail order.
Could be some good coins there just make sure you can grade and detect counterfeit and cleaned coins. If you make an offer leave yourself plenty of room. To cover both time and risk.
Littleton does grade accurately but most of what they sell is very common and hard to resell.
@Bigbuck1975 said:
The kid is 50 years old. The 25k was really pulled out of the air. He figured they must be worth something. He started to look and gave up as there is too much there. It took him 3 days to move it to his house and 4 truckloads (back seat of club cab).
My back hurts just thinking about it. Probably weighs at least 500 pounds... maybe up to 1,000 pounds.
Successful BST transactions with forum members thebigeng, SPalladino, Zoidmeister, coin22lover, coinsarefun, jwitten, CommemKing.
100,000 coins for $25K. I suspect that 25K is either way too high or way too low. Based on the size of the "collection" I suspect it is way too high.
I have at times been casual collector/accumulator. I buy what interests me. But, those who have a real focus and drive (such as some here on the forum) tend to have fewer pieces of high quality/value, rather than more pieces of lower value. So, I assume that the 100,000 is mostly low end stuff, in which case 25K is more than I would spend. If, on the other hand, it is all silver, etc. then 25K is way too low.
That, combined with his apparent mistrust, would make me very apprehensive. It is a no-win situation.
I acquired a collection that is not nearly as big as the one the OP is pondering and I am still trying to unload a lot of it. eBay is fine but it does take time to photo and post. For me, with a normal job, wife, kids etc. I was hoping it would be gone by now but still plenty left! Gives me something to do in my downtime I guess.
Make sure there is enough meat on the bone for your time and effort.
I would believe it when I see it - something seems over estimated.
Some of these people are simply flakes and until u do an inventory c what’s really there / find out if they are for real and want to deal u never know.
I once bought fairly close to complete set of circ walkers close to melt. $300 Prob good stuff already taken out most vg / F. Took couple years blow it out get retail I wanted. Silver going up helped lol.
@tyler267 said:
I'm just curious is there any update, I would love to find out what's in the collection?
No update. Seller is now apparently in a “I’m gonna get hosed” state and sitting on it for a while.
I am not going to press this and will simply wait til he is ready.
As I suggested to you before, this is not a collection you want to be the first one to look at. I had a seller like this once. He ended up burning through every dealer in town before he ended up making my life miserable for 2 years. LOL. But he will NEVER go back to those other dealers, even though they hadn't done anything wrong. But their offers, while fair, made him feel like he was being ripped off. It took months of educating him on grading and market value before I could get anywhere. In the end, it wasn't worth my time.
Comments
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I used cull out foreign silver, damaged US silver, silver tokens, jewelry, trinkets, silverware, etc. Agree, some of the Mexican was 10%, and a lot the items listed above had no social redeeming value at al, as it was wrong county, wrong era, whatever.
It was real easy for me. I just took it, plus war nickels, 40% Kennedys, etc. and put them in a container, and periodically dropped them off at the local smelter. They paid 95% of melt, and and the junk was removed from the earth once and for all.
I am retired, but play with old cars and parts, and attend a lot of swap meets. I buy what I call gas money. Last weekend, at a car swap meet, bought a late 60's Chevy Truck Copper radiator, holed, $5, 2 20" aluminum wheels (scraped) for $8, and an old wave form generator for $1. The radiator brought $63 in scrap copper, the wheels brought $16, and the wave form generator brought $35. Right at $100 profit for buying junk and either scrapping or repurposing it.
The goal is not to get rich, but clean up the environment a bit and pay for gas and lunch while having fun at a swap meet.
Because you can easily sell the foreign at $7 or $8 per pound amd you can easily sell the wheats at $180.
Sorry. I guess I shouldtry to rip more people off.
Really? 100,000 cent's is $1000 nor many thousands
Foreign silver will range from 0.100 fine to 0.925 fine. It's not that hard to sell in bulk. It will sell back of melt for the scrap and debased stuff, but you can bulk it out
Any collection that I look at, I start with the high denomination first.
