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Ron Don Volante posted:What's the edge of the coin like? Is it smooth, are there ridges or indentations, or are there letters on it? There are 3 major edge varieties for that particular half-cent, and their values differ tremendously. The edge is smooth. It doesn't look like there were letters or ridges that have worn away.
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Sep 1, 2013 23:49
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RustedChrome posted:Thanks for all the info. I'm slowly going through the coins and photographing the ones that seem interesting to me. If you come across an 1893-s Morgan dollar, those are generally considered bad luck. For that matter, any 1893 silver coin is bad - let me know and I'll be glad to get rid of them for you... Seriously - get a red book of US Coins for $15. Some crook dealer (they are out there...) could have snookered you on that penny and you'd have been none the wiser. And no - if you get an 1893-s Morgan, it's your lucky day!
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Sep 2, 2013 00:11
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RustedChrome posted:The edge is smooth. It doesn't look like there were letters or ridges that have worn away. Alright, that's a more common variety. I would grade it at AG-3, with a nice full date. $300 bare minimum. If you do end up selling these on eBay or somewhere online, you'll probably get more than most other people because you've got some great pictures. There are lots of people who lose out on hundreds of dollars just because they can't be bothered to take a halfway decent picture.
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Sep 2, 2013 00:25
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Thanks, photography is my main passion so I've got good equipment and experience to take nice shots. I sell things on ebay regularly and, you are right, good photos will boost the price. That said, I'm not in a rush to sell the coins. I want to make sure anything I have that is really valuable is cared for and stored securely at this point. I will probably post more questions in the near future. Thanks again!
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Sep 2, 2013 00:30
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So my father gifted to me a 1776-1976-D Bicentennial Ike Silver Dollar Type 1 when I was a child. It's still in pretty mint condition, except for a couple marks on the front. I have no interest in selling it, I'm just curious what it's about worth.
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Sep 2, 2013 01:52
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hate pants posted:So my father gifted to me a 1776-1976-D Bicentennial Ike Silver Dollar Type 1 when I was a child. It's still in pretty mint condition, except for a couple marks on the front. I have no interest in selling it, I'm just curious what it's about worth. All of the Denver (D) mint bicentennials were struck in copper-nickel, so it's only worth a couple bucks. It's the bicentennial dollars with a S mintmark that were struck in silver-copper (ASW 1/3rd ounce).
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Sep 2, 2013 22:39
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Are uncirculated Millard Fillmore coins worth anything or just their face value?
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Sep 4, 2013 01:52
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Frostwerks posted:Are uncirculated Millard Fillmore coins worth anything or just their face value? The one dollar coins aren't exactly widely available to everyone, so it could be worth at most 2 bucks to the right person. I picked up 10 rolls of uncirculated presidential dollars from my bank for face value a few months back. I kept nice, mostly uncirculated examples of each president and slowly spent the rest. The fact that you can get them from most banks, if you want to, keeps them from being worth too much. So basically, yeah, face value. Do whatever you feel like with them.
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Sep 4, 2013 05:45
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Just bought this rainbow-toned Morgan dollar off of eBay.  
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Sep 9, 2013 02:23
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Ron Don Volante posted:Just bought this rainbow-toned Morgan dollar off of eBay. Pretty. I like the front better than the back. There's something great about light edge toning that I really enjoy. I really like the frosty matte finish of morgans too. DMPL can gently caress itself.
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Sep 13, 2013 18:19
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I don't buy many American coins, but I bought this one recently because it seemed like a good deal at 32 dollars. I have a long term goal of collecting all of the San Francisco Morgan Dollars. Did I do all right? I'm guessing it depends on whether it's uncirculated or not. I am not sure if the darker area around her ear counts as wear or not.  Looks like I didn't get all the red from the light out in the right picture. oops.
