Need ideas on how to sell my Aunts Morgan Collection

[stgecko]

My aunt sent me two nice professional looking Morgan coin books. Between the two of them they date from 1878-1894. There is no 3rd book as one would think. I want to sell them for her so I should approach this logically, as we all would probably want to.

I went to the local coin store and wanted to ask their opinion. They told me they could grade all 54 coins that I had, but would require removal of the coins from the albums. They also said it would end up around 50-60$ for the amount of time it takes to grade them and make me an offer with a "set" price and individually priced coins. Things to think about, they told me, was fees involved with going through eBay and PayPal. If I sell individually I can picture fees piling up and flying out of my Aunts pocket. Time is not a really big issue, not that she's told me.

 

I tried to grade some of the coins myself and found that I agreed with most of the grades that were written in the individual pages of each album. I don't believe any toning was taken into account when it came to things such as a "star" emblem for the special way it looks.

 

What would you all do, go with the coin shop with whom I've done business with before and sell them the whole thing or bust it all up or keep it together and put it on eBay? If put on a site with fees does it make sense to add some sort of markup to makeup for the hit?

 

I go in on Monday to see the coin shop guys. Then I'll decide what to do. Any thoughts on this will be appreciated.

 

Thanks all!

[relicsncoins]

Post photos here, and we can give you an idea as to the value of the coins.

 

JJ

[TomB]

If there is no hurrry then there is no reason to make a decision at this time. The coin shop offer sounds fair as far as the $50-$60 fee for grading the coins as long as you are not then obligated to sell them at the price offered. That would be a good first step toward establishing a better plan for liquidation.

[stgecko]

Thanks for your input TomB! It's always appreciated.

As far as the photos go I'll try to pop some on tonight but my cat just got back from the vet, she was spayed and declawed and ID chipped.

 

[cpm9ball]

Like Tom said, don't rush into selling them if time is not an issue. You didn't say whether they are MS, AU or whatever. You may also want to check for VAMS. There are some Top 100 and Hot 50 that could add substantially to the value. It will be easy enough to check them against VAMWorld.

 

Have fun!

 

Chris

[James_OldeTowne]

I apologize for the following SPAM, but I believe it is your best course.

 

Having cataloged for a small auction company the past couple of years and benefited from seeing how the system works, I would strongly urge you to consider that venue. Let's assume the auction company has at least competent numismatists working for it. Selling that way saves you the time and hassle of having to grade the coins themselves, and the auction company (again, if competent) will do the work for you of figuring out which coins should be certified, etc.

 

In my experience, most such collections have at least a couple of coins or so that warrant certification. The trick is to optimize the number of coins that are sent off, so you don't spend too much on fees, yet you spend enough to get the "right" coins in the "right" holders.

 

Let me know if you want the name of the auction company(s) I do work for.

 

An alternative would be to send the coins to a trustworthy numismatist, of which there are many on these boards. I would be glad to appraise the coins for free - something I do all the time. (You would need to cover the cost of shipping.)

 

Either way, good luck! I hope you end up with the best possible value for your aunt's collection.

[stgecko]

Well thanks all for looking and inputing ideas for me. As promised here are some pics. The coins were still in the "GEM" coin album from the MEGHRIG Line and therefore you may see some reflection from said book. I'll list the coins as I have them from earliest on up. Since I'm only allowed so many pics per post I'll do my best on breaking the pictures up.

For those that wanted to take a stab at grading them, here they are.

 

 

These two coins were marked in the book as AU and the 2nd is BU.

 

[stgecko]

More pics!

[stgecko]

and again more pics.

 

Grades in book show these as AU and AU/BU

[stgecko]

Fired off a few more shots...

[stgecko]

The last two for tonight...

 

These two showed grades Au and Bu respectively.

[just-john]

nice coins if you are going to sell go the auction route not the dealer/store the will just sell the for a profit which would be less the the auction company charge most of the time

[jman425]

Which coin shop did you bring it to ?

Do you have a pic of the 1893-S, 1889-CC or 1894-P ?

[construct]

Thanks for the pictures. It's hard to tell from the pics, but several of them appear to me overgraded by a grade. Luster is kind of hard to tell from scans, but the San Francisco coins especially aren't as sharp as I would expect to see them.

 

Are the albums complete? If so, the keys jman425 mentioned above would be particularly interesting to see.

[cpm9ball]

Which coin shop did you bring it to ?

Do you have a pic of the 1893-S, 1889-CC or 1894-P ?

 

.....and the '84-S!

 

Chris

[stgecko]

Wow everyone thanks for the input! After talking with the coin shop (locally, Coin Cradle) owner he is going to grade the coins and charge a modest fee that will be waived if I sell to him.

The sets are not complete as I think there are 6 or so that are missing. However I only have 2 of 3 books so I don't know if my Aunt has the rest or not. I have asked her to send me them and her Peace Dollar sets as well (if she has them).

I won't be able to add more photos due to the appraisal. I'll get back to it on Wednesday or Thursday of this week when I get the coins back.

