The John Adams Presidential $1 coins are out and about. And numismatic entrepreneurs are ready and willing to cash in on them.
The Washington $1 coins generated a lot of interest because of their novelty and because there were some pretty high-profile errors that came out of the first design in this brand-new coin series.
Ben over at Money Smart Life e-mailed me to ask how he should go about trying to cash in on a half-dozen rolls of the new Adams $1 coins. Here's an excerpt of what he asked:
Any suggestions on the best way to sell them on eBay? Should I try and sell all 6 rolls at once or one at a time? Should I sell them right away or hold onto them for a while? Is there any value in breaking apart the roll and selling them individually?
I gave him my opinions. Since my writing to him was a lot more disjointed than his writing to me, I'll clean my part up a little, and add in a few things I forgot. 😉
- There does seem to be a chance to sell unopened rolls, but the margin is pretty slim after fees. The auctions I saw were going for $5-$7 over face value, plus shipping. If the listing starts at face value or above, the listing fee is $1.20. Tack on 35 cents for a gallery image, about $1.50 for the final value fee and another $1.30 for PayPal. Even if you forget the gallery image, you're still looking at $4 in fees ballpark. That takes most of the fun out of a $5-$7 markup.
- Selling the rolls all at once will decrease the fees, but the markup per roll should also go down. If I'm buying six rolls at once, I'm going to expect to pay less markup per roll than if I'm just buying one roll.
- Some unopened rolls of other recent coins have languished. In another post, Sarcasticynic commented that he bought uncirculated Susan B. Anthony coins which have not appreciated at all over 26 years. And that's not with inflation — that's without inflation! The odds are stacked against someone holding onto them for long-term appreciation.
- Breaking the rolls open tells you what you have for sure. And if you have nothing, well at least you have $25 to spend! The people buying the coins on eBay are not out to spend them. They're hoping there's an error in there that's worth a lot more than the average price of what they paid for each coin. By breaking open the rolls you can check out all of the coins. Doing so on my Washington rolls will probably net me close to $1,000 on three coins — a blank planchet and two rotated die errors. The rolls that didn't have anything special? I spent them. They're circulated.
- I suspect there will be fewer Adams errors than Washington Errors. Just for the simple reason that the Mint is getting better at making the coins (or is getting better at checking for the bad ones). But, if there are fewer and an Adams error does turn up, it will be worth more because it's rarer.
Thanks for the questions Ben. Any others, please feel free to comment or drop me a line here!
