Quanity vs. Quality

[Cannonman17]

My Grandma gave me her coin collection when I was just twelve, at the time it had a face value of about 400.00 it is now has a face value of about 1200.00 (actual value- I have NO idea but it would be a nice chunck of change if it were sold for only scrap weight even) with many complete books like all the washingtons, all ikes, all kennedys, nearly complete buffalo, mercury, v nickels, etc etc... very few post '64 coins at all and I even have a handful of lower grade key dates. I have often thought about selling all of it off, the entire thing, and then buying just one coin, say a decent grade 1916 quarter or some other such ultra key date. I'm just wondering if anybody out there has done this and if so what did you go with? As a side note I have a small stash of "extra" silver rounds, quarters, dimes, wheaties, etc that I would trade for some coin I don't have- pm if interested.

 

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[Dimeman]

I had accumulated lots of common date silver coins from detecting, and coin collecting over the years, and had traded some of them in on some key dated coins, many years ago. Since I like Merc dimes and Franklin Halfs, that is what I traded for.
The key date coins, and "gem" quality condition ones, in all probability, will grow in value much better than common silver coins.
They have in the past.

 

[Cannonman17]

Oh there's no doubt that the key dates grow faster and will continue to. My collection isn't all common date, I have a almost all semi key and a couple of key dates also. I think it would be hard to trade in all the full and nearly full books for one coin... but then again.... What exactly did you trade your commons for if you don't mind me asking?

 

[Dimeman]

I traded them in back in the "Silver Boom Days" late 1979 early 1980 when silver was over $40 an ounze, and I bought a XF 1942/41 Merc Dime, a G-4 1916 D Merc dime, 4- 1921 Mercs in Fine, 2- 1921 D in fine, a 1921 D Merc in VF and about 6 key date Franklin Halfs in " BU" condition. Some of the halfs I just got graded by ANACS this past month , 2 of the1949D MS 61 FBL and one 1949S MS 62 FBL. In the silver boom days some coins, like the BU halfs, were worth more as scrap than as collector coins so you could buy them at melt value. And the prices of the key dates were very low compared to what they are today.

Lots of the coins that I found detecting back then were from a park area ,that had over half a mile of curbing put in where people used to park on the grass right off the street. I spent over a month detecting the area and got loads of silver coins from there. The park was built in the late 50's and had lots of years of silver coins lost there. Some of the park area was a sawmill before it became a park.

 

[Cannonman17]

Holy smokes! You certainly did the right thing then, specially back then. Wasn't it the Hunt brothers who tried to corner the market.. crazy. You did that a while ago and I find myself wishing I would have bought some of the keys even 15 years ago...I look at the price of a 16-D dime now and say "man, wish I would have bought that when I was in High School for half that!" and there doesn't seem to be any end in site. So do you think I would be wise to trade my collection off for one really rare key date in great condition?

 

[Dimeman]

Well just the 16D Merc cost me less than 225 bucks back then.

 

[Jeffro]

I'd spread it out a bit, not just one coin. Consider it "diversifying" LOL!

Also consider the resale at some point in time. There are fewer people looking for Standing liberties than there are looking for 1909 SVDBs or even s mint Buffalos.

So key and semi key date wheats and Buffalos would be more liquid and still have good gains.

 

[Cannonman17]

Good points. I'm not a big wheatie fan though and buffalos are okay... I was thinking a key date gold coin maybe though, something slabbed. Then again I think about it and how I enjoy looking through all the books now and what a difference it would be to be down to looking at just one coins....