Where to start?! 1 1

[Kat-In-The-Hat]

Hi, New here.  :-)  I inherited a large coin collection and am wanting to know how to handle the coins so they don't deteriorate and the best way to value them.  is E-Bay a good place to look them up?  Thanks!

[Coinbuf]

Welcome to the forum.   First and foremost, hold any coins not in a holder of some type only by the edges, the oils from our skin will etch the surfaces of coins.   Second, and most important is do not try and clean or improve any coins, you can find tons of "helpful" ways to "safely" clean coins on the internet.   However much of that information is bogus and you could easily do some irreparable harm and reduce the value of the coins you have.   Ebay can be useful to find some value information once you have some information about the coins, without knowing the grade and details of each coin you could search for years and find wildly different values.   Also when using ebay be sure to only search the sold listings, some sellers can and do ask some outrageous prices hoping to find an unknowledgeable buyer.

Coin values are tricky because a coin's value is determined by the condition of the coin, its grade, and the rarity of the coin.   You can easily determine the rarity by looking each coin up in a publication called the red book.

You can buy one or in many cases you can find one to checkout at a local public library.   In this book you can find the mintage figures for every coin the US has ever minted, coins with very low mintages will be more rare possibly equating to more value.   The red book also contains values for each coin by grade, however because this is a book by the time it gets published and distributed those values may not be entirely accurate.   But it does help to point out which coins have high values vs low values.   Another great resource for looking up information is here on the NGC website, known as the NGC explorer, here is a link to this tool.

NGC explorer

Now the difficult part is determining the condition of the coins you have inherited.  If whoever left you the coin has also left any information on each coin, say a spreadsheet or perhaps some written information on any coins in holders, that would be a good starting place to determine the grades of each coin.   Without any information like that it will fall to you to figure out the condition or grade.

I would start by (assuming none exists) creating a spread sheet to catalog each coin by denomination, year, and the mint location each coin was minted at.   Many inherited collections have a number of coins that were sold by the US mint in packages known as mint sets or proof sets.   These sets, as a general rule, do not have great value because so many sets were sold and a great many are still available to buy, i.e. not rare.

Another way to tackle this project is to contact a local coin dealer in your area and see if they are willing to provide an estimate for you of the coins.   This will be the quickest way but with a word of caution, be wary of any dealer that is too quick to offer a buy price for your coins.   There are coin dealers that pray on people that inherit coins and have not done any homework and have little to no knowledge of the coins they have inherited.

If you have any questions on specific coins you can post your questions here, please try and provide us with good in focus, cropped photos of both sides of the coin you have questions about, we cannot really provide any information if we cannot see what you see.

Best of luck and welcome to the coin collecting world. 

Edited July 23, 2022 by Coinbuf

[Kat-In-The-Hat]

Thank you so much Coinbuf!  Much appreciated!  I did buy that book and will start looking at it.  So no gloves are necessary when handling the coins.  I also inherited a stamp collection by another relative.  That's a whole different beast.  LOL

Edited July 24, 2022 by Kat-In-The-Hat

[Coinbuf]

You can wear gloves, but they can actually be rather slippery so just be careful.

[VKurtB]

There are some VERY LIMITED cases in which I wear gloves and I prefer the blue nitrile gloves when I do. I am not a cotton believer. 

[Kat-In-The-Hat]

Thanks guys!

 

[JT2]

Kat these guys will give you great information.  that CoinBuff article is spot on.  hopefully they arnt in a sandwich bag clanking together!!  

[EagleRJO]

On 7/23/2022 at 6:11 PM, Coinbuf said:

Coin values are tricky because a coin's value is determined by the condition of the coin, its grade, and the rarity of the coin.   You can easily determine the rarity by looking each coin up in a publication called the red book.

Great reference book.  As a newer collector I am finding the Red Book [RB] to be extremely helpful.  Many sections in my RB are already getting wear from constant use, not only for mintages (indication of rarity) and approximate values of coins once you get an idea of the grade, but in initially figuring out the grade of a coin to begin with.  Figuring out the grade of a coin is the tough part as a newer collector in my opinion.  At the beginning of each section for a particular type and date range of coins (e.g. "MORGAN 1878-1921") is a brief description/history of the coin and then, the golden nugget, some guidelines on grading those specific coins which has really helped me. 

Those grading descriptions in the RB, along with the descriptions/photographs for various coin grades available on the PCGS website here ... PCGS Grading Standards or www.pcgs.com/grades/ ... are really helping me with figuring out grades.  And I would stick with just trying to figure out an "adjectival" grade first, with just the letters, to start (e.g. PR for Poor and VF for Very Fines).  Once you get that, you can then go a little further and add the number grade (1 thru 70) to that letters grade if needed, but the differences can be very minor and hard to pick up at first.  There may also be various articles available on the web for grading specific types of coins (e.g. Morgans) with photographic example grades, which I found to be more helpful than the general photographic grades on the PCGS website.  Once you think you have figured out a grade, you can then do a web search for that coin and grade to look at examples that have been graded by NGC or PCGS for comparison. 

