Selling a Coin Collection: Why a Local Coin Dealer May Be the Better Choice

When considering selling a coin collection, it helps to work with a person who can talk through your questions and concerns. That person should also be able to explain the reasoning behind an offer and handle issues as they arise during the discussion.

It can also be useful to get a sense of the person with whom you are working. Pay attention to your instincts: did the interaction leave you with a good feeling or a bad one? If their manner makes you uneasy, other coin dealers are available to consider.

After you have developed a comfortable rapport, it may be easier to feel that you are being treated fairly and to focus on the process instead of staying guarded throughout it. A coin collection that inherited or a coin collection you assembled over many years can carry both financial worth and personal meaning.

When a particular coin has sentimental importance to you, or when you question its pricing, an appointment can make those concerns easier to discuss. You should not feel pushed to sell a specific coin or the entire collection. If you do feel that pressure, it may be appropriate to look elsewhere. At the time of publication, receiving payment during the local transaction was also presented as a useful advantage.

When this article was originally published, selling by mail or online could be stressful because the seller might not know when payment would arrive, or whether payment would arrive at all.

The sections below examine each of these earlier points more closely, with the goal of offering greater clarity as you decide how you would prefer to sell your coin collection.

A brief personal example appears first, before the discussion turns to coin collections…

When this article was written, the original author was under contract to sell his house.

It was exciting, but stressful at the same time.

At the time of publication, the original author and his household had decided to rent until the housing market cooled. It had been years since they had gone through the rental-home process, and the experience was eye-opening because many rentals in that market were corporately owned. The original article described those companies as nameless and impersonal, with staffs showing little interpersonal ability. It also reported that communication was largely electronic and provided little help with questions or concerns.

For instance, the original author reported responding through a company communication portal—where there was again no way to speak with anyone—and stating, “I would like to speak with a human being.” The original article characterized the process as frustrating.

The original article said the first real relief came after the original author spoke with a private rental owner. Their questions were answered immediately, and they made more progress in 15 minutes than they had made during the prior week with corporately owned rentals. That experience led the original author to consider parallels between corporate businesses and small businesses, particularly for people looking to sell a coin collection.

With that background, this article set out to describe what it viewed as the advantages of working with an individual or local coin dealer rather than mailing a collection to an impersonal, corporate-owned online dealer.

Answering Questions and Addressing Concerns About Your Coin Collection

If a process is unfamiliar, or if you have not dealt with it for some time, questions are natural. Having someone accessible to respond to questions and discuss concerns can reduce some of the uncertainty. That can become especially important when thousands of dollars may be involved.

Unfortunately, without someone available for an in-person meeting, that level of communication may be difficult to achieve to your satisfaction. At a minimum, it can be helpful to have a dedicated representative available by telephone. Communication portals that address only part of your questions can leave the impression that the other party does not value you or appreciate your business.

When communication happens only digitally, misunderstandings can develop easily. That is not necessarily anyone’s fault: people are busy, and a laptop or smartphone does not always convey thoughts and feelings perfectly. As a result, details can too often be lost in translation.

At the time of original publication, the article described the following: The original article gave an example from a recent dealer-to-dealer transaction. Another dealer appeared interested in a complete list of coin sets Atlanta Gold & Coin had advertised, but a comma placed in the wrong spot changed the meaning of the order significantly. Small errors of that kind can become costly when valuable property, including coins and coin collections, is involved.

In the original author’s house-hunting example, the property-management company reportedly threatened to move to the next applicant unless the lease was signed without seeing the site. The article suggested that the situation might have gone much more smoothly if someone at the company had been available to speak with them.

How Gold, Silver, and Rare-Coin Prices Are Set

When mailing a coin collection to an online corporate business, there is often no one available to discuss individual prices or the way those prices were determined. Most people will likely conduct some research before selling a collection. Whether that research is accurate or not, it at least gives the seller an idea of what particular coins, or the collection as a whole, may be worth.

