Help me TreasureNet! I need to get my great-grandfathers coins appraised!

[MrAgen10]

Help me TreasureNet! I need to get my great-grandfather's coins appraised!

Hey everyone! I was actually referred here by the fine folks over at reddit.com to see if anyone here can help me out.

The title pretty much sums it up. I've been tasked with organizing my great-grandfather's fairly massive coin collection. The goal is to get them all appraised and eventually sold. Here's just a few of them:

http://imgur.com/a/vLAcm

There are probably around 500 coins, but only about 50 are ancient. The modern ones range from around 1700-1950, and are mostly pennies, half-pennies and silver dollars.

The ancient coins all seem to hover around 200BC-300AD. They're all in baggies or plastic, and most look in fair to great condition. Nearly all of them are labeled with suspected age and origin, and he even left a list of where he purchased most of them, and what he paid. Most of them seem to be Greek or Roman, but there are a few from China and surrounding areas.

That's pretty much it! I have little experience with coins, so I'm looking for some insight as to the best course of action for these. I'm working on five or six at a time to keep from getting overwhelmed by such a massive collection.

Any monetary gain would be very nice, but honestly, I just want to see them get into the hands of people that will appreciate them and take care of them.

Thanks in advance!

 

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[azlegends]

Re: Help me TreasureNet! I need to get my great-grandfather's coins appraised!

With such a large collection that most likely has considerable value I would try to contact one of the larger auction houses like Heritage or Stacks.

 

[ImpurestStewart]

Re: Help me TreasureNet! I need to get my great-grandfather's coins appraised!

Give us a list of what all you have and we can help more in depth. Heck I bet some people on here would buy some of it from you. Getcha a charter membership and sell them here!

 

[MrAgen10]

Re: Help me TreasureNet! I need to get my great-grandfather's coins appraised!

Give us a list of what all you have and we can help more in depth. Heck I bet some people on here would buy some of it from you. Getcha a charter membership and sell them here!

I would love to give a good list of everything, but most of it is unlabeled. XD

Love your icon, by the way. I'm a TF2'er myself.

 

[ImpurestStewart]

Re: Help me TreasureNet! I need to get my great-grandfather's coins appraised!

Hahaha. I play on the xbox 360 verision. I like it more than the PC version.(due mostly to all the hats). 1,300+ hours of gameplay,top ten in the world.

 

[azlegends]

Re: Help me TreasureNet! I need to get my great-grandfather's coins appraised!

Even if you can't get a list, if you can post pictures, the members here are very knowledgeable.

 

[lazooro]

Re: Help me TreasureNet! I need to get my great-grandfather's coins appraised!

NICE!!!

 

[MrAgen10]

Re: Help me TreasureNet! I need to get my great-grandfather's coins appraised!

Alright TreasureNet peeps, I was at the safe deposit box today organizing the collection a bit, and was able to take a few photos. Here's pretty much the entire cache:

http://imgur.com/a/5NMbz

Most of the coins, as you can see, are fairly modern. A lot of silver dollars, rolls upon rolls of Mercury dimes, and even more rolls of pennies from 1900-1945. But there are also around 50 ancient coins, which are the ones' I'm focusing on from the get-go.

Any one have any initial thoughts on all of this?

 

[Henry2]

Re: Help me TreasureNet! I need to get my great-grandfather's coins appraised!

I would love to see some close ups of those, its hard to tell what's what in those pictures. The only thing that caught my eye was what appears to be a Morgan dollar but it looks odd to me. Did you search the American coins for key dates?

 

[MrAgen10]

Re: Help me TreasureNet! I need to get my great-grandfather's coins appraised!

I would love to see some close ups of those, its hard to tell what's what in those pictures. The only thing that caught my eye was what appears to be a Morgan dollar but it looks odd to me. Did you search the American coins for key dates?

There are stacks of Morgan dollars, and I did look up some of the dates but they mostly seem to be of average rarity. As for the rest, I've looked up most of the Indian Head pennies, and none of them seem to be the super rare ones. I honestly haven't gotten much time with them yet. They're at the parent's, which is quite far from where I live, so I'm not going to have a lot of time to work on the whole collection at once. Hence me working on a small handful at a time.

This is actually the first time in 20-30 years that anyone has paid any real attention to all of this. I've made it my goal to finally do something about it, no matter how long it takes.

 

[MrAgen10]

Re: Help me TreasureNet! I need to get my great-grandfather's coins appraised!

Hahaha. I play on the xbox 360 verision. I like it more than the PC version.(due mostly to all the hats). 1,300+ hours of gameplay,top ten in the world.

Man, that's awesome! Congrats on that accomplishment!

I've often considered moving to the 360 version, simply because it's completely Vanilla, which I honestly miss.

 

[ImpurestStewart]

Re: Help me TreasureNet! I need to get my great-grandfather's coins appraised!

My sn here is my gamertag on live. Hit me up. If you want to sell some of your silver,please send me a PM.

 

[Diver_Down]

Re: Help me TreasureNet! I need to get my great-grandfather's coins appraised!

This is actually the first time in 20-30 years that anyone has paid any real attention to all of this. I've made it my goal to finally do something about it, no matter how long it takes.

Now, that's the right approach. Setting a goal and working towards it. Unless you really need the money, your best approach is to work through the collection and learn what you can with regards to type, grade, and value. At this time, you can set aside duplicates or undesirable coins and liquidate those coins. The keepers be sure to document and store properly (learn about archival storage quality flips/books) so that future generations don't have to repeat your work. Having a documented, well-organized coin collection might be the best testament to your great-grandfather's legacy.

 

[Iron Patch]

Re: Help me TreasureNet! I need to get my great-grandfather's coins appraised!

Definitely more Ebay material than an auction house.

The first step is pretty simple. You make a pile of all the items you are pretty sure can be sold as a single, then you can forget about them for the time being. Usually that's anything pre 1900s, or coins with some age but a high grade, or the silver like the Morgans. It never hurts to add too many to this pile because the worse that can happen is it doesn't sell... but almost anything you feel would, should get the opening bid of 0.99.

Then you create your lots, which are common items of the same type. Just be careful not to mix silver with non silver.

That leaves the stuff you have to figure out, like the key dates on the silver coins etc. You're doing the right thing by researching the stuff because at min. you want to get them listed in the proper category with a good description. Just have your complete plan mapped out before you start. Coins will get what they're worth on Ebay so that saves a lot of work in trying to price them. But if starting them at 0.99 concerns you there's no harm in paying a little more to start at $9.99 then relist for free if need be. There might be 500 coins but broken down the proper way there could be just 100 auctions to list. Remember.... good pictures, the proper category, and correct ID in the title count for a lot. You do that and the bidders will do the rest. It's very hard to price a collection like that, especially with those pictures, but it should add up to a decent amount. Oh yeah, forget what was paid, and lose the holders when taking your pictures... if you go the ebay route. (which makes the most sense for that collection)

 

[47thelement]

Re: Help me TreasureNet! I need to get my great-grandfather's coins appraised!

First thing you need to do is STOP!!!

Go get your self a Whitman rebook and check your modern coins for key dates

Example. If you have a 1916d mercury dime. In one of those roll your are sitting on a couple grand

 

[shenglu]

Re: Help me TreasureNet! I need to get my great-grandfather's coins appraised!

You can set aside repeated or liquidation of the bad coins and coins. Lost files and storage (archival storage quality flip / books about), so our future generations do not have to repeat your work.