A Call for Volunteers

Some time ago, I was approached by a distant cousin, someone I’d never met before. He was referred to me by a mutual relative. He had found eight large army ammo boxes full of coins while tearing down a house. He knew nothing about coins and hoped I could help him, which I did. (You can read more about this in my article “Sale of a Lifetime” on p. 28 of the December 2023 issue of The Numismatist.) People heard about what I had done and sought my help with their inherited coins. Through word of mouth and advertisements in my church’s newsletter, I began to help people who had inherited coin collections. 

Inherited Coins

Inherited coins are a blessing, but they can also be a burden. Most people who are given coins have no idea what they inherited or how to turn the collection into cash. One very nice lady in her 80s asked me to look at a collection of Walker half dollars. She mentioned that she’d already sold several hundred Franklin and silver Kennedy half dollars to a pop-up storefront operation for eight times their face value, which is less than half of what they were worth. 

I devised some rules to frame my work. First, I didn’t want to buy anything for myself. Doing so posed a conflict of interest, and I’m not interested in increasing the size of my collection. I’ve been steadily reducing what I own. This is not a hard and fast rule, and occasionally, I’ll buy something of nominal value that I find interesting. On other occasions, I’ll buy a fistful of common silver coins for the same amount a reputable shop would pay just to save an elderly lady a 30-mile drive. Later, I’ll make the trip myself. Second, I won’t speak beyond my knowledge. If I don’t know about a coin, I say so. I don’t claim to know the difference between a Mint State (MS)-62 Morgan and an MS-64 Morgan. I also won’t help with jewelry, stamp collections, baseball cards, or foreign currencies. Lastly, I won’t accept payment for my services. 

Common Traits

Including the first collection that my cousin found, I’ve counseled 37 people who inherited collections. What have I learned? 

• Most collections included a handful of Wheat cents, often in incomplete Whitman folders, a few Buffalo nickels (often dateless), a few silver Roosevelt dimes, and some common Indian Head cents. One-ounce silver bullion coins, steel cents, and silver nickels are also often present. 
• In a few cases, there were several thousand Wheaties. They represented a problem because of the time it takes to evaluate each one. Plus, if I find a few better coins, there isn’t an efficient way for these folks to sell a coin worth 25 cents or a dollar. I usually advise the owners to pass quantities of Wheaties on to someone in the family who might be interested in coin collecting. 
• Most collections take less than an hour to evaluate and require little research beyond the books I own or the Internet at my fingertips. 
• Not one of the collections has represented the work of a serious collector. All were either odds and ends tossed aside—probably by several generations—or silver set aside as a hedge against inflation or The End of the World as We Know It. 
• Foreign coins, often souvenirs from World War II military service, are common. Many collections also include half a dozen store or casino tokens. 
• When I am done, I usually prepare a formal inventory list with values, explaining the best way to sell and how much to expect from a sale based on wholesale and retail prices. I include information on the best places to sell their coins. I also encourage them to keep these pages with their coins—perhaps for reference by their heirs. 
• The total value of all 37 collections was about $215,000. The most extensive collection was worth $70,000, and two others were worth more than $30,000. The collections averaged about $2,400 each. The median value gives a better sense of value: $642. Many collections were worth less than $200.
• Not one person knew about coins or felt comfortable selling coins on eBay, Facebook, or another Internet-based venue. That was fine, as I’m not comfortable suggesting that an 80-year-old widow let strangers into her house to look at coins. 
• Since most “collections” can fit into a shoebox, I typically need an hour or less to evaluate them. Three collections filled an orange box, and one filled six orange boxes. (More about that collection is to come in a future Numismatist article.) 
• Virtually every collection includes many coins that should be deposited in a bank, such as bicentennial quarters, Eisenhower dollars, and state quarters. While collecting these can be fun, most aren’t worth more than face value. 
• Most collections include a handful of modern coins from Canada, the United Kingdom, or the European Union. I encourage the owners to pass these on to a friend or relative who will be traveling soon.

Exceptional Collections

Several collections stand out. One man had inherited just 11 gold coins from his father, all dated before 1900. I estimated the value of eight of them and told him how to turn them into cash. But three of them had low mintages and very high grades. I encouraged him not to sell them without talking to an expert and to consider having them slabbed. These three were worth far more than bullion values, possibly more than the rest of the coins combined. 

The collection worth $70,000 included 15 100-ounce silver bricks, hundreds of silver rounds, gold coins, and a little platinum. This was not a true collection—it was simply an investment in precious metals. The inheritance included 75 relatively common slabbed Franklin half dollars purchased from late-night television shows. The owner wouldn’t accept that the prices paid for the coins were as much as three or four times their actual value, so he decided to keep them. I suppose his kids will have to deal with them someday.  

One collection worth more than $30,000 was a mix of silver rounds, silver and gold coins, and common and collectable foreign coins. There were more than 250 coins. I valued it and made a list of recommendations on how to sell it. More than three years later, the collection was brought back to me. They had decided to split the collection among the heirs. Prices had changed, so I began to update the values, only to find that some coins had disappeared, and others had appeared. Each time, the collection required more than five hours to evaluate.

The Joy of Service

Providing this service—which I see as a ministry—is a lot of fun. I enjoy meeting new people and talking about coins. Almost every month, I have a collection to spread out on a table. I get satisfaction from knowing that these friends and acquaintances won’t fall prey to a disreputable business that operates at the fringes of numismatics. The challenge is for more collectors—like you—to step into the arena and help others. This service is needed, and it’s good for numismatics. It’s also a lot of fun.