Wanting to Sell a Large Collection of Mostly NGC Graded Coins 1 1

[TroyMan20]

This is a general question about selling my large collection (hundreds) of US coins that are almost all NGC graded coins.  That said, the collection consists of Lincoln cents, Jefferson nickels, Roosevelt dimes, Washington, State/ATB quarters, Franklin-Kennedy half-dollars, Ike-Amer Innov-Anthony dollars and Silver Eagles.

My questions are related to the best way to price/value my collection so that I have a basis from which to know how to respond to any offers I may get.  Do i use the 2024 Red Book prices, or ????

Next, I see in the ANA magazine an offer from a NYC company (APR57 - Lee Rosenbloom) to buy complete collections at the "absolute BEST prices"...Anybody know them/him?    Any other ideas on who buys complete collections?

I appreciate the help!

Thanks!

[Coinbuf]

On 1/25/2024 at 3:28 PM, TroyMan20 said:

This is a general question about selling my large collection (hundreds) of US coins that are almost all NGC graded coins.  That said, the collection consists of Lincoln cents, Jefferson nickels, Roosevelt dimes, Washington, State/ATB quarters, Franklin-Kennedy half-dollars, Ike-Amer Innov-Anthony dollars and Silver Eagles.

My questions are related to the best way to price/value my collection so that I have a basis from which to know how to respond to any offers I may get.  Do i use the 2024 Red Book prices, or ????

Next, I see in the ANA magazine an offer from a NYC company (APR57 - Lee Rosenbloom) to buy complete collections at the "absolute BEST prices"...Anybody know them/him?    Any other ideas on who buys complete collections?

I appreciate the help!

Thanks!

Practically any coin dealer will buy your collection in total, how each will value it or offer for it is going to depend on what is in the complete collection and how easy it will be for each dealer to move them along.   I have no experience with Lee Rosenbloom myself so I cannot opine as to how his offer prices might compare to another dealer you might contact.

In general you will receive far less selling to a dealer than you can by selling to other collectors either directly or by utilizing an auction firm like Great Collections (GC) or Heritage.   Now the rub is that selling your collection yourself will take time as you will have to value the coins, list your coins on various sites like here, Facebook, Ebay, etc., and then ship the coins.   Using an auction firm like GC is much less time consuming but they (the auction house) will take a cut for the work they do to list, sell, and ship for you.

As far as valuing your coins if you decide to sell yourself, there are several resources to do this.   As from your list it seems that the bulk (maybe all) of your coins are modern coins so you can go to places like Ebay and use the search feature to see an average of what similar coins are selling for, remember to use the advanced search and only look for sold/completed listings.   The same is true for GC or Heritage, you can sign into those sites and use their auction archives to find same date/mm/grade coins in NGC holders only to see how those have performed in those auction venues.   And thirdly you can then use the NGC explorer values, by combining the resources you should be able to come to a solid valuation for each coin.   Obviously, this does take some time to do.

You should have been keeping track of what you paid for each coin, either in a spreadsheet or perhaps using the NGC registry system as a digital spreadsheet.    Having that data will also assist you in valuing each coin as any that you purchased recently should sell for close to what you paid for it.   Plus you need that data to determine how much you should expect to pay in taxes on any profits from selling your coins.

Hope that helps and good luck with liquidating your collection.

[Sandon]

   Welcome to the NGC chat board.  Please note that the "Coin Marketplace" forum is for actual offers to buy or sell coins in accordance with the "Coin Marketplace Guidelines" topic pinned near the top of the forum.  Your "general question" topic would receive better attention from forum members if posted in the "Newbie Coin Collecting Questions" forum.

   The 2024 "Redbook" was published in April 2023 from prices compiled several months earlier.  It may not list many of your coins in the grades assigned by NGC. The "Redbook" nowadays remains indispensable for basic information about U.S. coins but isn't of much use as a current price guide.  You can check estimated more current retail sale values for your coins online on the free NGC Price Guide at NGC Coin Price Guide and Values | NGC or on the (often higher) free PCGS Price Guide at https://www.pcgs.com/prices.  You can also subscribe to the monthly issue of Coin World, which contains a fairly comprehensive price guide, at www.coinworld.com or to the quarterly CPG Coin & Currency Market Review at https://www.greysheet.com/publications/cpg-coin-currency-market-review.  (If you inherited this collection, an appraisal of the coins as of the date of the decedent's death may have been prepared and could be used for reference. I do not recommend referring to such sites as Ebay, which include listings by dishonest and less knowledgeable sellers.)

   How to best sell your coins depends on their values. If you have a number of individual pieces with retail list values of, say, $500 or more, you might consider consigning them to a major numismatic auction house such as Heritage (ha.com), Great Collections (greatcollections.com), or Stacks Bowers (stacksbowers.com). If they are mainly pieces worth two or low three figures, it might be better to sell them to a local dealer. Expect such dealers to pay 50% to 70% of average retail values.  As any dealer can claim to pay "the highest" prices, you may wish to seek a dealer who is a member of the Professional Numismatists Guild (PNG) at Professional Numismatists Guild - an alliance of worldwide rare coin dealers (pngdealers.org) and click "Find a PNG Dealer". PNG Dealers are required to subscribe to a code of ethics. NGC also maintains a dealer locator at Find Coin Shops & Dealers | Coin Dealer Locator | NGC (ngccoin.com).

   

[TroyMan20]

Thanks to Coinbuf and Sandon for your advice.  I will use it well.

[Teddy R]

Look up each item at the Sold Auctions section on Ebay. That will give you a good idea of the going prices.

A dealer will only pay roughly 60 or 70 percent of those prices but they will usually buy all the coins at once (easiest way). If you have some common modern coins, most dealers will not even want those unless they are very high grades.

Edited January 27 by Teddy R

[“”]

I would consider an auction house such as Great Collections. They have an excellent archive for previous auctions which should help you assess the value of your collection. In addition, Ian offers some of the lowest sales cost of any auction houses around as well as pretty much doing all the dirty work for you.

Good luck!