Small coin hoards

[shirohniichan]

Dealers must run across a lot of coin hoards, but as a regular collector I have seen only a few.

 

Today I went through some rolls and small bags of coins saved by my grandmother's second husband (she remarried when she was about 70). Her second husband did not believe in the modern banking system and fiat money, so he bought a lot of gold and silver. The gold was dispensed with long ago, but my parents found about 10 lbs. of common silver coins and odds and ends (old Jefferson nickels and Canadian coins) they're having me go through.

 

So far the most interesting thing was a roll of 1882-O dollars in AU/BU. Some have interesting die cracks.

 

A few years back I went through my pastor's parents hoard of silver dollars (300+ pieces) that they'd pulled from the till of their retal store from the late 1940s to the early 1960s. There wasn't a single CC in the lot, and I was surprised at the number of AU and BU New Orleans coins in the mix.

 

Has anyone found anything worth noting in going through hoards of junk silver and the like?

[cpm9ball]

I used to get an occasional small hoard at garage sales, but nothing really to write home about.

 

Be sure to check those 1882-O for the O/S varieties. You might get lucky and find a winner.

 

http://www.vamworld.com/1882-O+VAMs

 

Chris

[Bruceswar]

I recently had a guy bring me 1200 silver dollars to my shop. Small hoard for sure.

[HCumberdale]

I recently had a guy bring me 1200 silver dollars to my shop. Small hoard for sure.

 

I assume these were raw?

 

I saw a transaction at a show once where a guy sold a dealer 250 common Morgans all PCGS MS63. He said he needed the money to build an extension on his home. He had bought them over time as an investment.

 

I had to laugh to myself...what a waste in grading fees. JMO of course.

[Oldtrader3]

Shiro, I lived in a Retirement Home for awhile a few years ago and many people there knew that I collected coins. During this time, several residents brought me their coins just to give them an idea if they had anything which was valuable or not. Mostly they had Merc dimes, WLH's, Franklin's and Morgan dollars with a few common date Peace dollars. All silver coins and worth the higher bullion content in today's market.

 

Not a single coin, out of the several hundred, that they showed me, were anything more than XF/BU (mostly circulated) silver coins from the 1880's to 1964. Not a rare date in the lot. The hardest thing for me was not to disappoint them with the fact that they were just old coins and not treasures.

 

 

[wheat'swheats]

Shiro, I lived in a Retirement Home for awhile a few years ago and many people there knew that I collected coins. During this time, several residents brought me their coins just to give them an idea if they had anything which was valuable or not. Mostly they had Merc dimes, WLH's, Franklin's and Morgan dollars with a few comon date Peace dollars. All silver coins and worth the higher bullion content in today's market.

 

Not a seingle coin, out of the several hundred, that they showed me, were anything more than XF/BU (mostly circulated) silver coins from the 1880's to 1964. Not a rare date in the lot. The hardest thing for me was not to disappoint them with the fact that they were just old coins and not treasures.

 

I am seeing the same thing, but they are treasures to our neighbors.

Wheat

[shirohniichan]

It seems that if coins have been in the family a long time, the current owners figure they must be extremely valuable.

 

I've gone through the lot and found common nickels, dimes, quarters, halfs, and silver dollars. The well-worn Jeffersons from 1940 aren't even worth more than face value.

 

The way in which these coins become a "treasure" to me is that they give me the opportunity to plug Whitman folders with my 5-year old daughter (common stuff no longer interests my 12-year old). She's never seen coins like this before, and in her enthusiasm she tells me the coin collection is "cool." To be frank, I wouldn't go to a dealer and pay retail for mixed common-date Buffalo nickels, Mercury dimes, etc. to plug albums if it would leave me with lots of duplicates. But with the ones I inherited I've started some folders with my daughter that will lead me into local shops to buy the missing dates with her should she remain interested.

 

It's been so long since I've gone to a dealer to look through boxes of common-date Morgan and Peace Dollars I don't even know how much they are. I know they're a lot more than the "$3 each or 7 for $20" from when I was first collecting. They must be around $25 to $30 a piece.

 

Although I'm not a big fan of Morgans, maybe I'll buy a blank Dansco and start assembling a date run of New Orleans dollars. I've got a good start with this small collection.

