Selling a coin collection: how much to pay an appraiser/seller?

April 16, 2022 10:29 AM

What's fair compensation for appraising and selling a coin collection?

My sibling and I inherited a coin collection. We know nothing about coins. We're not interested in keeping any of them.

My father-in-law is a coin collector. He has offered to look through the coins, judge their condition, then appraise them with books and eBay sales. He's also offered to handle selling them on eBay--from listing to shipping.

In exchange, he'd like to keep some of the coins.

I'm not sure if this is fair to him. He's doing a lot of work. I suppose it depends on the value of what he picks for himself? But I don't think there's anything super-rare in there. The person we inherited the collection from was not a hard-core numismatist. They just liked collecting silver dollars, half dollars, and presidential coins.

My question is: What's fair compensation for this kind of work? My first thought is to either determine a wage per hour or a cut of the eBay sales (after expenses), then subtract the value of the coins he keeps from that.

Thanks!

posted by Boxenmacher to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (5 answers total)

Best answer: If he's a hobbyist coin collector (not a professional) and has other income, here's a perspective in case it's interesting: I collect stainless steel flatware as a hobby. Each piece is not valuable, but there are thousands of fun patterns, and some patterns are very hard to find. If a friend or family member asked me to appraise and sell a flatware collection, I'd be excited to do that in exchange for keeping some of the pieces that I like, whether or not they're the most valuable pieces. I'd have an excuse to spend several hours learning about the pieces in the inherited collection, sorting them, picking my favorites that fill gaps in my collection, looking them up in books to correctly describe them, and getting them into the hands of other people who will enjoy them. It'd be generous if the family member offered to pay me a cut of the proceeds, but I'd be fine with keeping it simple, especially since I wouldn't expect the collection to sell for a ton of money.
posted by dreamyshade at 10:48 AM on April 16, 2022 [6 favorites]

One thing to keep in mind, even if coins do not have collectable value ("rareness"), some coins, including silver and half dollars, may have a certain amount of actual silver that will be valuable.
posted by Stuka at 11:18 AM on April 16, 2022

I agree that this will be interesting enough for him and keeping a few would be enough compensation unless something takes a really long time. He is not an expert, just a collector, and doesn't have business overhead, so I wouldn't think you need to pay the same rates you would pay a coin shop either.
posted by soelo at 11:19 AM on April 16, 2022

United States dimes and quarters had silver in them through 1964. I believe the silver dollars stopped being produced in 1970. Eisenhower Silver Dollar (1971 to 1978) are 40 percent Silver, and worth about 5:25, the 1964 and before quarters about four 50, no matter what the condition of the coin (assuming it's pretty much intact.

So you can calculate the approximate value of the coins based upon the melt value, how much the coin would be worth if it was melted down purely for the metal. Condition and other factors can multiply that value pretty quickly, but generally speaking most coins are not exceptional.

As a hobbyist, anything under about a thousand coins wouldn't take me very long to sort and do a basic analysis of. Probably two to five enjoyable hours to do a little bit of research to see if there's any special mint marks or extra good condition coins to look out for. I have occasionally done this to other people's collections just for fun to see what they have.

I'd recommend having a ballpark value of the pure silver you're handing over, just multiplying the number of each type of coin by their melt value. As for the actual question, it kind of depends how much you think he should be paid. Taking the generic coins to a dealer only takes about an hour. If there's a lot of coins that might actually be worth ebaying, he might be putting in more work than that. Hard to tell. The easiest method is what he listed, he knows how much time and effort he put using his expertise and can more or less decide what he wants to pay himself. I'd probably underpay myself a little bit because it's more fun than work to me. And depending on what the collection actually is, there might not be all that much money in it to begin with. Hard to say.
posted by Jacen at 5:39 PM on April 16, 2022 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Since this is a relative and not a professional, maybe pay him what he asks for and then buy him a gift or take him and his spouse (if he has one) out for a nice dinner?
posted by FencingGal at 5:47 PM on April 16, 2022 [2 favorites]