Selling coin collections

[fred lever]

The subject of selling a coin collection came up.
I'm a bit out of the loop to advise anybody on what to do.
Whats the go nowadays?
Has anybody gone through the experiance of selling or disposing of a collection?
Is the way to go calling in an Auction house or a local dealer?
Or break the collection up and sell it on eBay.
The particular person who asked the question has the usual boyhood (i guess the 1960's) predecimal date sets.
Any thoughts or advice please.
I might also do a short magazine article on the subject.

Cheers, Fred.

[echidna]

Go through an auction house if there is better grade stuff or lots of volume.
They do all the work.
Only downside is you have got to wait a number of months.

Find out what the auction house fees are also.
They can vary quite a bit.
I've always sold with one particular QLD house as they do not charge seller's commission/fees.

Selling on Ebay is OK if there are a few items only.
Otherwise its too time consuming.

I would not sell to a local dealer unless I was desperate.
At the very least wait till there is a coin show and you can get a quote from multiple dealers at the same time.

[fred lever]

Thanks Echhy. There are some good points there.
Anybody else?

Fred.

[Basilstate]

Hi Fred ,Yes,IAG on the Gold Coast as far as auctions go for the better stuff.No sellers fees.

Ebay for the general coins but as Eccy. says a lot of stuffing around and time consuming.

Silver at A$120 ounce means Bullion Traders come into the equation for bulk lots.

[Sapyx]

As a "contact point" for a coin club, I get these sorts of enquiries all the time. Here's the answer I usually give to people.

You've basically got three options. One, take it to a coin dealer. This has the advantage of being quick - the coin dealer will likely give you cash right there on the spot. The disadvantage is this is probably the worst option in terms of getting "full value" for your coins. Coin dealers are full-time professionals and have to make a profit to make a living, especially if they have the expenses of owning and operating a brick-and-mortar coin shop.

Second is a coin auction house. This has the advantage of having some actual coin collectors in the bidding pool so prices are more likely to approach what an item's "true value" is. The disadvantage here is time; your coins will be sold when the auction house decides to sell them. Auction houses also have a minimum consignment value so won't take small low-value collections.

Finally there's the "sell it yourself on eBay" route. This has the advnatage of convenience - you sell the coins you want to sell, when you want to sell them. I'd really only recommend this is the person charged with disposing of the collection already has lots of experience with eBay or similar online sales venues, as a noob account suddenly starting to sell coins is a big red flag to many buyers and prices realised might be initially disappointing until your reputation is built up. It's also quite slow, especially if it's a large collection as each item in the collection has to be listed separately, packaged and shipped separately, and each item sold increases the chances of having a "bad sale" to a "bad buyer" who unjustly trashes your hard-earned reputation.

[Basilstate]

I should add that a friend from the Central Coast of NSW visited 2 Sydney Dealers in Feb. on my advice.
This was when the Silver price spiked,he was offered lest than melt on his Coins,many of which were fine or better.

Point being still hard to get a decent price on Coins from Dealers.

He's taking the time to sell on Ebay and pay the 15% fees.

[fred lever]

Thanks all repliers, good points there.
Lots of things to consider.

My thoughts turned to myself and what my Executor will have to do.
I have about 15,000 pieces of coins and banknotes as part of my estate plus the usual shelves of reference books, private research papers and that's just the coin collectables.
(None of my heirs are interested in hobby stuff, the silly old coins, cars, radios that grandpa plays with.)
For someone like my Executor I would imagine they would ask for quotes from auction houses that specialize in the particular collectable.
Lucky for the Exec i have the various collectables organized on spreadsheets so at least that gives a start to the poor sod that has to dispose of it all.
I suspect in this case estate disposal would turn into a bit of a 'fire sale'.

Has any member gone through the horrors of estate disposal with regards to collectors?
My Exec will probably just hand the whole thing over to the Family Solicitor.

Fred.

[gweidion]

Hi Fred, I would recommend NOT using eBay if they can help it.
They charge way too much in fees now that the seller, not the buyer, pays.

