Expert: Ronald Fern - 9/22/2010

Question
My son and I recently got interested in Lincoln cents, and
have thousands of wheat pennies and a few hundred Lincoln
memorial cents.  Over the past five or six months, we have
managed to pull out the ones of interest.  I have been to
numerous websites that all tell different values, which
taught me about the importance of the key dates and the
grading of the coins.  Saying all of this, we have now
pulled out what we 'know' are of value, either by rarity, or
by the mint error and finally the condition.  Actually, now
we are down to about ten rolls out of the thousand we search
through.  My question is what to do with them?  I wouldn't
mind selling some, and probably keeping some others. I don't
know what the best way to get the top price.  I now know not
to go to a coin shop dealer..:)  Also, the Red Book values
are a lot lower than the things I read on the internet.  Any
suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
Thank you,
Andy Reel

Answer
Hi Andy:

Thanks for your question.

In my experience, the "Red Book" prices are usually higher than the sale price. This is a retail guide. Items often go for less on the Internet, unless they are rare or have a high amount of interest. I'm guessing most of the errors you have found are relatively common. Only a few doubled dies, like the 1936, 1941, 1955, 1972, 1983, and 1984 bring a lot of money. Minor laminations, blobs, die cracks, etc. are worth only a small premium.

There are several ways to dispose of the coins. It depends on how much time you have to spend, and whether you know of or are close to a major coin dealer. You've done the first step by investing in a 2011 "Red Book" that lists most all US coins minted. Next, spend the time (file on computer is good for saving and modifying) to list all the coins by date and mintmark, noting the quantities of each. You've done the hard part by looking for the coins with the scarcer date and mintmarks. Next, try and generally grade the coins that are the scarcest by looking at the price guide. Try and get a general idea of the cent's value.

The least amount of time, and the lowest return on their value would be to sell them (wholesale) to a dealer. Find at least two or three professional coin dealers and ask them to make an offer to purchase the entire collection. Compare the offers to your estimate. You'd likely get about 50% to 60% of retail. I'd suggest dealing only with ANA and PNG dealers. Here's the link for PNG. You can find dealers listed by state and city. http://www.pngdealers.com/dealersearch.php

The next way to sell your collection would be to have it consigned to a major numismatic auction. These are held in conjunction with major coin shows throughout larger cities in the US during the year. ANA, FUN, and California shows in Santa Clara, and Long Beach, are some of the major shows. You may not have the entire collection listed for sale here, rather only the scarcer to rarer coins that the dealer feels would be of interest to collectors and/or investors. There is usually a 15% to 20% commission taken from the sale or final bid of the items in the auction. You'd get 80% to 85% of the retail value of the items that sell. Some could go for more than retail on interested coins, less on others.

A third way to sell your collection would be sell directly to collectors by offering your items at a fixed price, plus shipping and handling, in a numismatic publication like "Coin World" or "Numismatic News". Place items for sale in their respective category in the classified ads. Pick prices between wholesale and retail. You'd get more than selling to a dealer, and collectors would acquire the coins for 10% to 25% less than a coin shop (you have no overhead, i.e., office space, rent, lights, gas, etc.) "Coin World" link: http://www.coinworld.com/
"Numismatic News" link: http://numismaticnews.net/GeneralMenu/

The fourth way would be to sell the items yourself via the Internet on either uBid auctions or eBay auctions. This way would likely take the most time, and potentially could return the higher value. Some items may have to be relisted or have a "make offer" option to sell. There may even be items that don't sell, and you still would pay for listing. If you use this option, photos should accompany the better listings to attract bidders and get top value. You'll need to read the instructions, because the fees paid are in part based on both the listing and selling price of the items. eBay Auction link: http://www.ebay.com/

That should do it for you. Hope I've helped answer your questions.

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Thank You and Good Luck in your collecting.