I'm Appraising a "Piggy Bank" Collection ... How to Price?

[astrostu]

A cousin of my mom's asked me to come over today to look through a few hundred coins that he's been putting into a piggy bank over the last few decades. From what he's told me, it includes representatives of US coins pretty much throught the 1900s, plus a few bills.

 

I'm planning on simply grading the coins and bills and using the Black Book to give him an idea on the bills and Coin World's annual guide on the coins, but to also go through PCGS's online price guide to make sure there aren't huge discrepancies with Coin World (like this year's Coin World book says Franklins are worth about 10x more than anyone else).

 

I plan on making an offer on a few of his coins, but my real question is that he plans on trying to sell them, and so what is a reasonable expectation he should have of the value based upon what I'm using? In other words, should he expect to get like 50% of the Coin World / PCGS price, 75%, etc? And these'll be on the normal coins ... I'll probably tell him to take any key dates he has to a dealer.

 

Thanks, and I am double-posting this in the Marketplace forum, so if an admin/moderator wants to delete one of them, I'll understand.

[EZ_E]

Unless there are any key or better date coins, 50% of Coin World values would even be too much for me. Most likely they will be all common, junk coins which would just clutter my collection. I prefer more of a stream-lined approach to collecting rather than hoarding a bunch of coins.

 

I think that the best approach would be to roll up the common wheat cents, silver dimes, etc. and sell them on e-bay or to suggest the same to the owner of the coins.

 

However, if there are any better dates or varieties then have them slabbed to better ascertain their value if you are unsure of them yourself.

 

So, I would not propose a blanket offer contingent upon a percentage of their "value" because you will probably still loose money. Just because Coin Values says that a mint state state quarter is worth 75 cents or a wheat cent is worth fifty cents does not necessarily mean that it is actually worth that nor could you sell it for that.

[astrostu]

Well, after spending a few hours sorting and grading, I can report that there were no key dates, and that except for the Buffalo nickels, nothing really seemed to be worth much more than bullion value. However, with 220 quarter, 30 dimes, and a few half dollars, the bullion value (at $12 per oz. of silver) comes in at around $500.

 

What I told him I'd do is take it to a coin dealer to see if he notices something I may have missed, see if he's willing to buy anything, and if not to take it to a metals broker in town to try to get the bullion value.

 

Would I be correct to state that when selling to a precious metals broker, I can expect to get AT LEAST the value of silver in the coins for him?

[MunkyMan95]

Being that it's only a $500 lot, I wouldn't go out of my way to find a metals broker. While he's at the coin shop, he may just want to sell if for around melt there. My dealers usually give around 90-95% of melt. That's around $450-$475 for the whole lot. Not bad if it melts for $500 and you save the gas getting to the broker.

[EZ_E]

Shop around. Some will pay spot, some a little under and some alot under.

 

I still think that you'll do better with ebay.