Unsearched Coins

[John Martinez]

Nu-be here. What are "unsearched coins"? I tried looking it up but all I get are more ads for the things. Thanks in advance for your kind replies.

Tree Top

[Becky-migration]

In this day and age I am fairly confident in saying that there are very few coin hoards that are unsearched. The seller is trying to get you to believe that the coins that they are selling have never been searched for key dates. The fact of the matter is that even if they didn't search the coins, the last 16 owners probably did. If you are just searching for varieties, then the coins are probably unsearched, at least for most minor varieties.

[michael]

lies and hype and puffing to sell common coins for prices that are much higher than their worth

[James_OldeTowne]

Actually, I think there are many, many legitimately unsearched hoards of coins out there, and I've had the opportunity to buy such hoards on occasion. The fact is, there are many cases where someone's parents or grandparents put coins aside over a period of many years, and these small hoards were forgotten about, say in the basement, the attic, wherever. These get passed down to heirs, or are found by accident, and end up getting brought to market.

 

An "unsearched lot" basically refers to an assemblage of coins that nobody with numismatic knowledge has searched through, for the purpose of extracting better dates or varieties. I remember one lot of Lincoln cents I went through last year in which I found a couple of better doubled dies, and several somewhat better early dates in better grades. Now, there was nothing earth-shattering, but the fact that I was able to find coins worth $10 to $50 makes it pretty certain that it was an unsearched hoard.

 

As another example, last year at the big spring St. Louis show, an elderly couple brought over a pouch of silver dollars that they had inherited from the lady's father. They were for the most part just common, worn coins. However, one of the Peace dollars turned out to be a lustrous 1934-S grading near AU. Again, it isn't anything all that outstanding, but they were thrilled when I was able to offer them $75 more than the next highest bid.

 

These are just two examples, and just from my area, and just in a few week's time, so if you project out the numbers, it would lead me to believe that there must be many thousands of genuinely unsearched lots out there.

 

The fact that such lots do exist though, is what makes it so enticing for scammers to set up bogus "unsearched lots" and dump them on unsuspecting buyers. These scams are rampant, especially on eBay, but that shouldn't lead you to believe they don't exist!

 

James

[Architecht]

James, but are they really advertised as "unsearched"? I think the ones that get listed on ebay etc. as "unsearched" are using a word that already indicates that the seller knows a little something about coins, and therefore is unlikely to truly be selling unsearched coins.

 

We were kicking this around on the world coins boards a while ago. What I got from the combination of that discussion and this one would be something like this (feel free to correct me):

 

1. There are unsearched hoardes, but they're going to be sold by people who are not sophisticated numismatically, and won't be referred to as unsearched. Perhaps "grandpa's collection", or "some coins, I don't know what they're worth" is more likely, although it seems to me that those phrases probably get abused by scammers too. In any case, finding the truly unsearched hoardes probably requires meeting the seller in person and gauging what they really know or don't know for yourself.

 

2. There are coins sold as "unsearched" but what they probably are is "not closely searched". In other words, someone who has a clue has gone through, picked out any truly obvious good coins - nice condition, older dates, etc., and decided that what remains is of generally low quality and that while there may be some cherries in there, it just isn't worth the time to sift through them. In fact, a valuable variety, or a key date that's unrecognized for its rarity may be in there and got missed, but it's not likely.

 

 

 

So why buy "unsearched" if it really means "not closely searched"? Well, from a numismatic adventure perspective, it's kind of fun to sort through and see what you have got. You may even find enough decent coins to break even on the purchase price for the lot. This makes sense for a collector to do, because it's a bit of numismatic fun for what ends up to be zero cost other than your time. For a dealer, however, that time is money and they deal in coins they can make a profit on, not ones they can break even on.

 

SO, those lots may be worth it for a collector who enjoys the process, but not worth it to a dealer who's trying to make money and can't afford the time for the low pay off. That's why the dealer is selling them. To the dealer, the game is, buy a lot, pull out the easy money nice looking coins and dump the rest. Their money comes from the high-return first pass not from the low-return close search.

 

This made alot of sense to me in ancients where it might be easy to pull every large coins, or gold coin, shuffle through the rest to note that they're all severely worn, and just decide to sell them as a group without looking closer.

[Becky-migration]

James, you are correct about Gramma's coins that someone brings into a shop or show. But I don't think that's what he is asking about. I doubt very seriously that someone is going to walk up to him on the street and ask him if he wants to purchase an unsearched hoard. My assumption was that he was referring to eBay or some other online source. I assumed, I could be wrong, but where else do you consistantly see the phrase "unsearched"?

[James_OldeTowne]

Becky and Architect,

 

From that standpoint, I'd have to agree with you. To summarize your point, if someone is savvy enough to advertise their coins as "unsearched", then the coins probably are searched, and being marketed to those who would succumb to the allure of an unsearched hoard.

 

Excellent points! And I will agree that in both instances I mentioned, neither seller to my recollection called his hoard an "unsearched" hoard. They were merely "inherited" coins. However, they did mention not knowing the value of their coins.

 

James

[John Martinez]

Thank to you all for your comments

[scroll]

Maybe the only true "unsearched hoardes" are mint sealed pre-1964 or so proof sets. Yet even then, from my experience, there seems to be some cause for caution.

 

I don't know how many people actually purchase the mint packaging itself alone on eBay for their collection but I've suspected some sets I've received just may have been re-sealed.

[gmarguli]

The only true unsearched proof/mint sets are those that are still sealed in the SHIPPING box. Forget about the "sealed envelope".