[HCumberdale]

The way in which these coins become a "treasure" to me is that they give me the opportunity to plug Whitman folders with my 5-year old daughter (common stuff no longer interests my 12-year old). She's never seen coins like this before, and in her enthusiasm she tells me the coin collection is "cool." To be frank, I wouldn't go to a dealer and pay retail for mixed common-date Buffalo nickels, Mercury dimes, etc. to plug albums if it would leave me with lots of duplicates. But with the ones I inherited I've started some folders with my daughter that will lead me into local shops to buy the missing dates with her should she remain interested.

 

I wish everyone had the same attitude! For a while, I lived in a sparsely populated town and was one of the few people buying coins from the public. I would feel sad when people would sell me their wheats for 2 cents, and their common buffoloes for 20 cents. Clearly what I was paying was not going to change their lifestyle, and no one who sold to me was in desperate need of $5. I understood when they sold a couple hundred dollars of silver, but otherwise I felt they were missing out on enjoying the "coolness" factor of their coins. Oh well. Not everyone can appreciate them I suppose.

[RWB]

The other side of it can be sad too - I've had to tell people that their MCMVII $20 was an omega fake, and that a 1796 small eagle dollar had been tooled and other coins in their "portfolio" were cleaned or overgraded. (The coins were bought from a big-name, now defunct coin seller.)

[Coincrazed74]

I have run across a few as a collector. Best was 55 Silver Dimes in $240 worth.

[shirohniichan]

The other side of it can be sad too - I've had to tell people that their MCMVII $20 was an omega fake, and that a 1796 small eagle dollar had been tooled and other coins in their "portfolio" were cleaned or overgraded. (The coins were bought from a big-name, now defunct coin seller.)

 

That's an unenviable position to be in. Oftentimes the bearer of bad news is assumed to be a thief.

 

It's good to have kids along when searching through old coins. With them even a 1911 Barber dime in good condition is a major find when mixed in with a mess of silver Roosies (mostly 1964-Ds). A 1922 Peace Dollar in lustrous barely-BU with the typical coffee-stained toning stood out as a beaut' among the less stellar junk silver, also.

[jtryka]

I helped a friend of mine sell his grandfather's coins a year or so ago, and they were just a huge hoard of common coins, I don't thing any rare dates in the lot, but that was when silver first hit $30 or $35, so whent I got them about $8k for the lot they were pretty darn happy! Still fun to look through for me anyway!

[jackson64]

It's happened twice to me with mid-size hoards and dozens of times with cigar box type holdings.

 

The largest, which I've mentioned before on this board, a fishing buddy of mine here in S.Maryland had a brother in Baltimore who was a bar owner and his brother passed.

 

When handling his brother's affairs he found that his brother's house was in disrepair and he didn't have the funds to fix it to get the true market value. When looking through the garage for sellable items he uncovered 4 big plastic toolboxes 12x12x24 with the tray on top ( sure you've seen the ones) FULL with coins. Many proof sets, tons of 2x2's, a handful of GSA Morgans, 2 proof commem sets with gold ( constitution and stat of Lib)..but mostly AU/BU slider morgans, sacks of wheats, and about 400 2x2 VF/XF frankies and walkers.

 

To shorten this up, 4 big toolboxes of coins and not a single rarer date. The walkers were all 1935 to 1945, the few rolls of mers were 1940's, buffs but no "S" dates or teens, even the GSA's were 1883-1885CC's. etc etc...

 

I tried sending a dozen of the nicer Morgans away for grading ( at my own expense) but the best I got was one nice MS65*.

 

In the end I shared much of the hoard with friends here and at Trading Slabs website who were nice enough to pay current market rates for quick mixed rolls and I got a quick $20,000 worth of sales for some operating cash for my fishing buddy.

After that I sold smaller lots for a bit higher profit margin on ebay and was sending him checks for $1,500 heree and $2,000 there..eventually totaling out at near $30,000 because of the sheer volume of stuff......It wasd a friendly arrangement we had since we are long friends so I did not charge and I took any selling and shipping fees I incurred from the funds before I sent him checks..there was never a single moment of distrust on either of our parts and he was elated to have someone to help and I enjoyed the searching and handling of the hoard.

When the hoard was down to the misc scraps ( half filled albums of rosies, foreign coins, some colorized ASe's etc etc) I sold the remainder in a big bulk lot for about $1200 and he told me to keep the final money.

 

 

[BKW]

 

 

Great story there Jackson