Need FReeper advise on coin collection

Spet. 22, 2008 | Me

[twistedwrench]

I have inherited a coin collection, How do I go about getting info on the coins and appraised? I am in the process of trying to catalog and photograph the coins.

Any info on who to contact or FReeper’s with this interest or knowledge,would be greatly appreciated.

TW

[VOA]

Coin collecting is full of traps.
Local dealers will RAPE YOU IF YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING.

That would be the opinion of some relatives that sold an
inherited coin collection...without taking the time to investigate
their options.

This was just at the dawn of the Internet era...and they rushed
to sell the collection.
There have been more than a few mentions of how much they lost
by not waiting, gathering information and selling the collection
a bit at a time.

[Soliton]

http://users.hal-pc.org/~canupnet/coin-grading.html

[fluffy]

The coin market is currently in the biggest bull market since the late 80's. In fact, some of the largest increases in recent years have been among lower graded pieces.

For a basic idea of your coin's values, use the pcgs price guide: http://www.pcgs.com/prices/. You won't be able to tell what grade your coins are in without experience, but at least it will give you an idea of which of the pieces are more valuable and should be handled the most carefully.

Most importantly, PLEASE DO NOT TRY TO IMPROVE THE APPEARANCE OF YOUR COINS! If you clean them you will drastically affect their value. For proof or mint state issues you'll ruin them by handling them as well.

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

I will amplify what fluffy said: DO NOT ATTEMPT TO CLEAN YOUR COINS in any way. Sorry, left that out.

[Osage Orange]

By all means....don't just "list" them on any web site.

First I'd research "like" coins on-line.

Then I'd look into finding a local coin shop....that has been around for awhile. Show them to them....get their reactions, and opinions.

Then I'd look into having NGC or PCGS grading your coins. Might cost you a few dollars....but they are the standards in the grading business.

Only after you have done these things....can you get an idea of value.

FWIW

[valkyry1]

How about a water solution with lemon juice in it?

[IllumiNaughtyByNature]

I went through the same thing. I cataloged it myself with a good guide and have kept it current since then. You might want to enlist a local auction house that you can get some references on. OR, get into it and catalog it yourself. Google will point you to some great sites and ebay is decent for some currently hot items.

Hope that helps a little. If you want any more info PM me and I'll assist with sites and guides.

[valkyry1]

I inherited a coin collection too, only a few coins were ‘mint’ though.

I expected my pre-1900 Liberty Dollars to be worth more. Its hardly worth the trouble to sell them.

[sinsofsolarempirefan]

No, absolutely not. A coin that has been cleaned is worth less than the oxidised coin it was before.....

[atomic_dog]

Ask that question at the US Coin Forum at Collectors Universe. A better bunch of helpful folk you will not find anywhere (except maybe here at FR).

[visualops]

Oh gosh, are you kidding?
There are professional and reputable appraisers. Coin collections can be very valuable but of course it depends on the coins lol

[NautiNurse]

Before taking your coins anywhere for appraisal, invest $9.95 to purchase The Official Blue Book of U.S. Coins. If you decide to sell them retail on eBay, you want the Red Book.

As already stated, do not clean the coins. Minimize handling them. If they have been stored separately, they may well be worth more than a bunch of coins with "bag marks" (scratches) from being jumbled together in a box or a tin. If you have any already graded in plastic holders, do not take them out. Use these as a reference to learn what the others may be worth. e.g. if you have one graded MS-64, look at the little bit of scratches and otherwise excellent quality of the coin. MS-70 is considered perfect.

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

“How about a water solution with lemon juice in it?”

Nah. Don’t. IMHO, you are better off letting whatever improvement might be attained occur in the prospective buyer’s mind. Capiche?

[valkyry1]

Yeah that makes sense now that you mention it.

[Sundog]

These people, Heritage Auctions, do a huge business auctioning coins. If you look over their web site, you will see how they operate. If something shows up which is valuable, and you get it slabbed, this is another option.

http://coins.ha.com/

[NautiNurse]

I dont think coin collections are worth what they used to be

Perhaps you are thinking about stamp collections. Coin collecting is hot! You just have to know which coins are the most prized.

[tiki]

I think you could check Ebay but there are coin values all over on the net, but on Ebay this is what they are really selling for. Once you have some kind of idea I would suggest you go to a coin dealer.

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

I’ll just elaborate a little on why you shouldn’t even use the mildest thing you can think of in a cleaning attempt.

It’s not the liquid you immerse the coin in, it’s the abrasion implied by whatever you use to dry it with. You could use the softest cloth imaginable, but as soon as you pick up one micro particle from the coin and rub it onto the coin surface, it’s curtains. Because that is almost guaranteed to leave a straight-line mark of some kind which will catch any skilled eye and scream “cleaned”! If you get to raw metal, you’ll have a blazing, shiny streak that’s undeniable, irrefutable. If you only get a straight line of abrasion, it will still be utterly uncharacteristic of coins left in a coffee can, even if they have been left there for decades.

What you want is a consistent “story” to be told by your coins. Many amateur collectors placed coins in paper envelopes, and paper contains sulfur. Over time, that sulfur will seriously blacken silver or copper coins, but you cannot win doing anything at all to it. It will leave even more obvious cleaning marks against a black background. So that’s the bottom line: You flat out can’t win cleaning coins, there’s a 98% chance of placing the coin into a distinctly lower category. Some folks clean coins ultrasonically, but that too is problematical, because then all your coins will appear to have the same amount of sheen to them, and that’s not natural either.

[potlatch]

There are books on them. There is a good coin dealer in my town who can tell the value of any coin. They just had a writeup about him on the front page.

Do not sell to the first who give you appraisals. I would think you could find the value of any coin by doing a Google search.

My father traveled the world, so did my son so I have quite a collection of foreign coins besides silver dollars and silver dimes and quarters, etc.

[devolve]

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Bump