Coin appraisals
logger7
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Does anyone want to share how they do appraisals for estates, etc.? Do you do many?
A lady called me up wanting one for her mother's estate. Low grade coins, not much value, some Peace dollars and a Marie Theresa restrike; she is a good way away so I asked her to send me images of the coins, front and back for appraisal purposes, is it kosher to do an appraisal like that or does it have to be in person?
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Sounds like a job for the local coin shop.
If there's a lot of coins, they may charge you for the appraisal which is only fair.
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"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire
Depend what kind of appraisals the lady want. But doing this you has a responsibility to be as much is possible exact and also to give under your signature the OK of the authentic and relative condition and also approximative market price.
By photo do you think you can achieve those goals? IMHO will be hard. Good Luck to not have any back on.
Me I will say by photo Kosher is far and is not also orthodoxic or catholic.
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FIRST THEY WILL DRAG YOU DOWN TO THEIR LEVEL.
THEN, THEY WILL BEAT YOU WITH EXPERIENCE.
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From my experience, local coin shops try to "buy right" meaning anywhere from 65% on up depending on how quickly the material is likely to resell.
It depends on what they want it for. If the lawyer wants a full accounting you need to write it up officially. If they just want to know what it's worth, it doesn't matter. For lawyers, I do a full write up include my credentials, references for the pricing and justification. Why? Because they want that.
Appraisals are NOT purchase offers.
I think I’ve covered this before, but if someone wants you to spend hours doing an appraisal, tell them you are charging your fee per hour, but if they will sell you the collection at the appraised value, you will waive it. Otherwise you are just providing free labor.
Then what are they with respect to coins, EBAY value, local coin shop retail, etc. ?
There are different type of appraisals. Insurance appraisals are replacement costs which is full retail. Estate appraisals are often also full replacement cost. The lawyer will usually specify the rational which is part of the price justification in my documentation.
Some appraisals include the condition that you cannot purchase the estate. A large stamp estate that was donated to a charity needed a tax appraisal that barred the appraiser from purchasing the estate from the charity to guarantee objectivity.
I've done plenty of appraisals for estate and/or divorce proceedings. My fee structure was upfront and transparent and I would typically tell the person inquiring (often a lawyer) if my total fee would approximate the value of what I understood was in the collection. These were never an offer to buy, but instead were generated on my professional business header as a line-by-line itemization and approximate valuation. I once did an appraisal for what turned out to be less than $75 and my fee was more than the total appraisal value, but the lawyer and/or lawyer's client(s) wanted it done.
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In this case the lady's mother had coins that are worth a little over $100. I'm confident of the specific values, and verified that the Marie Theresa Thaler was a restrike by the photos.
Have acquired many estates. Most of time it’s junk, bullion, circ low grade collector coins (many worn slick), 90 pct circ silver, etc. I generally charge a $50 - $75 appraisal fee . I offer a pct of what I can sell the items for - shows, online. For the most part the deceased person blew out the nice stuff just leaving low end trash. The last one had rolls of stuff only worth face, junk silver, and worn slick type material.
Generally I make a quick inventory list of the items, cost it out / calculate my offer. Skill set I learned as a job order cost acct my first job in acctg. One estate offer went in their bank box with them & made my list. Then costed it out - phoned them on offer, some haggling back and forth with them, then we arrived at number (acceptable to me). If they unreasonable or expect too much just tell them “well that’s my best offer” then if not going to happen they can take it to a coin shop.
Decades ago I had an ad in NN offering pay x pct of Krause CV on world coins. Some sent me the coins to look at. One guy had some fairly nice stuff.
I have done casual appraisals for friends. No charge. I explain to them what I do, where I got the figures... Advise them on slabbing or raw - then tell them if they want a more professional appraisal to see an established dealer. Cheers, RickO
I have done a few. I charge $20 per hour. Coins are categorially sorted, examined, and valued. I also do a disposal write up that includes the pros and cons of keeping the coins for sentimental value to cost of slabbing, and venues for selling, etc. Most folks just want to know if they have a coin they can retire on and I burst their bubble every time.
WS