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Sep 14, 2013 18:34
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Jimmy James posted:I don't buy many American coins, but I bought this one recently because it seemed like a good deal at 32 dollars. I have a long term goal of collecting all of the San Francisco Morgan Dollars. Did I do all right? I'm guessing it depends on whether it's uncirculated or not. I am not sure if the darker area around her ear counts as wear or not. I'd call it uncirculated. I'd definitely list it as such on eBay (w/pic) and not feel the least bit guilty - that's my litmus test. Now as to the numbers from 60-65, that's beyond my pay grade. I generally avoid professionally graded coins because you're always paying for that, and also because my collection is more for fun than about money. $32 for an uncirculated Morgan seems good to me. Haven't checked silver spot in awhile, but provided its still around $20, that's not bad at all.
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Sep 14, 2013 22:29
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That's a great deal! Definitely uncirculated, well-struck (the eagle's breast feathers and the hairs above Liberty's ear are fairly well-defined), unmarked surfaces, and no signs of obvious cleaning. If you were to sell it on eBay you could get $50 easily. For Morgans, the design highpoints I usually look at are the breast feathers, hairs directly above ear, and the upper fold of the cap. If there's no wear on any of those parts, it's most likely uncirculated. However, those parts are also often weakly struck, so it's important to be able to tell the difference between wear and a weak strike. Also make sure to study the luster, because a lot of Morgan dollars have been cleaned over the years. If the coin shows no signs of wear but the luster appears diminished, chances are it's been cleaned.
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Sep 15, 2013 00:28
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Ron Don Volante posted:That's a great deal! Definitely uncirculated, well-struck (the eagle's breast feathers and the hairs above Liberty's ear are fairly well-defined), unmarked surfaces, and no signs of obvious cleaning. If you were to sell it on eBay you could get $50 easily. The luster looks pretty good. It's uniform throughout. I don't think it shows too great in the pictures because I used really diffuse light. Any time I see a 100+ year old coin as white as that, I think it's probably been cleaned in some way. On the bright side, the edges are dark and toned, which is a good sign. It seems like it could have come out of an uncirculated roll. At 10x magnification with my loupe, the surfaces aren't perfectly smooth. I know sometimes fields are rougher than others based on die preparation and condition, so I feel like I don't know for sure. At worst it was dipped some years ago, but definitely nothing harsher than that.
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Sep 15, 2013 02:34
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Ron Don Volante posted:That's a 1794 large cent, Head of 1793 variety, in what I would probably call choice-VF condition (30+ on a 70 point grading scale). The color looks nice and I don't see any problems, which is rare for early large cents. The market's pretty thin so estimating a value is difficult but you're probably looking at the $500-1000 range. At that price, getting it professionally graded starts to make sense (grading is relatively expensive) and will boost the price. PCGS, NGC, or IGC are the ones you should consider. Follow up time. I took the cent to a local coin shop that has a good reputation among collectors. They were pretty excited about it and asked me to leave it with them (with a receipt) so the owner could take a look at it. They called me back the next day and said the owner recommended getting it graded. They would send it for grading and then make me an offer when it comes back. If I sell to them, they pay for the grading. If I keep it, I just have to pay that fee, so that's what I did. About a week later they said it had been graded but they hadn't gotten it back yet. The owner offered $1200 for it. I asked what the actual grade was and the guy I talked to said he didn't know but would find out if I wanted to know. I told him I would wait until I see it in the slab to decide anything. Turns out it was graded as XF40 and they upped their offer to $1700. They say it's the head of 1794 variety and from what I can see, that goes for around $5000. I know the coin shops have to make some money but.... I declined to sell it. So, my question is, can I really expect to get $4500 - $5000 on the market from a collector or am I just doing some wishful thinking? 
