Coin Dealers
Tuesday, December 13th, 2011Being a coin dealer and gold buyer we have many customers who call or come to my shop and wish to find out about this coin they’ve searched on the internet and discovered that it is worth plenty of dollars. Unfortunately, they don’t U Understand the qualities that can make a coin worth that amount of money. Four criteria determine the value of a coin: Condition, Year, Mint mark and most important is modern day Scarcity.
Most sellers with the items they believe are rare coins are coins passed down from the Father, Grandfather or Uncle. Most people of the older generation who collected coins were more motivated by filling their coin book, then the quality of the coin. Rare Coins are valued because of the year, scarcity, the simple fact these were rarely circulated and the location of the mint where they happened to have a very low mintage that year.
Two instances of the diversity of prices can easily be found in the same types of coinage. I once went to try to find a collection of coins when the son of the collector revealed that his father collected all his Morgan Dollars in MS-63 condition. One of the coins he previously had was an 1892S Silver Morgan Dollar that if it absolutely was an MS-63 would’ve had a price of $64,000 in accordance with Red Book. Upon inspection the coin was graded as VF-20 and is valued as outlined by Red Book at $125. As you will notice there exists a huge chasm coming from a circulated coin along with a non-circulated coin. On the opposite end of the spectrum is an 1890S which regardless that was made in the same mint and is the same coin by appearance has a value in MS-63 condition of $125 and in VF-20 of $22. Part of the difference of the importance of the coins are the number suitable for each; 1,200,000 for the 1892S and 8,230,373 for the 1890S. If this was a alone the determining factor when all the factors were the same with the exception of year then the 1892S would only be worth 7 times more than the 1890S or $875 in MS-63 condition. But the real cause for the difference is the scarcity of the coins in the better grades to survive to modern times.
So please do not forget- regardless that coins may very well be old it is the one that has never been spent when all the others were put to use for daily tranasactions that has all the value. Next week we will write about buying gold jewelry and how the carat markings and manufacturer determine the value of your gold.