Break them down into groups...
Gold, silver dollars, silver half dollars, etc.
slabed items, then loose coins.
Foreign coin (gold,silver VS change)
You get the idea, from there do a quick review and adjust your offer.
I its 100,000 choice coins take more time with your assessment, BUT your time is money...even if you work cheap, make it worth your time.
Sounds like fun to me!
I am the only potential buyer right now and his son said they are meticulously maintained in books and holders.
If the son is telling the truth, sounds like his dad put a lot of time into the accumulation.
If your going to make an offer, leave enough room to account for your time, depending on what is there could take a lot more work than you think to move it.
On the other hand it could include some nice coins. Either way this is a good example of why we all need to leave written instructions on what to do with our collections after we pass.
This is a fun thread. Please let us know how it turns out.
As to silver below 50%, my refiner won't take. Cost to refine eats the profit it appears. They won't even take Kennedy 40% silvers.
bob
When dealing with numismatic garbage like bulk foreign or wheat cents a seller should be looking for jewelry store-like margins. There is absolutely no reason to be generous when buying low value junk like that.
Generous? I'd say fair.
Of course, if those coins are all in 2x2, that is another story. You might have to pay me to take them all out of the 2x2s.
Every single coin was a cent? what if half were nickels and dimes?
What if half of them are canadian small cents? Obsolete Italian Lire or French francs?
10 Lire aluminum coins go about 300 per pound. So, 100,000 coins is only 330 pounds of aluminum which is about $150 in recycling.
All kidding aside, while 100,000 coins should end up being worth a few thousand, it could be a few thousand that is difficult to realize. Especially if it is 3 cent coins in 2x2 holders, just the time value of processing the collection makes it a loser.
And, I've seen an accumulation of memorial cents that was in the MULTIPLE hundreds of thousands. The guy's father would go to flea markets and buy up rolls of cents. Not even unc rolls. He also had tens of thousands of wheat cents, many of them mixed in with the memorials.
Do you do windows?
How did the forum come to the conclusion that the coins are all memorial cents or aluminum lire? while it is possible, it is also possible some nice coins could be in the mix.
The original advice given to the OP of taking a look at the accumulation makes a lot of sense, spend a few hours, get some decent facts, then decide how to proceed. Could be a great find or waste of time, no way of knowing until hes see's what is there.
We didn't come to that conclusion. We did suggest to some people who were overly enthusiastic that it is POSSIBLE that it is an accumulation of junk worth well under $25,000 and not necessarily worth time.
No one has suggested that it isn't worth a look.
Weird, What if? What if? 100K has a face value. If they are all cents, no. If the 100K coin hoard is world coins, no. Got it. Since we don't know, either of us guessing is rather pointless.
I would view it and verify it’s something I would pay $25k for.
That’s 25c a coin - junk? Morgan Dollars?
These people usually over state things and have inflated idea of its worth. Plus how bulky is it? Storage space required?
Would tell him “can handle liquidation at that but need see it / gauge size, type of inventory.”
Next step take look at it estimate inventory what can sell it out for. Then go or no go. Finally consulate deal at my bank if go.
I doubt it’s that many items and or bids / melts for anything near $25k. Very skeptical.....
If it's more than 25K in common coins, he would haul it to the bank himself.
I would expect him bring it to bank.
Not necessarily. He may not know. And he may not want to bother trying to figure it out, especially if it's in 2x2s.
Here’s an example from cl
who counted them?
Any further update and/or photos?
Don't you keep your 3-leg buffs, red unc 09-S VDB's and 14-Ds in stapled 2x2s?
Seems you can look them up on the Barber dime page of the redbook too
Looks like bait to me.
Collector, occasional seller
Am I the only one who will be real disappointed if we don't hear how this worked out?
I want to know also.
