How do I sell my Coin Collection?

So, you feel it is time to sell your coin long-time collection, or you have inherited a collection and you know nothing about coins and you want to sell them. As with the sale of anything, you want to make sure you get a fair price. Sounds straightforward enough, right? In the area of numismatics, when it comes time to sell, offers for your collection can vary greatly. The following tips will help guide you to getting a fair and inexpensive offer. I will talk more on the term "reasonable" a dinky bit later. Coin Dealers, like any other profession, amount in the thousands. From part-time singular person businesses to huge fellowships that buy and sell millions of dollars of coins annually. And like other professions and industries, we have a few crooks. By following the general tips in this article, you should be in a great position to comprehend your collections value. So here we go!

First and foremost, you need to know what you have. Why? If you do not know what you have, how do you know you are getting fair value? If you have thousands and thousands of wheat cents, I am not saying you need to inventory them all. In fact, it may not be worth your time. The chances of finding a key coin are slim at best. But you should know how many pennies you have. How? plainly weigh them. Wheat pennies come to about 148 pennies per pound. The same rule can apply to other common coins such as pre 1965 Roosevelt Dimes and Washington quarters as you may just a bullion price on these. For the rest of your collection, you may want to count the amount of each piece. Make sure you have a unblemished list of your collection.

Collections

Ok, time to taste a dealer? No, not yet. How do you know you are getting an honest one? Before contacting a dealer, you need to do some homework. Does the dealer belong to any organizations and clubs such as Ana or Bbb? How long has s/he been in business? What is their reputation? Check out a incorporate of dealers before you make that call. Also, just because they advertise in a major coin collecting publication, does not make them honest. I know of one dealer who advertises in a major publication and sells cleaned coins as Bu/Unc originals. Most novice collectors would not know the difference.

Now that you have done some research, it is time to taste the dealer. This can be done in many ways. You can give them a call or if you are the shy type, just send them an email. In your email, identify yourself and that you have a collection for sale. Comprise in the email the inventory you completed. This may come as a shock to many, but some dealers will Not want your collection. Many dealers specialize in inescapable types or series, or just may have too many coins in their inventory. If your collection is an midpoint collection of common coins, you may be disappointed to learn that many, if not all of the big dealers plainly do not want to bother with you. It is too time captivating to sort the common collections and the margins are too small. Do not fret, all is not lost. Many smaller dealers will welcome the opportunity to derive your collection. Many of these dealers work in mail-order only and may have only email or a Po Box as taste information. While they may appear shady, these folks ordinarily are quite reputable. As before, taste the dealer and ask if they are interested. If they are not, just move on to the next dealer. If they are, ask them for their "buy price" list. Many dealers will release a list of what they are willing to pay for inescapable coins.

After some hard work, you have a incorporate offers on the table. The offers are not in any place near what you expected. Remember what I said above about a "reasonable" offer? Here is the painful truth. Coin Dealers are in company to make money. Sure, many of us chose this profession because we love it, but like every person else, we still have mortgages, car payments, and college for kids, etc. Many citizen will look in the latest Coin Prices magazine to come up with an idea of what there collection is worth. Magazines such as Coin Prices are unmistakably a list of prices of what you can expect to pay a dealer for a specific coin, not what you can expect to get paid. Markups can range from 20-50% or more for smaller denomination coins such as wheat cents. As I mentioned earlier, some dealers just may not want what you have. Also, many, if not all dealers, maintain the right to revise the offer on inspection of the collection. If you think all your Morgan Dollars are Bu, but they are unmistakably Au, this would make a huge incompatibility in price. Grading is highly subjective. Also, for larger, more diverse collections, a dealer may spend a considerable amount of time reviewing the collection to ensure a fair price.

So, what to do? Take the best offer and run? Maybe, maybe not. If this is an inheritance, and you have no emotional attachment, you can just sell and never look back. If this is your collection of 50 years, well this may be painful. You can continue to taste separate dealers and wait for a great offer. If you feel your collection is unmistakably worth more, you can always consign it for auction. With some of the fees the major auction firms charge, it may not be worth it. You can also try your hand at eBay but unless you have a strong feedback profile, many buyers will not bid on your items. You can also locate eBay members who will auction off your collection for you for a percentage of the take. Sometimes this works out well and sometimes not.

For now, let's assume you have a inexpensive offer and you settle to sell. By the way, this should be a written offer sent via the mail or sent via email. Many times, the buyer may be settled in an additional one city/state. No buyer will send you a check until they have seen the collection. If the collection is large sufficient (many, many thousands of dollars), some buyers will come to you. If not, your very viable selection is to send the collection to the buyer via mail. Yes, that is right, via the mail. Wait you say, that sounds risky. It can be, but if you take precautions, you will have no problems. First, container the collection up very well. Make sure there are No Loose coins jingling around. The sound of jingling coins is music to a thief's ear. So be sure to wrap them up well and tight. When sending via the mail, the Usps is fairly safe. Usually, you will want to use Usps Priority Mail. taste your local post office as you can usually get free boxes. Generally, you will want to use the Flat Rate options as you can ship up to 70 pounds for under .00 (not including insurance), but ask your local postal clerk for options. For your protection, you Must insure your container and pay for delivery conformation. Comprise in your container an itemized list. Most dealers will appreciate this as they will audit the shipment to the list. If all is well, you can expect a check in the mail in no time.

In summary, here are the tips

1. Know what you have, get ready a farranging inventory

2. Research some dealers before you taste one.

3. Talk to dealers before sending coins to gage interest