Buying Coins at Estate Sales
An ...
Growing interest in collecting Barber Dimes ...
New Silver Coins for Sale While ...
GreatCoins.com is a great way to sell coins for a low ...
New Silver Coins for Sale
February 20, 2012
Welcome to Great Coins
December 8, 2010
Buying Coins at Estate Sales
An estate sale is a sale of property and assets from a private home. Usually the seller is an individual, but these sales can also be made on behalf of a government body. Although estate sales are often held following a death, they can be held anytime when money needs to be raised through selling a home or property. Many times, estate sales include collections that the homeowner has accumulated over many years and these may well include valuable coins. Even if the homeowner was not a numismatist, there may be some valuable coins scattered throughout the other items offered for sale.
Benefits of Buying Coins at an Estate Sale
Prepare for the Estate Sale
You must know what to look for when hunting for treasures. To find an estate selling coins will take some work. Finding the estate sale is just the beginning! It is crucial that you are knowledgeable of the coins offered before entering the sale.
● Read advertisements and announcements in the paper and on the Internet to find local estate sales. The items being sold are typically listed in the advertisement(s).
● If possible, try contacting the auctioneer company or the individual selling the coins. Learn as much as you can about the coins on offer prior to the auction. If you have a coin collecting guide book, or an Internet connection available to you, make use of them. If you are a member of a coin club or numismatics association, you can also consult with your fellow collectors to learn which coins are worth buying and what prices you might expect to pay.
● To save time, make a list of the coins you are interested in seeing at the auction. This list will reduce the chance of forgetting to examine any important coins.
● Based on your research into coin values and your personal collecting requirements, calculate how much you are willing to pay for each item and make sure you have ready cash or your credit card available.
● Although you can assume estate sales are conducted honestly, you still need to be careful that the rare currency you buy is genuine and not a forged copy of some famous coin. Care is required for all coin purchases, but when you buy from a reputable coin dealer it is easier to get redress if you find that the US gold coins you bought were imitations--not the original valuable coins you thought you had found. Once the estate sale is over it may be very hard to trace the people involved and get your money refunded.
Growing interest in collecting Barber Dimes (1892-1916)
Although Barber dimes do not immediately spring to mind when the conversation turns to rare US coins, in recent years collectors have been taking more of an interest in these silver coins. The reason that silver coin dealers and others call the coin by this name is nothing to do with haircuts, but rather they have chosen to identify the coin using the name of its designer, Charles Barber, Chief Engraver of the United States Mint between 1880 and 1918.
The introduction of the Barber dime in 1892 made the coin news because it represented the first change in the dime’s design for over half a century. The seated “Liberty” mythical figure Americans had got so used to seeing on the coin was replaced by a wreathed Liberty head. Although the Barber dime was a major design change as far as the coin obverse is concerned, the wreath used on the reverse was very similar to the one used on the dime over the previous thirty years. In addition, the 90% silver and 10% copper combination was continued from the previous dime design.
Coins were minted in the Philadelphia, San Francisco, Denver and the New Orleans mints but only the mintmarks of the last three mints appeared on the coins. The mintmarks can be found on the reverse beneath the wreath.
A new dime design emerges
A change in the look of the dime was under consideration from at least 1879. There was a feeling that the design should be updated in line with late nineteenth century ideas of what makes an attractive coin, but finding a satisfactory new design proved to be a challenging task. In late 1890 a panel of artist and sculptors was entrusted with this task but their suggestions were not accepted.
The next step the US mint took strikes a very contemporary-sounding chord – they threw the design open to a public competition. It is surprising that out of the three hundred entries received none were deemed to be acceptable. Some experts in the history of numismatic coins contend that since Mr. Barber was one of the competition judges and he seemed to be very interested in designing the new dime himself, the other potential designers never had a fair chance of winning. Other experts take a more favorable view of Barber’s wish to take charge of the dime design. They explain that he realized that a dime that could be minted on a high speed coin press was needed, and this was a design requirement he could understand better than those without minting experience. Although his low-relief dime design failed to become a public favorite, it was an excellent design for high-speed minting since it only required a single strike from the coin press.
