Reader question: How do I sell my British coins?

A reader e-mailed me with this question:

I have just read your article on coin accumulation and I was hoping that you could help me. My father recently died and left me in total 3146 British coins and 83 varied coins. I want to know how best to sell them and if I could make them valuable.

Here's what I would suggest doing (not knowing at all what you have):

I'd recall anything that your father said about the coins. He accumulated (or collected) them, so he may have talked about them or mentioned why he collected them. If you don't know, does anyone else who knew him know?
Handle the coins carefully until you know better what you have. You might have a common 2007 50 pence coin (worth about US $1) or you might have a half-crown coin from the 17th century. Handling the 50-pence coin with your hand probably won't hurt the value much, but doing the same to the other might devalue it quite a bit. It's safer to handle coins as little as possible, by the edge if you do, and to wear gloves to avoid transferring oils and moisture from your hand to the coins. Coins aren't made valuable; they're kept valuable.
Identify the coins that you have. Things to look for initially are (a) the date and (b) the denomination. Older British coins might not have the denomination on them but if you have the date that's a start. This website seems to be a good source of information on British coins, or if you'd rather get a book, you can check out a world coins book for the appropriate century or centuries. Knowing what you have is essential to getting maximum value.
Determine the values of the coins. The books on world coins linked above will have pricing information. I've found these prices to resemble market prices but not dictate them. If you're qualified to grade your coins (you'll know if you are) then so much the better.
Weigh the costs of your time against the likely value of your coins. You can sell all of the coins at once to a dealer, and she may totally lowball the value of what the coins are actually worth, but you've sold them, and invested almost no time. Or, you can go through all of the coins one by one, determine their values, condition, etc., and make a literal mint on them, but it takes a lot of effort and time. Somewhere there's a “sweet spot” of time invested vs. payoff.
Weigh the costs of selling the coins against the likely value of your coins. If you're going the eBay route, there are lots of people looking that will check out your listings, but that audience costs: listing fees, final value fees, PayPal fees, shipping fees. Buyers will factor in shipping when they bid, so if sell a coin worth $10 for $10 on eBay (their cost including shipping), you'll make maybe $5 after all is said and done. Larger value items will probably do better for you because the shipping is a smaller part of the overall cost.
Determine how quickly you need to sell the coins (if at all). If you're in a hurry, you'll probably get less than if you wait for the right buyer to come around. A coin dealer will probably make you an offer on the spot, but it will be a lowball. A pawnbroker will really lowball you. A collector will pay what you want if he really wants the coin and if it's a fair price, but you might have to wait a while for that collector to come around.
The most value might be gained by spending them! If you live in the UK, heck, spend the modern coins or put them into a savings account. If you live in the US, you just received a whole bunch of non-dollars — which, given the ongoing federal government bailout, might be a good thing!

Anyway, those are my general suggestions. Any other thoughts?

4 thoughts on “Reader question: How do I sell my British coins?”

Once you know what you have, approximate values can be obtained from reference books (see above), or better yet (and more "current") you can look up recent sale prices on ebay. (Depending on what you have, you might or might not find recent sales of your coins, but it's worth looking.)

If there are any upcoming coin shows – see coinshows.com – in your area, you have an opportunity to shop your coins to multiple dealers conveniently. Sometimes dealers will pay more at a show than they would pay in their shop – dealers go to shows to buy as well as to sell and the dealers have their own want lists to service for their customers, and you might get lucky at a show.

In the US, at smaller coin shows you will find at least a few but probably not a lot of dealers selling UK coins. Focus on these dealers. Armed with some idea of what your coins are worth, you can approach these dealers.

In the coin dealer context, it is customary for the seller to cite an asking price, which the buyer can accept, reject, or counteroffer.

Knowing what your coins are worth is very important, otherwise people often ask too much (and are left holding low-value coins) or ask too little (and sell valuable coins cheap).

p.s. the value of a rare or scarce coin is determined largely by its "grade" or condition. All coins can be found in a wide range of grades, with correspondingly large differences in value.

so catalog or sale prices of coins can differ vastly from the value of "your" coin, depending on the respective grades of the coins.

unless the referenced coin AND its grade are the same as yours, you're comparing apples and oranges.