I've been looking at auction fees and there seems to be fees no matter where you go or what you do. I've been looking at Teletrade. Do their rates seem reasonable to you all? I know eBay can get spendy if I include PayPal.

BTW the coin shop seemed rather excited about several S mint issues. He mentioned that there were more than a few he felt were worth in the hundreds of dollars, low hundreds but hundreds just the same.

He also mentioned that some were worth just over melt as they are very common especially at the grades I gave him. He was talking in the 20-30$ range. We shall see and so shall you all when I get it back.

 

Peace out and thanks again.

[just-john]

When you say the dealer is going too grade the coins and charge a fee .WHAT ever the dealer grades means nothings and if he grades them lower than you think they should be graded RUN RUN RUN --the coins need to be graded by NGC or PCGS you can sell them on the NGC site and not pay any fees plus people here pay

[MarkFeld]

When you say the dealer is going too grade the coins and charge a fee .WHAT ever the dealer grades means nothings and if he grades them lower than you think they should be graded RUN RUN RUN --the coins need to be graded by NGC or PCGS you can sell them on the NGC site and not pay any fees plus people here pay

Based on the information provided, it is likely that a number of the coins would not be worth having graded by NGC or PCGS.

[relicsncoins]

The 78 S has some nice Album toning.

[stgecko]

Based on the information provided, it is likely that a number of the coins would not be worth having graded by NGC or PCGS.

 

I agree with Mark on this one. I shall keep you all posted as Wednesday draws near and so do the results.

 

[stgecko]

Ok I got a quote for the set I had appraised. The coin shop will buy the lot for a bit over $2600 and then they will also eat the appraisal fee. Now I have to wait for my Aunts decision. Something tells me she'll take the money as I think she can use it and it makes a nice windfall for her.

 

If there's anything else in this experience you'd like me to share just let me know. I will let you know my Aunts decision and then we can shut down this thread.

 

Thanks again ya'll

[James_OldeTowne]

Ok I got a quote for the set I had appraised. The coin shop will buy the lot for a bit over $2600 and then they will also eat the appraisal fee. Now I have to wait for my Aunts decision. Something tells me she'll take the money as I think she can use it and it makes a nice windfall for her.

 

If there's anything else in this experience you'd like me to share just let me know. I will let you know my Aunts decision and then we can shut down this thread.

 

Thanks again ya'll

I would really strongly encourage getting at least a second offer, if not a third and fourth!

 

$2600 seems low to me, going by gut feel and your images.

[just-john]

Never just get on price or offer $2600 comes out to what per coin ? Get another offer from somebody still say auction or sell on forum

[prudden]

A second opinion would be advisable. If you have one or two of the rarer morgans they could be $2600+ all by themselves.Especially the 79 CC and the 93-S. The 93-S sell for 5K -10K in low grades.

[cpm9ball]

A second opinion would be advisable. If you have one or two of the rarer morgans they could be $2600+ all by themselves.Especially the 79 CC and the 93-S. The 93-S sell for 5K -10K in low grades.

 

.....and the 84-S and 89-CC are two more that are expensive in low grades.

 

Chris

[MarkFeld]

A second opinion would be advisable. If you have one or two of the rarer morgans they could be $2600+ all by themselves.Especially the 79 CC and the 93-S. The 93-S sell for 5K -10K in low grades.

 

.....and the 84-S and 89-CC are two more that are expensive in low grades.

 

Chris

I sure hope that the OP knew about those dates or did some due diligence in advance of getting an offer.

[stgecko]

A second opinion would be advisable. If you have one or two of the rarer morgans they could be $2600+ all by themselves.Especially the 79 CC and the 93-S. The 93-S sell for 5K -10K in low grades.

 

Yeah I don't have either of those listed. The most money I saw for one coin is for the 1893 graded AU with a value of 225.00. The majority of the coins are the more common ones and aren't worth much. I was also shown which coins had problems such as: Polished, Damaged and or scratched.

 

After talking with my aunt it seems that the money is needed more urgently than I initially thought and she's ready to sell. So I agreed, as my time is limited too. She sounds very happy to have averaged just about $50 per coin. In comparison I had sent in 10 very nice looking morgans I bought as a set and the highest grade I got on those, from NGC, was MS64 and that coin showed a value of 40$.

 

My aunt is sending me the rest of her set of Morgans and her Peace dollars set. Looking forward to seeing those coins as well. I'll share them with you all when I get them here but it might be a month or more as my Aunt is always on the move.

 

 

Thanks again all for your wonderful input. I think as a lesson learned I would sell the common ones to the dealer and auction off the 100$+ coins via an auction site. I asked the coin dealer what lessons I could take away from this since it was my first sale and he thought I got a fair shake and he says his reputation is always on the line when he buys coins, especially after he grades them so he doesn't want any bad things associated with his name. I've been dealing with him for almost a year now and I have found him to be very upfront and a bit of a teacher/mentor.

 

Wow after reading that last paragraph I don't know what the heck I was trying to say except maybe that I'm happy with the results.

 

Peace out (whoops my hippie is showing, hehe)