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Sep 24, 2013 21:45
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RustedChrome posted:Follow up time. I took the cent to a local coin shop that has a good reputation among collectors. They were pretty excited about it and asked me to leave it with them (with a receipt) so the owner could take a look at it. They called me back the next day and said the owner recommended getting it graded. They would send it for grading and then make me an offer when it comes back. If I sell to them, they pay for the grading. If I keep it, I just have to pay that fee, so that's what I did. The advantage of selling high value coins like these is that you can see what other ones have sold for in recent history. You can do a search on Heritage Auctions or any other major coin auctioneer and look at their auction histories for realized coin values. It looks like an XF40 Head of 1794 1C sold for 4100 dollars through Heritage Auctions in July. There was a VF30 that sold for 4400. So, depending on eye appeal, you are looking at 4000 to 5000 dollars through a major auctioneer. With that being said, auctioneers get a cut, so after fees and everything you would take home less. I don't know what the going rate for fees are, but I would not be surprised if the auction houses ended up with as much as 20%. Even considering that, you could get double what the coin shop is offering you. It would be hard to find a specific collector willing to pay 5k without going through one of the larger auction services unless you have a network of coin collecting contacts. http://coins.ha.com/c/search-results.zx?Ne=1897&N=51+790+231+307+4294966988
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Sep 24, 2013 22:11
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What would be wrong with listing on ebay with a buy-it-now only option?
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Sep 24, 2013 23:25
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c0ldfuse posted:What would be wrong with listing on ebay with a buy-it-now only option? Nothing, it would just have a lower likelihood of actually selling. eBay is much more useful for lower value coins—when you reach a certain price/rarity threshold, you'd be better off listing your coin on Heritage. Heritage's seller fee is also slightly smaller than eBay's for most items.
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Sep 25, 2013 00:33
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I've never sold anything on eBay worth more than a few hundred dollars. I fear the auction and Paypal fees would be killer, not to mention how eBay can totally screw over sellers sometimes. I'll look into that Heritage site, I don't personally know any collectors who would buy this coin from me.
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Sep 25, 2013 02:52
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RustedChrome posted:I've never sold anything on eBay worth more than a few hundred dollars. I fear the auction and Paypal fees would be killer, not to mention how eBay can totally screw over sellers sometimes. I'll look into that Heritage site, I don't personally know any collectors who would buy this coin from me. Do not sell your coins on eBay, PayPal fees will gobble up a lot of whatever profit you have left. Buy-it-now is even worse, since a far larger fee goes to eBay compared with a standard auction. Try to sell it locally, you may get less but with all of eBay's and PayPal fees, it's not much difference in the end. An XF-40 1794 cent is awesome as gently caress by the way!
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Sep 25, 2013 08:07
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RustedChrome posted:I've never sold anything on eBay worth more than a few hundred dollars. I fear the auction and Paypal fees would be killer, not to mention how eBay can totally screw over sellers sometimes. I'll look into that Heritage site, I don't personally know any collectors who would buy this coin from me. I feel like being a buzz kill, so here's something worth considering. If you net >3000 dollars off of coin sales, then you are obligated to claim it as income in your annual tax return as a capital gain. In addition to auction fees, you have additional 20+% in government fees! With that in mind, I doubt most people claim coin sales if they aren't coin dealers even if they are supposed to.
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Sep 26, 2013 05:27
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How much is a 1943 steel cent worth? I got it in change at the 7-11 and immediately recognized it when I was turning out my pockets later that day. Recognized it in the sense that I said to myself "Is that a dime?" and "Wasn't there a one-cent coin minted during WW2 that was made of steel?" It has no mint mark and is in okay condition. I'm not looking to sell it, just curious.
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Sep 26, 2013 08:34
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Jimmy James posted:I feel like being a buzz kill, so here's something worth considering. If you net >3000 dollars off of coin sales, then you are obligated to claim it as income in your annual tax return as a capital gain. Maybe it's just me not being fully awake yet, but I find it really amusing that currency itself is subject to capital gains tax.
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Sep 26, 2013 13:54
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Lutha Mahtin posted:Maybe it's just me not being fully awake yet, but I find it really amusing that currency itself is subject to capital gains tax. It's a special case really - it's no longer currency once it's sold for more than face value, it's transformed by the invisible hand into a "collectable". Which then makes me wonder if there is some way that a HUGE user of postage could take advantage of the fact that old stamps are routinely sold at some discount of face value because of the bother in dealing with thousands of 6 cent (and every other possible denomination) stamps. ( I mean from a tax standpoint...)
