To sell wisely, practice, practice, practice

Football season has me thinking. A good team has both a first class offense and a first class defense. Teams with one or the other don’t make the playoffs.

Coin collecting is a bit like building a good football team. Collectors need to know how to buy, but they also need to know how to sell. Many tend to ignore the selling part, but they do so at great cost to themselves and their heirs.

If a collector does not know how to sell, he is at the mercy of strangers. I get calls from frustrated heirs who need help and don’t know how to get it. I know they have a problem, but there are not enough hours in the day for me to do my job and run a coin selling consulting service. I have to refer heirs to their local coin dealers, and tell them they need to prepare for the encounter by getting some books and price guides to try to get a ballpark idea of what they have. It isn’t easy for them.

If you are a collector who hasn’t worked on a sales game, it is time to start. Sell something, anything. You choose. Then pick the method you want to sell it.

Like the shampoo directions, lather, rinse, repeat, you do this over and over again until you are good at it. Then you can rest easy that you will get maximum value for your holdings when the time comes.

Where do you go to sell? Well, consider the following:

A collector can drop by the local coin shop and do a deal right on the spot. Not every locality has a coin shop, so that may not be the way to go.

Collectors can visit local coin shows as they occur. Some areas have monthly shows. Others have annual shows in the VFW Hall, or other convenient spot. Checking the Show Directory in Numismatic News for your area should reveal shows just about every weekend within easy driving distance.

There is the Internet auction alternative. Many buyers of the First Spouse gold coins turned right around and offered them on eBay even before they received delivery of the coins.

Coins can be offered for sale to advertisers in Numismatic News. Give them a call, send them an e-mail or even write them a letter to tell them what you have and what price you might be looking for. These dealers might buy. They might not. They are busy. There are some dealers who run regular buy ads, so this would be the place to start.

Other Numismatic News readers like the free classified ads that are given to subscribers. They enjoy the give and take. (It is as much fun to read what is for sale as it is to offer something for sale to others.)

Collectors with larger holdings have even more options. They can consign their holdings to auction companies. They can ask a major dealer to meet them to discuss a purchase.

Like a good football team, you need to practice both parts of the game, buying and selling, to maximize your hobby performance.