How do I get some vintage coins appraised?

December 20, 2004 7:21 AM

Vintage Coin Appraisal: My father passed away a while ago and he had inherited a shoebox of coins from his father, which I have now inherited. I collected coins as a child and remember nothing other than I always got a bad vibe from coin dealers and the like. What is the best way to get my coins appraised and then what is the best way to sell them without getting taken for a ride?
posted by spicynuts to Grab Bag (7 answers total)

Find an appraiser who specializes in old coins and pay to have them valued for insurance purposes. Don't even think about selling them to that appraiser.
posted by naomi at 7:49 AM on December 20, 2004

My father has become quite the coin collector over reason years. He buys them off of ebay. Although you first should know the values of the coins. I second finding an appraiser or grab some books if you can. I bought my dad a Coins Magazine subscription and he seems to find that helpful.

But for selling, I suggest ebay. Maybe my dad will be a customer of yours!
posted by freudianslipper at 8:23 AM on December 20, 2004

damn my lack of preview skills. "...quite the coin collector over recent years."
posted by freudianslipper at 8:24 AM on December 20, 2004

I had a similiar question concerning the old baseball cards I recently inherited, and I think naomi's advice is sound especially since I don't really have any desire to sell them at this point anyways. Thanks
posted by terrapin at 9:04 AM on December 20, 2004

Response by poster: So in general there are people who specialize in appraisal for insurance purposes who may be more trustworthy than just some guy in a coin shop? I assume there's some kind of general yellow pages entry for Appraisers or some such. Thanks for the advice!
posted by spicynuts at 11:00 AM on December 20, 2004

Yes, the job of an appraiser is to research the value of your property and give you a written opinion of that value. This is required by insurance companies if you plan to insure your collection, for example.

There are online appraisal services like this one, but that seems a little iffy to me. I would check the phone book for a local company. Anyone who does estate appraisals should be able to help you.

Note that appraisers can provide two types of valuation: "fair market value" is the amount you might plausibly get if you sold your coins today; "replacement value" is the amount it would cost you to replace your collection. Replacement value will often be much higher, and that's the amount people use for insurance value.

You probably want to request both types of valuation to get the full picture.
posted by naomi at 12:03 PM on December 20, 2004

I have a box of coins at home as well. You may want to figure out whether you are at all interested in coins as a hobby or if you just want to unload the collection. If you want to unload it, are you in a hurry or can it wait until you find the right market?

Here is the FAQ for rec.collecting.coins, a newsgroup I used to read a lot about a decade ago. If the coins are really in a shoe box, the whole collection might be more impressive if you sorted and organized the coins. Whatever you do, DON'T CLEAN THEM. The whole web site that contains the FAQ has a lot of other useful information like how to make good scans of the coins if you decide to sell them on eBay and other good books and resources.
posted by jessamyn at 5:11 PM on December 20, 2004