My wife just found a couple of suitcases she'd put away decades ago, when we opened them they were full of coins. her father had been collecting.
There are a lot of US proof sets, there are bags of buffalo nickels and all sorts of other US coins.....it's not just the value I'm looking for but also the best way/place to sell them. I doubt there's anything really rare or valuable in the bunch, but you never know......
Suggestions?
Would a coin seller want to go thru the bags of coins and value each one or just weigh them and give a value based on melt value?
A number of the buffalo nickels are in little paper envelopes, and the years run from the late 1800's into the early 50's - or whenever they changed them to Washington head coins.....and a number of them are the D and S mint which are worth a little more.
I think there's probably 20 lbs or more of nickels and quarters.....
I'm neither expert nor current collector, but from what I've seen recently, if you show up in a shop with 20+ pounds of coins, you'll likely only get just over face value. I think it unlikely that someone would evaluate every coin for its true value. I'd take small handfulls at a time to different shops over a period of time for appraisal, and hear what they offer. I used to love coin collecting as a kid, and somewhere in my basement is a box with my small collection. I never had bags of anything, but found them interesting - condition is everything to a collector.
The silver is easy - probably bullion price, again, not what they're (truly) worth. You could bury these in the backyard and wait for the guv'mint to collapse...
Any grandchildren that you could leave the better stuff to?
7 grandchildren, but the coins are my wife's so it's her decision on how to dispose of them.
I went on one of the guide websites and several of the nickels even in this condition are worth 3-5 bux each, so I'm thinking the few at a time idea might be a good one.
I expect the proof sets will be fairly easy to get rid of, and there are a lot of them, every year from 1960 thru 1976 and more from the 30's, 40's and 50's.
I've seen ebay pull in good money for rare coins.
I doubt any of these are rare.......
There are a couple of coin dealers in town, I may grab a few of the proof sets and go visit them.....
Even though they produced more than just a few of them, they haven't been in circulation for a couple of years. People like the unusual. Some will collect them for their cultural value, others to make earrings and bartops. You'd be surprised -
I just remembered that I've got a bag of Danish 'proof' sets that Hyacinth's late father had collected. Her mom gave them to me when we first moved here, I kept them thinking that maybe Hyacinth's niece or nephew would want them, as they were 'grandpa's' collection. Sadly, there was no interest throughout their teenage years, now I'm hopeful that they'll someday want them for the day they have kids or need to sell them for extra cash.
I spent quite a bit of time on the net looking at various different coins, he had quite a few foreign coins from his time in the navy, some of those are quite old, as in late 1800s and such.
Most of the coins (except the proof sets) are well worn, but after spending quite bit of time making lists of what all she has she decided to just put it all back away and keep them! ::) ;D
I think both my grandsons would like one of the proof sets, so now we're looking at buying them for their birth year as a unique b'day or Xmas gift.
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