Mintage and rarities
Over the long period Barber dimes were minted, numbers varied greatly from year to year. The lowest mintage was half a million, for example New Orleans in 1895, and the highest twenty two million, for example Philadelphia in 1907. One of the reasons that the American coin collector has become more interested in collecting Barber dimes is that there are few rare ones, and so it is practical to aim to complete collecting the series.
The most famous of the Barber dimes is the 1894 San Francisco coin which stands high on the list of rare US coins. Twenty four examples of this proof coin were struck but only the whereabouts of ten of them are known today. The story of this dime rarity is a subject that has attracted much speculation from those who take an interest in rare currency. One of the most popular tales concerns the superintendent of the San Francisco mint giving three of the coins to his daughter while telling her she should keep them since they will be worth a great deal in future years. She took her father’s advice in part and kept two of the dimes, but the other one was spent on an ice cream. If an 1894-S Barber dime is auctioned today it could easily raise a price of around two million dollars and so this 1894 ice cream might be ranked in retrospect as one of the most costly ice creams ever purchased!
Buyer Beware
Since the chances of finding a genuine 1894-S Barber dime are so remote, counterfeiters have sensed a good opportunity to make some quick cash. Attempts to forge the 1894-S Barber dime have included altering the mint mark on the common 1894-O dimes, or adding an “S” mint mark to one of the dimes struck at the Philadelphia mint. Some 1894-S dimes were even produced in the Philippines in the 1970s. So if you are offered an 1894-S Barber dime the chance of it being a forgery far outweighs the remote possibility it is one of the missing original ten coins.
New Silver Coins for Sale
While some commentators relate to silver coin dealers as if they are the "poor cousins" of gold coin dealers, many experts in the precious metals market consider that silver is currently under-priced. They believe that there is a serious shortage of silver in the world and once this comes to the public attention prices are going to shoot up.
It is impossible for the ordinary coin collector to know for sure if the information circulating about silver bullion shortages is accurate, or just rumors. If your motivation for finding silver coins for sale is the idea that you will soon be able to resell them for a handsome profit, you are taking a significant risk. If your interest in collector coins is primarily rooted in investment considerations, you are better advised to look for silver coins for sale with added value elements. In the case of numismatic coins added value is provided by their status as rare currency, or error coins. For example, rare silver quarters such as the 1917/18 Standing Liberty quarter (the name comes from the position of the mythical female figure engraved on the coin) can be worth over $250,000 in top quality condition. The silver content of this coin is insignificant when compared with its rarity.
If the $250,000 bracket is beyond your coin collector budget at the moment, you could always compromise and buy rare silver quarters of lower grade. Alternatively, there are many attractive silver coins on offer that are well within the budget of the average coin collector. A visit to a Website displaying silver coins for sale, or a call to your local silver coin dealer are going to produce many examples of silver coins available on attractive terms.
For the silver coin collector interested in contemporary silver coins, the US Mint Website is a valuable resource. For example, the year 2012 has opened with the issue of a new commemorative US Infantry Silver dollar minted to celebrate the opening of the National Infantry Museum and Soldier Center, and to mark the contribution of the infantry soldier in American history. Since 350,000 of these coins are being minted it is not likely they will receive the status of rare currency, and therefore changes in silver bullion values are going to have a significant impact on the coin value. Nevertheless, there are many other reasons besides investment why the coin collector would want to buy these silver dollars---some coin collectors specialize in US commemorative coins and would want the new silver dollar to complete their collection, and there are also coin collectors that might admire the coin engraver's art in its design and minting.
Buying silver coins for investment and in pursuit of numismatic coin interests are both good coin collecting approaches to follow. Ideally, you would probably want to collect silver coins that satisfy both these criteria, but if this is not possible, as long as you stay focused on your primary collecting motivation you are likely to get great satisfaction from your collecting.
GreatCoins.com is a great way to sell coins for a low flat rate.