An awful lot of suppositions... I just wish the OP good luck and I hope that he reports back here!
Check out my current listings: https://ebay.com/sch/khunt/m.html?_ipg=200&_sop=12&_rdc=1
A number of years ago, I made the mistake at looking at a friend's "old coins." Spent 4-6 hours. Mostly Wheat Back Lincolns from the 40s and 50s. Dimes were mosty late date Mercs. Most 19th Century coins were either bad Chinese fakes, or IHCs, Liberty Nickels and Barber Dimes with corrosion, or if not, in AG-G.
The only coins worth looking at were an 1865 3 Cent Nickel in F-VF that was lumped in with the Mercs, and an 08 S IHC that would grade VF-XF, except it had a lot of gunk on it.
I will never do this again under any circumstances.
"Seu cabra da peste,
"Sou Mangueira......."
5 non-slabed goodies just conveniently sitting aside? Hmmm.
You guys will hear for sure, good or bad. The guy has been busy, he did call to say he hasn’t forgot about it but will call. On a side note we have another common friend I talked to the other day and he saw the collection and he said it was large quantity with lots of boxes with individual coins in 2x2’s. He did say the guy was paranoid about getting hosed on the sale. The guy apparently mail ordered a bunch of Coins so it could be a bust. We shall see.
Yes I am curious what he has.
Until you can analyze it possibly inventory it I would not have high expectations.
What they say and the reality of what they have can be very different. They can be deer in the headlights with over expectation. Also the relative they got it from could have blown out the good stuff for girls, travel, booze leaving just the junk.
His being paranoid is not your problem. Let him take it to a coin shop if he does not like your offer if any. He as already told what he would take. I doubt it’s even worth that.
I would ignore what he has said, inventory it / price it out (when back at home) then make him an offer (that works for me) then he can take it somewhere else if not interested. What is key to me is what can I sell it for quickly and how long this will take. My offer wb a pct of that factoring in any risks. Of course my goal is a happy ending which yields the estimated profit.
If you don’t feel competent to handle project bring in an experienced partner who knows how handle these people you can divy up deal with - otherwise refer him to somebody who can handle it. Bear in mind he may make a counter offer so leave yourself plenty of room. Or he may decide shop it around then come back to you unless they won the deal.
Question for the group...was it common to mail order Coins in the 60-90’s? I met one other guy that did that and he Had a surprising number of decent date Coins in OK condition.
Usually it's Littleton coins. I mean, there are other mail order houses, but they were the biggest especially for bulk. Littleton coins are usually solid but pricey. One of the most difficult discussions you can have is over a purchase offer on a collection purchased from Littleton. Of course, in this case, it is the son not the buyer so unless he has the receipts he may not know how much his father paid.
His paranoia is also going to be a problem. With someone like that, you need to be the second offer not the first. He will likely end up angry at you for "low-balling" him. It's better to be the second person after the first person has angered him and lowered his expectations.
If he goes somewhere else I am OK with it as it needs to fiscally make sense for me to do it. Thank you for your input, i appreciate it.
oins in OK condition.
Just telling you what's happened to me. It doesn't have to go that way for you. Couple true stories:
75 year old man was buying 3 of everything for his 3 kids. All from Littleton. Proof/Mint sets. A set of Susan B. $s. A set of Sacs. State quarters. He had started a set of Peace $s. Sets of modern nickels and cents. He had paid over $3000 for 3 shoe boxes worth of stuff. He took it to a coin store, they told him the truth. He got mad, got in an argument. He came to my buddies shop who called me. I told him the same story the other coin store did. He went from mad to sad. Sold it to me for about $700 because he needed the money.
60 year old guy inherited his father's accumulation of crap. Easily 100,000 coins+. Very few of them nice. His father liked volume over quality. He went to every coin store in town. Got in arguments with all of them for "low-balling" him. Ended up at me. I spent HOURS explaining things, showing him how to grade, showing him the Greysheet.