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Sep 26, 2013 14:42
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cheerfullydrab posted:How much is a 1943 steel cent worth? I got it in change at the 7-11 and immediately recognized it when I was turning out my pockets later that day. Recognized it in the sense that I said to myself "Is that a dime?" and "Wasn't there a one-cent coin minted during WW2 that was made of steel?" It has no mint mark and is in okay condition. I'm not looking to sell it, just curious. Probably about 20 to 50 cents for a circulated steelie like that, if you could find a buyer. Even in mint condition I think they go for less than $20. So many people saved them back then that they are not even remotely hard for a collector to obtain. Lutha Mahtin posted:Maybe it's just me not being fully awake yet, but I find it really amusing that currency itself is subject to capital gains tax. 
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Sep 26, 2013 15:46
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Someone in my family at some point did some collecting it's a pair of Morgans and a coin that I don't recognize. I took these with a cellphone camera on a white sticky note hopefully the quality isn't too bad.      Not a coin but I thought this dollar bill was interesting because it says you can trade it in for silver. I have a lot more paper money from someone in the family but most of its foreign so not particularly relevant to this topic.  Edit: A few of these my phone didn't focus correctly on I'll see if I can edit them. jiffypop45 fucked around with this message at 22:13 on Sep 26, 2013 |
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Sep 26, 2013 22:05
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jiffypop45 posted:Someone in my family at some point did some collecting it's a pair of Morgans and a coin that I don't recognize. I took these with a cellphone camera on a white sticky note hopefully the quality isn't too bad. The 1921 Morgan is a very common date, but still worth about $25. The 1891 Morgan isn't quite as common, so more like $30. The bicentennial half dollar and dollar coins are worth little more than face value. That Series 1935 Silver Certificate is in pretty good condition, probably worth about $5.
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Sep 27, 2013 19:26
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So, I was getting some stuff at a Korean folk festival and for some reason a stall had this old 1859 US dollar. Is it worth as much as a cursory googling suggests, or is it relatively common? http://i.imgur.com/6vcna7d.jpg http://i.imgur.com/CoS1TPN.jpg (Direct linked because I'm a nub) Edit: Also got some old Korean, Japanese and Hong Kong coins, should I post them here too?
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Sep 28, 2013 18:51
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Jubilex posted:So, I was getting some stuff at a Korean folk festival and for some reason a stall had this old 1859 US dollar. Is it worth as much as a cursory googling suggests, or is it relatively common? Any old U.S. coins purchased from Asia or Asian-related markets are almost guaranteed to be fakes. China in particular creates a huge number of counterfeits each year, many of which end up on eBay. Judging by the porosity and weak strike of the obverse and the strange color of the coin and lack of patina, I'd say that's a base-metal counterfeit. To be absolutely certain, you could find a gram scale and see if it weighs close to 26.73g (or just roughly compare it to an ounce of anything).
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Sep 28, 2013 19:06
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Only 19 grams  Oh well, only a buck for a cool looking coin, at least. I'll look up the weights of the others too, see what pans out.Edit: One of the Hong Kong Dollars is an ounce and non-magnetic, which seems good. The rest were all steel knockoffs, as you suspected. Jubilex fucked around with this message at 19:29 on Sep 28, 2013 |
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Sep 28, 2013 19:14
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Ron Don Volante posted:Nothing, it would just have a lower likelihood of actually selling. eBay is much more useful for lower value coins—when you reach a certain price/rarity threshold, you'd be better off listing your coin on Heritage. Heritage's seller fee is also slightly smaller than eBay's for most items. I think Heritage's fees seem lower because of their structuring. I bought my first coin off of Heritage this weekend from the Long Beach World Coin auction. I got a feel for it first hand. There's 17.5% of buyer's fees after the winning price. People will factor that into their bid, and HA conveniently calculates out potential fees for you while making your bid. I believe HA has additional fees for the seller like photography and what not. When it's all said and done, it's more than 20%. I bid 300 dollars for the coin, but after fees, taxes, and shipping I paid 390 dollars. I doubt the seller get to take home the full 300 dollars too. It's a lot. Ebay takes a 10% cut and then PayPal takes a 3% cut. So on eBay you only lose out on about 13% + shipping. If you have an eBay shop, that 13% can be reduced to 10%.