[Sapyx]

[quote="fred lever" pid='130812' dateline='1773011929']
...(None of my heirs are interested in hobby stuff, the silly old coins, cars, radios that grandpa plays with.)...
[/quote]

It is perhaps good that there isn't an heir interested int he colelction - it means the entire collection can be sold and the resultant funds divvied up "fairly".

Suppose someone has six inheritors named in their will, and only one of them had expressed interest in coin collecting. What would they do? Bestow the entire collection to that one person, leaving the rest of the estate to the others? Doesn't seem "fair", especially if a collection is worth considerably more than the rest of the estate. Or do they somehow assign one-sixth of their collection to that person, with the remainder to be sold?

In such circumstances, perhaps the "fairest" thing to do in the interest of future family harmony would be to auction the entire collection, and make the interested-in-coins inheritor purchase the coins they wanted from the collection at fair market value with their own money, to be reimbursed (minus auction commission) with the proceeds of the sale of the collection as a whole. Which does assume that the person is either already wealthy enough (or has good enough credit with the banks for a short-term loan) to afford to buy their own inheritance.

[quote="fred lever" pid='130812' dateline='1773011929']
Has any member gone through the horrors of estate disposal with regards to collectors?
[/quote]
Yes. Not coins, but other collectables.

My dad collected seashells, and no-one else in the family was interested in them. He had over 20,000 of the things, many of which he found on the beach himself but some of which he paid hundreds of dollars for from dealers both in Australia and overseas. When he passed away over 10 years ago, the members of the local shell club he belonged to helped with the disposal; some were donated to the Shell Museum at the Yeppoon Tourist Information Centre (there being no such public shell museum here in Brisbane), some were bought by club members for "fair market value" as determined by those club members, the rest were fire-saled to a local shell dealer. I doubt we got anywhere near what Dad would have paid for them over the years.

[fred lever]

Thanks Sapyx lots to think about there.

Yes, wills........
I'm lucky I have a hard nose Exec who can keep the herd in line.
Your points reflect my thinking.
The exec will most likely flog the stuff along with other assets and  divide the booty up without mercy.
The heirs better be nice to Aunty Exec.

We had an excellent example in the family when rich uncle Reggie died with a "cast iron" will.
Mining leases, gems, gold, cash all to be divvied up according to 'cast iron'.
That lasted for about as long as two "wives" appeared from no where and suddenly "old mate" claimants from all directions crawled out of the woodwork.
All with "signatured" documents (fake) proving their claims.
All garbage but by the time such claims were legally dispensed with 10 years passed and so did most of the estate in legal fees!
The only winners were the lawyers.

Fred.

[Mister T]

Haven't thought about my own stuff but I've looked through one small collection and paid a fair value for it. Currently looking through another and if I get the chance will pay fair value for it too.

[notcb]

Fred,

One other consideration on disposal of collections:

"sell it fast, sell it low"  or  "sell it slow, sell it high"

This applies to all manner of collections - if the executor has the time and patience, higher values can be obtained.  

Unfortunately most executors want to finalise the estate as quickly as possible.

Cheers

Peter  (notcb)

[WavyTwenty]

Just hitting this point in time myself so a good read.

I plan to hold onto the high-demand, easily sold items and sell off the lower-demand ones.

It's interesting how things change.  My first purchases was a Riddle/Sheehan ten pound note and it was in high demand back in the day. Today the demand is much lower for it even though it's in almost EF/uncirculated condition. I think the price would have dropped too. I took it to a coin show a few years back and was disappointed with what I was offered.

I planning to sell my higher value items through an auction house.
Then I'm going to attempt to sell through Facebook first and finally [flee]eBay.

At least, that is the plan today. Could change tomorrow, haha.

[gweidion]

Now that eBag is free selling for non professional sellers you might get to keep a bit more.
I'm thinking of tossing a few coins up that there is little demand for as well. Even from me.
Basically just for the space.
I've just spent weeks going through $880 odd worth of 50 cent pieces. Actually that is about what I took to the bank so it was more than that. Put some of the better ones in 2x2s.

[jens coins]

Its free to sell on eBay, but you have to purchase your postage label thru eBay