And I am also finding the RB helpful related to buying coins, because I am trying to stick with more common and less expensive coins initially until I have more experience.  For that I can go to the RB and look at the various years, mint marks and grades for a particular type of coin I may be interested in, and easily be able to see which years, mint mark and grades are less expensive in general.  For values I hope you bought the latest 2023 edition of the RB, which I am finding is pretty close but a little on the low side sometimes versus what coins may be going for now, but if not I don't think it's a big deal as there is plenty of more current pricing info on the NGC and PCGS sites.

And don't be afraid to post questions you have here on the board.  There are a lot of really knowledgeable people regularly on the board who are willing to basically donate their time to help newer collectors like us, which is awesome and much appreciated.

On 7/24/2022 at 7:18 PM, JT2 said:

Kat these guys will give you great information.  that CoinBuff article is spot on.  hopefully they arnt in a sandwich bag clanking together!!  

Which article?  I see a link in his post to the NGC explorer, but not an article.

[VKurtB]

On 7/24/2022 at 7:47 PM, EagleRJO said:

Figuring out the grade of a coin is the tough part as a newer collector in my opinion. 

Properly grading coins seems to be equally difficult for newer collectors and former collectors who now write books. 

[The Neophyte Numismatist]

Welcome Kat.  @Coinbuf gives solid advice.  You can certainly look at eBay, Heritage Auctions, Great Collections, etc. for prices... but, as Coinbuf stated, you will have a LOT of variance based on the condition (literally varying from $THOUSANDS to $FACEVALUE).  Condition is SO important.

My advice is DO NOT be in a rush to sell.  Get some estimates, and as you learn more... feel free to post some of the more interesting/older coins in these forums.  If your coin is valuable, the forums will tell you (and they will tell you if it is not).

Be ready to potentially learn that some of the collection is not valuable.  But, also do a little homework with the RedBook to get a feel for which coins may be of value, so you don't fall victim to predatory practices.  

I cannot stress enough to take your time and learn.  It's the only way to maximize returns, and you may find you like collecting coins in the end. 

[EagleRJO]

Solid advice from these guys as usual.

On 7/23/2022 at 5:00 PM, Kat-In-The-Hat said:

Hi, New here.  :-)  I inherited a large coin collection and am wanting to know how to handle the coins so they don't deteriorate and the best way to value them.  is E-Bay a good place to look them up?  Thanks!

I'm just curious if you intend on keeping the coin collection and adding to it, in which case it would be worth the effort to spend time really becoming familiar with grading coins and assessing the value, particularly grading coins, or if you intend on selling the collection and just need a better idea of overall value.

I guess I assumed you intend on keeping the coins and possibly making it a hobby, which I am finding is really interesting and enjoyable, since you were asking about the best way to protect the coins from deterioration (more of a longer-term issue) and not just damage, as well as determining a value.

But if you do plan on selling the set you may want to show it to a couple of coin shops in your area to get a better idea on overall value, and maybe go with one that you feel comfortable with, and think is giving you an honest assessment.  I still wouldn't just jump at the first good offer, and would spend some time checking values, particularly if some want to break up the set and only buy certain ones.

[JKK]

You've gotten some good advice. Mine (which repeats some of the above) would be:

Decide whether you want to collect more, hold these, or liquidate.

If you want to collect more, then welcome to the learning curve--and to the hobby. You will find that collectors specialize. While I have a good understanding of US coinage, my own specialty is ancients. Of course, we have some folks who think they are experts in everything. One or two even are.

If you want to hold them, then you might take a general inventory and post it here. We'd have a pretty good idea of what might be valuable. No need to ID every piece; for example, you might say 'two pounds of world coins, mostly 1940 and later.' We can ask more questions if we need to.

If you want to liquidate them, the question is how much work you are willing to do in order to decide whether your buyer's idea of a fair price coincides with yours. Dealers will typically pay about half retail. This is why the question some people ask (not you, just ranting) is so stupid: "How much is this worth?" There is the retail price range, the dealer's price range, and the price a collector would pay (typically about 70% of retail). Since 'what it's worth' depends on who is buying, and the buyers' pricing tastes vary hugely, the statement as an absolute is meaningless and misleading. If you want, you can do no work and just have a dealer make you an offer. If you want to know if that offer is fair, you will need to inventory the batch and get some values. Again, a general inventory could help us help you.

In all cases on Ebay, only sold listings are any sort of guide to value. Stay off Etsy, which is a toxic quagmire of counterfeits and price inflation. What I would do is go off Numismedia for US stuff.

Whatever you do, don't handle with your fingers any that might be valuable. That of course is a catch-22; how do you figure out if they are valuable without handling them? Cloth gloves are one way; there are also small rubber fingertips I call leprechaun condoms, because that's what they look like. Buy 'em by the bag. If you think a coin might be a proof, that indicates more special care, and you might need/want a set of plastic tongs. In general, the easiest ways to screw up a nice coin are to touch it with a substance such as skin oil or a cloth that was used to dry someone's hands, or to abrade/scratch it with physical contact. Only people who do not mind seeing wealth evaporate for no purpose will commit those knowingly.