The original article stated that, in Atlanta Gold & Coin’s experience, sellers could receive a take-it-or-leave-it response without an explanation for quoted prices. It noted that this approach did not inspire much confidence regarding a collection built through hard work.

At the time this article was published, Atlanta Gold & Coin reported purchasing hundreds of coin collections annually. It said one of the questions it heard most often was how particular coin prices were reached. That is a reasonable question—one coin dealers should welcome and be prepared to explain. After all, buyers and sellers often have different levels of knowledge, especially when the seller is an heir rather than a collector.

A reputable coin dealer should be able to explain pricing for a specific item or collection when asked. As with many things, demand and collector interest can rise and fall over time. The item or items being sold might have strong demand and an active market, or they might have a much more limited market.

In any event, a skilled, qualified, and honest coin dealer should be able to support the prices shared with a seller.

Addressing Coin-Collection Discrepancies in Person

Differences between expectations and the actual coins can arise, particularly with a large collection. The original article described a customer who called to sell a Morgan silver dollar and said it was an 1890 Carson City Morgan dollar certified by NGC at grade 65. For readers unfamiliar with grading, it explained that a grade of 60 or above is considered uncirculated. An appointment was arranged, but pictures were requested beforehand as a precaution.

The coin proved to be an 1890 silver dollar from the Philadelphia Mint, certified by a third-tier grading service not recognized by the industry. In that instance, the difference in value amounted to thousands of dollars.

Most discrepancies do not involve thousands of dollars, but they can occur. Discussing them in person, at the time they arise, can be helpful. As the 1890 Morgan silver dollar example illustrates, apparently small distinctions—such as the producing mint or the grading company that certified a coin—can create a substantial difference in value.

difference.

These matters can be easier to explain face to face, where a local coin dealer can demonstrate the mint that made a coin by pointing out whether a mint mark is present or absent.

Other questions, including the number of coins or the type or types of coins, can also be resolved more easily when both people are together in the room. It is not unusual for someone to arrive with a different coin count than originally expected. The article also recalled a customer who came to an appointment to sell a half-ounce gold coin and discovered it was a 1 oz gold coin.

The customer was pleased to leave the office with twice what had been expected. The article noted that many similar examples could be offered to show why an in-person coin-collection evaluation may provide greater benefit to a seller.

Building Rapport and Comfort with a Coin Dealer

People generally prefer doing business with someone they like and with whom they can form a connection or rapport. That is also why the same salespeople often remain top producers from year to year: they connect with customers and develop trust that extends beyond a single transaction.

Selling a coin collection is similar. It can involve high-value property that you may not know much about or have much experience handling. Being able to speak openly with someone about questions and concerns can be useful.

It is also important to work with someone you feel will handle the transaction fairly, which ultimately helps to reduce the stress and uncertainty of selling your coin collection. In some cases, you may discover shared interests that extend beyond gold and silver coins.

It can be very difficult to establish the same comfort level and working relationship with a company located out of state. Online reviews or a Better Business Bureau rating may give someone hope of fair treatment, but sending a coin collection to a business they have never met or previously worked with still requires considerable trust and confidence.

Recommendations and referrals from friends or family can, of course, provide useful reassurance.

This article was not suggesting that collectors should never ship coins or a coin collection to a dealer. In fact, we do a decent bit of business with customers that are either outside the metro Atlanta area or out of state. The distinction described was that Atlanta Gold & Coin did not involve several different people in handling and processing a collection.

At the time of publication, the person opening a mailed package was also the person who contacted the sender when it arrived. The original article stated that, depending on the collection’s size, same-day offers were usually made and payment was issued immediately. It characterized the process as almost as quick as bringing coins directly into a coin shop.

Ability to Know if You (and your coins) are Being Treated Fairly

Although the article had already mentioned this point, it explained that there was no real replacement for sitting across a desk from someone when assessing whether an offer seemed fair. From hundreds of miles away, a person cannot observe body language; in the same room, those cues are much easier to notice. A seller may quickly see whether a dealer seems unusually eager to buy the collection or disparages it to lower expectations. The article identified those behaviors as possible signs of a lack of integrity.

