How would I go about selling a Coin Collection?

[Fade2black]

My father in law passed away a couple of weeks ago. He left behind a coin collection that my MiL just wants gone. So I'm spending time "cataloging" the collection. It isn't anything I can retire on, but there are some small gems here and there...some 1920s Liberty Quarters, steel pennies, and some 1800s era pennies and such. My question is this...when it comes to throwing something up on ebay, what are people interested in? If I have 10 1920s quarters valued at say, $3 a piece...should I post them singly in the hopes a collector wants one...or are there people out there that would just want the entire lot of 10 at a deal and go from there?

I have about 200-300 coins I consider worthy enough I could post "singly"...which in my state I consider coins valued at $3 and above, all the way to $40-50. But posting 200 ebay auctions doesn't sound like alot of fun to me; and lets be honest, a coin collector shop would just offer me a blanket cashout that would be nothing short of insulting.

So I figured I would take some advice from fellow collectors such as yourself. Any thoughts or ideas from you guys that have experience in this field? Highly appreciated!

Another example I found:...a roll of 1959 D Pennies, all in very excellent condition...cointrackers.com puts them at say .40 a piece...is there a market for the roll at $20 or should I just put them in a coinstar?

 

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[sasnz]

Hmmm, Thats a tough 1...It entirely depends on what is in the collection....Do you know how to grade coins? as this will be instremental on what value a given coin is worth. Just because it may be a liberty quater dosnt mean it is valuable outside its scrap value. it would depend on the year and mintage and grading of the coin....It might pay just to sell them in groups...eg pennies, dimes quarters etc. but the key to all of this is pictures...pictures and more pictures...the better quality and closup the better, then that way any astute coin collector will grade it himself and they in turn will give you the true value.

 

[wainzoid]

Maybe a local auctioneer could sell them at auction. I go to alot of auctions and coins always do fairly well, especially if advertised.

 

[scott9050]

With limited value I would just take the smaller offer of a local coin dealer. When you account the time, listing fees, Final value fees, Paypal fees etc. is would not be much more profitable if at all than just simply going to your local dealer who should be going by Grey sheet buy prices.

 

[Mackaydon]

Fade2black,
Welcome to Treasure Net !!
If you are not in a rush, I'd experiment: List a few on Ebay and see if you are satisfied. If so, keep listing more; if not, create a 'Plan B'.
Don.......

 

[Silver Searcher]

I would not list any coin for sale, until you know the values of each coin, this is the hard part, knowing what to sell for. Research, research and then research a bit more.

SS

 

[Iron Patch]

With limited value I would just take the smaller offer of a local coin dealer. When you account the time, listing fees, Final value fees, Paypal fees etc. is would not be much more profitable if at all than just simply going to your local dealer who should be going by Grey sheet buy prices.

What you don't realize is that these days that local dealer buys them cheap and puts them on ebay!


I doubt it would be 200 auctions because real low end stuff isn't worth selling on its own because the shipping kills the price, so you group them. However, if you do have 200 coins worthy to be sold as singles what it comes down to is if you're interested in making the most money, because listing them all is how you do that. I would also suggest you pick a big sale date maybe a month ahead and program them in to all be listed on the same day. (higher traffic means higher prices) If you want to go the easy route get an idea of what the collection is worth on the high end and put in on Ebay for that price plus a little, and accept offers on it. I have what would amount to a good little collection here right now and selling it as a one shot deal would lose me a lot of money... but it just comes down to how much effort you're willing to put in, and that's based on how much money we're talking about. I'd gladly run 200 listings to make an extra $500-$1,000, but wouldn't bother wasting that much time on $200.

 

[DeepseekerADS]

I wouldn't sell them to a pro dealer, they'd really lowball you. As a newbie, please don't imagine that when you look in a book on grading individual coins that it is realistic, the other guy will grade them lower. We end users use "hopeful" grading, in other words, we hope that's the grade.

I'd narrow down the group. Separate the ones which might really have better than bullion or significantly above face value. Then consider selling the low valued ones in bulk.

Every few weeks I go into Craigslist to the "collectables" section. For months I've seen the same adds for SL's, etc. - common ones of common value - advertised at double bullion value, months now. The normal CL buyer of coins will be a lot more savvy than Joe on the street.

Craigslist is free. Ebay has expenses and risks. Pro dealers won't be interested until you walk away leaving your coins with them, then they'll smile at their good fortune.

I don't believe I've really told you anything here, but maybe I've given you a little more insight into what you are facing.

How about something as simple as a yard sale - you might get a little more impulse buying versus the seasoned eyeballs ?