There is little doubt that along with the U.S. Mint coin dealers are probably the most frequently criticized players in the coin industry.
Many collectors seem to believe that dealers are unnecessary in the online age and many question their ethics.
The Coin Dealer Newsletter recently published a fascinating article on whether coin dealers even need to exist. The answer in brief is that if they did not exist, they would need to be invented.
That is mainly because they provide necessary liquidity to the coin market and are a critical source of information for collectors and investors.Better dealers often develop close relations with their customers and impart information about coins and the market that collectors are not likely to obtain elsewhere. In these cases you are benefiting from their wealth of experience.
There is no question that some dealers are dishonest.
We have all heard stories about dealers who paid pennies on the dollar to someone who was not well informed about what they were selling.
But that is really the exception to the rule.
Moreover, one definitely needs to choose a coin dealer carefully whether buying or selling.
I have had my share of bad experiences, especially with mail order companies that often sell over graded coins. This is a learning process everyone needs to go through.
One frequently hears negative comments from collectors who sold their coins to dealers, who were disappointed by the amount they received and turned off by the experience.
The best way to avoid this kind of experience is to arm yourself with knowledge.
Learn as much as you can about your coins, study the market, try to find out what the wholesale buy and sell prices are for your items, and find out as much as possible about a dealer before selling to them.
Check how long they have been in business and what professional organizations they may belong to. Being an ANA member helps a lot and means they have agreed to the ANA’s code of ethics.
You can request binding arbitration through the ANA if you feel you have been wrong by a dealer who is a member. There are some interesting stories about this in past issues of the Numismatist, the ANA’s monthly magazine.
Dealers who are members of PNG, the Professional Numismatists Guild, are held to even higher standards of ethics.
When choosing a dealer to sell to, or to buy from, I would not necessarily shy away from the major players like Stack’s or Legend just because you are a modest collector.
Such companies do focus more on the higher end of the market, and have many wealthy customers, but most also sell items at a wide range of price points and will give the more modest collector better service than you might imagine.
The advantages of dealing with them are many from getting better quality coins that are likely to outperform lower quality examples to the security that you know your items are authentic, or at least guaranteed to be.
Selling one’s coins is a complex challenge that should not be rushed.
The first thing one needs to do is to decide which route to take: auction, dealer, or retail it yourself on e-Bay, at a coin show, or another selling platform.
If you have higher end and unique or rare items, auction is probably the way to go, but remember you will pay a substantial seller’s fee in most cases.
Many people today sell their coins on e-Bay. That may indeed be a good avenue depending on lots of factors, but before choosing that as opposed to selling to a dealer, I would suggest doing some calculations.
Factor in listing fees, selling fees, which are generally 9%, insertion fees in certain cases, and the cost to ship and insure your item, which can be substantial for expensive coins... continued
