How To Sell Your Coins

Selling your coins can be one of the most emotional or confusing moments of your numismatic experience. Keep in mind that the market both monetary and physically has changed drastically over the last 25 years. With the advent of third party grading and encapsulation in 1985 and the advent of on-line trading of coins in 1986, true professionals began to grade many of the coins going into the market. Many old time collections today have not made the journey to the Professional Coin Grading Service at Newport Beach, California or Numismatic Guaranty Corporation in Sarasota, Florida.

Over the 35 odd years that we have both put together and liquidated collections, accumulations and investment portfolios there has been no real variation in the way that you sell your coins for the most money. All but one requires that you ship you coins to us for our viewing and sale. We will discuss each method as well as pluses and minuses of each.

Cash Offer

Many people spend a tremendous amount of time cataloging accumulations and will try sending an itemized list to us via fax, email or mail. This sometimes will give us an indication of seriousness of the collection and whether it should be sold locally or should be shipped to us. Generally this is not the best way. A call and brief description of the group, will tell us what we need to know. The collection then should be delivered to us. We will evaluate it and call the customer with an estimated liquidation value. This is the fastest method of liquidation. It should take less than a week to complete the transaction. This method will net between 10-20 percent below wholesale value.

Consignment For Sale

If one has more time to sell the collection 30 days or so then we will go through each coin and determine which coins warrant grading and encapsulation. We will immediately sell the coins that do not make the cut and forward the remainder to either PCGS of NGC for grading. This does require that the customer pay the cost of insuring, shipping and grading up front. Once the coins return from the grading service we go about the liquidation. We charge a commission on the gross sale price based on the value of collection. This is negotiated and can include a minimum sales price for certain coins. This method generally will net somewhere between wholesale value and retail value.

Auction Sale

If one has coins of high quality or coins that have a greater degree of rarity, public auction sale will generally get you closer to retail value for your coins. In some cases when two people want the coin badly the price can run away. Auction sale of coins can take anywhere from three to six months or more. Coins can be placed into auctions either raw or graded by third party graders. We generally can negotiate for our clients and obtain not only the best rate but also the best placement for the coin. Commissions today generally are paid by both the seller and the buyer, typically 5-10% by the seller and 10-15% by the buyer. If the collection warrants such, the auction company may even name the sale after the seller. To sell coins at auction you should make sure that you are willing to sell the coins for whatever price they bring. If you end up buying the coin back, you will be confronted with both the buyers charge as well as the sellers charge. The biggest drawback of auction is that once the coin is placed in the auction there is no control over timing of sale or the market forces. Unless you are a very sophisticated seller or have held the coins for a long time this method may not make sense for you.

Sales of PCGS / NGC Coins

In all three methods of liquidation, if you have coins that have been graded by a third party grading service you can be sure that the price that you realize for your coins will be closer to publicly available pricing publications.

If you have a collection you would like to sell please get in touch with us.