Mine your collection for cash

What would you do with a little extra money to spend in your hobby?

Crazy question in the face of this recession?

Perhaps not.

Every collector has coins that were stupid purchases to start with, didn’t perform according to hopes, or that have simply been forgotten or interest has been lost.

Now might be the time to pull them out and get rid of them.

Did you put together sets from circulation in the 1950s or 1960s? Those ordinary circulated silver coins of the time are now worth 16.8 times face value.

If you have old books of dimes, quarters and half dollars, they add up to tidy sums that might be better used elsewhere. Pull out any key dates, but if you are like me, the key dates never turned up for those sets.

Sure, you might have an emotional attachment to the sets as they evoke memories of a bygone age, but if you don’t dump them now, will there ever be a better chance for you or your heirs?

What about modern commemoratives? Were you a regular buyer of the silver dollars?

Many of those have sunk to bullion value. They aren’t likely to rebound to issue price. With the metal in them valued at $18.17 each, it might be time to retrieve what cash you can from them.

If you have any gold commemoratives, those profits might surprise you.

Take the 1984 $10 Olympic coins. Bullion value is $656, almost double issue price. If you happen to own all five, that’s a tidy sum.

Then there are mistakes.

Any overgraded piece that you might have purchased might be worth dumping at a bullion price. Keep whatever you think you need to prevent you from doing it again, but why harbor the coins that evoke bad moments in numismatics?

Add all of these coins up and you might surprise yourself as to what you will have available for other purchases. With tight family budgets, that’s not a bad way to reset your hobby goals.