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Oct 2, 2013 15:34
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I have one of these: http://www.ebay.com/bhp/1986-american-eagle-50-gold-coin that would be considered mint condition... It's the year I was born so it was a gift to my parents and is in a little plastic sealed view box. Is it really worth that much? I was going to mount it in a belt buckle, my dad has a buckle with a silver dollar from his birth year and I always liked it. Obviously it's not safe to do that if it's worth more than $1000, I assumed it had some value because gold prices are fairly high but thats pretty crazy.
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Oct 11, 2013 06:06
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MAKE NO BABBYS posted:I have one of these: http://www.ebay.com/bhp/1986-american-eagle-50-gold-coin that would be considered mint condition... It's the year I was born so it was a gift to my parents and is in a little plastic sealed view box. Is it really worth that much? I was going to mount it in a belt buckle, my dad has a buckle with a silver dollar from his birth year and I always liked it. Obviously it's not safe to do that if it's worth more than $1000, I assumed it had some value because gold prices are fairly high but thats pretty crazy. Provided it's not a replica it is worth that much money, and would be really stupid to put on a belt buckle. If you'd like a fancy coin buckle, find a gold plated morgan dollar for $30 and use that instead. Edit: Morgans are dated from 1878-1921, so your birthdate is out. Get a gold plated silver American eagle (or use a silver one) for $30-40 if it's all about the date. JDM3 fucked around with this message at 15:50 on Oct 11, 2013 |
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Oct 11, 2013 15:48
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Yeah that coin contains an ounce of gold, so it's pretty valuable even with the recent pullback in gold prices.
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Oct 11, 2013 17:51
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To raise this thread from the dead with a boring question, I have a few coins my fiancee bought from some lady at a gas station for face value. It's a peace dollar and a couple Morgan dollars and nothing looks unusual about them so I'm assuming they're about $25 a piece. Confirmation? 
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Oct 22, 2013 18:56
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Yep, all common dates so around $25-30 ea. Not a bad deal.
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Oct 22, 2013 22:53
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Ron Don Volante posted:Yep, all common dates so around $25-30 ea. Not a bad deal. The woman came in and bought a pack of cigarettes with some and the cashier bought those out of the register herself. My fiancee just approached the woman and asked to buy what she had left. Kinda wonder where she got the drat things if she was using them to buy cigarettes.
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Oct 23, 2013 22:26
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MonkeyBot posted:The woman came in and bought a pack of cigarettes with some and the cashier bought those out of the register herself. My fiancee just approached the woman and asked to buy what she had left. Kinda wonder where she got the drat things if she was using them to buy cigarettes. I've actually heard similar stories a couple times now from convenience store clerks—people paying for cigarettes or alcohol with silver coins. My guess is that most of them are breaking up dad or granddad's old coin collection.
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Oct 24, 2013 04:55
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I can help out with this thread. I was a professional coin dealer for 8 years. I was very active on the coin show circuit, and know the ins and outs of the coin business. Im also an ANA life member. Coins are valued by 2 main criteria, rarity and condition (in that order.) Rarity is pretty self explanatory, the fewer the coins that are minted the rarer it is and the more valuable they are. Condition is the grade of the coin, the more detail that is left in the coin the higher grade the coin is, and by extension the more valuable it is. There is also a thing called condition-rarity, where its a fairly common coin but it is extremely rare in higher grades. Standing liberty quarters come to mind as a coin that has a lot of condition-rarity, just check the price guides and look at the value of the higher grades. The biggest issue I had as a coin dealer was people coming in thinking that there grandfathers Indian head penny is worth a million bucks, and get offended when I tell them that they could get $3 for it on eBay. Sentimental value is a great thing, and it is deeply personal. I understand that this coin connects you to good memory's of family, and perhaps better times. But the real value is the real value. If you have any questions on the buisness side of coins feel free to post or pm me. And with the op's permmison I can help valuate coins as well. And please, if you want fairly accurate pricing on the coins, then post a pic of the obverse and reverse. It really helps by determining grades, mint marks, and possible varitys.
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Oct 24, 2013 19:58
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Can you just tell some interesting stories about your time as a dealer?
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Oct 25, 2013 02:47
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