He started selling stuff to me, but still made me justify every price. I spent dozens of hours negotiating with him over every box of junk he brought over. Sometimes it was a bunch of cleaned silver. Sometimes it was piles of bulk foreign.
He would spend even more hours trying to find everything on eBay first. After TWO YEARS, he finally learned to grade, realized I wasn't cheating him and become easier to deal with. But I spent HUNDREDS OF HOURS with him and the collection, ended up spending almost $50k on it and, at this point, I'm barely even on what I've sold and still have piles of garbage I need to move.
I could also tell happier stories, of course. Although my happiest stories usually involve buying a single coin (sometimes at Heritage or Great Collections, by the way) and selling it for more than I expected. Buying large accumulations rarely have good margins because of the amount of dreck that you have to dispose of.
Story #1 always bothered me because that poor guy needed money and tried to do something nice for his kids only to lose thousands. Story #2 was really more about my unwillingness to walk away early. LOL. He had a couple interesting pieces in the early lots along with a lot of junk. I kept waiting for something good to come along. It never did. I spent way more time and money than it was worth in the end.
Run forest run!! I hope that isn’t going to happen but you are probably right.
In the 60s through late 80s coins were sold raw, it was like the wild west, lots of cleaned and overgraded coins were sold to uninformed collectors, especially mail order.
Could be some good coins there just make sure you can grade and detect counterfeit and cleaned coins. If you make an offer leave yourself plenty of room. To cover both time and risk.
Littleton does grade accurately but most of what they sell is very common and hard to resell.
My back hurts just thinking about it. Probably weighs at least 500 pounds... maybe up to 1,000 pounds.
Successful BST transactions with forum members thebigeng, SPalladino, Zoidmeister, coin22lover, coinsarefun, jwitten, CommemKing.
100,000 coins is a great way to punish your heirs.
Successful BST transactions with forum members thebigeng, SPalladino, Zoidmeister, coin22lover, coinsarefun, jwitten, CommemKing.
100,000 coins for $25K. I suspect that 25K is either way too high or way too low. Based on the size of the "collection" I suspect it is way too high.
I have at times been casual collector/accumulator. I buy what interests me. But, those who have a real focus and drive (such as some here on the forum) tend to have fewer pieces of high quality/value, rather than more pieces of lower value. So, I assume that the 100,000 is mostly low end stuff, in which case 25K is more than I would spend. If, on the other hand, it is all silver, etc. then 25K is way too low.
That, combined with his apparent mistrust, would make me very apprehensive. It is a no-win situation.
I acquired a collection that is not nearly as big as the one the OP is pondering and I am still trying to unload a lot of it. eBay is fine but it does take time to photo and post. For me, with a normal job, wife, kids etc. I was hoping it would be gone by now but still plenty left! Gives me something to do in my downtime I guess.
Make sure there is enough meat on the bone for your time and effort.
K
I'm just curious is there any update, I would love to find out what's in the collection?
I would believe it when I see it - something seems over estimated.
Some of these people are simply flakes and until u do an inventory c what’s really there / find out if they are for real and want to deal u never know.
I once bought fairly close to complete set of circ walkers close to melt. $300 Prob good stuff already taken out most vg / F. Took couple years blow it out get retail I wanted. Silver going up helped lol.
Would love know too - that deal must be DOA.
No update. Seller is now apparently in a “I’m gonna get hosed” state and sitting on it for a while.
I am not going to press this and will simply wait til he is ready.
Okay thanks for the update
I will report good or bad on the outcome if or when it happens though bud.
As I suggested to you before, this is not a collection you want to be the first one to look at. I had a seller like this once. He ended up burning through every dealer in town before he ended up making my life miserable for 2 years. LOL. But he will NEVER go back to those other dealers, even though they hadn't done anything wrong. But their offers, while fair, made him feel like he was being ripped off. It took months of educating him on grading and market value before I could get anywhere. In the end, it wasn't worth my time.