The original article also relayed client stories about dealers pursuing them into a parking lot with a higher offer just minutes after the clients had declined an initial offer. It described that type of used-car-salesman approach as having no place in the coin business, or in any other field.

The approach described for Atlanta Gold & Coin, as well as other reputable coin dealers, was to present competitive pricing from the outset, much as CarMax does. At the time of publication, the initial offer was presented as the dealer’s best estimate from the beginning. Negotiation could occasionally be possible, but the article said the final amount would remain very close to the original offer.

Most coin dealers were described as operating honestly, though the article advised people to use due diligence when identifying the dealer best suited to their needs.

Ability to Choose Which Coins You’d Like to Sell

When a collection is shipped to an out-of-state dealer, the seller may view the transaction as an all-or-nothing choice. That can be especially uncomfortable when the pricing seems acceptable for most pieces but the seller disagrees about a few. The article noted that some online or out-of-state dealers may respond with a take-it-or-leave-it offer.

Put simply, the seller either accepts the sale of the complete collection or has it returned.

The article presented an in-person meeting with a local dealer as another advantage. There, pricing for coins about which the seller has a different view can be discussed directly. Sometimes a straightforward explanation is enough to support the stated price. As an example, the original article described a recent-at-publication appointment involving a client selling a large estate coin collection that included several high-end Morgan silver dollars.

Atlanta Gold & Coin’s offer differed from the client’s view of the value of one coin. After the article’s described explanation that the coin had been cleaned, along with evidence of cleaning in the form of multiple scratches on its surfaces, the client accepted the offer. That kind of direct demonstration is plainly not possible without meeting in person.

In that example, the customer could have chosen to keep the coin if he did not agree with the assessment, and could likewise have retained any other coin. Instead, he elected to sell the full collection to Atlanta Gold & Coin. The article recognized that some coins carry personal or sentimental importance, which may lead an owner to keep them.

Whatever the reason, being able to decide not to sell particular coins was presented as a benefit of working with a local coin expert. The article suggested that a dealer who pressured someone to sell an entire collection against that person’s wishes was probably not the right dealer for them.

Ability to Receive Immediate Payment for Your Coin Collection

A person may have several different reasons for wanting to sell a coin collection.

The collection may have been inherited, may have been considered to help cover an unexpected expense, or may simply have no longer interested its owner, who was ready to pursue other things. Whatever the motivation, the article noted that immediate payment for a collection can be appealing.

The article observed that people sometimes wait weeks or even months for payment in other parts of life, including product returns, insurance claims, and tax-refund checks. It gave a then-current example: Atlanta Gold & Coin’s tax refund check had taken about six months to arrive that year. Although a small amount of interest was paid because of the delay, the article said that did not adequately offset a six-month wait, since plans for those funds had to be postponed.

While the article did not suggest that online or out-of-state coin dealers typically made people wait six months for payment, it reported hearing stories of waits lasting a month or longer. It also stated that, in a few situations, coin companies had been closed by authorities or had filed for bankruptcy, leaving customers without payment.

Unfortunately, the actions of a small number of bad actors can damage perceptions of everyone.

The article advised that, if a local dealer was unwilling to provide payment on the spot, a seller should leave promptly, because the dealer might not have adequate capital or could be facing cash-flow problems.

Summary

In closing, the article outlined several reasons that working with a local coin dealer might better serve a collection seller than using an online dealer.

For readers who concluded, at the time of publication, that selling a coin collection locally was their preferred path, the original article invited them to reach out Atlanta Gold & Coin Buyers. It characterized the business as a transparent dealer that pays competitive prices and operated with integrity.

At the time of publication, Atlanta Gold & Coin stated that it took pride in treating customers fairly, and said this had led to repeat and regular customers as well as referrals from satisfied customers. The original article further said the business was willing to provide that same industry-leading level of service to out-of-state customers who chose, at that time, to conduct business by mail.

At the time of publication, readers were invited to call Atlanta Gold & Coin at 678-922-4909!