A little help?

[Guest Failing expat.]

Hi,

Not sure how you people will react to this but I saw how nicely you treated 'coin addict' and thought I'd give it a try.

Been an expat for 25 years and a soldier for 9 years before that but things are getting a bit lean in my dotage and was looking for the value of some of the things I've collected.

Recently got some £5 gold coins including -

2002 BU £5 with box and COA

£5 entente cordiale with box and COA

Also about 100 sovereigns ranging from 1880 to present.

Got a large bag of coins and junk from my travels that must weigh about 10kg (was going to make a table with the coins under glass) but some of the coins were bought in antique shops and fairs in a variety of countries but includes British coins back to 1780's.

Don't want to clutter up your board with lots of pics and a list of dates related to the gold and normal coins if it's the wrong place to ask but could take digital pics of any items if one of you kind souls could help.

The synopsis - if you posters are kind enough to reply I could detail and post pics of any items but if I turned up in the UK with the gold coins how much could I expect and where could I sell them to realise that price?

Can be contacted at petergadd2000@yahoo.com but we have a 6 hour time diff to UK so please give me time to get back to you.

I do apologise if this is not the board to post this question.

[Emperor Oli 0]

I don't think anyone would care if this was the wrong board - this sounds really exciting!

The 2002 gold £5 you mention. Is it the Golden Jubilee issue with the Queen on horseback? Or is it one of the one-year shield reverses? If it is the shield, you need to find out whether it's proof or just a normal strike. Either way, I listed all the possible values below. I took the Spink book value and then worked out 60% of it, to give you what a dealer would pay. You can probably add a small premium to each:

Golden Jubilee - £390

Shield Proof - £360

Shield Normal Uncirculated - £320

The Entente Cordiale one will be worth about £330

These sovereigns sound interesting. If you just took them to a jeweller and sold them at bullion value (ie the value of the gold in them), they would be worth about £5000*. With dates and grades, their value could be assessed further. However, I'd give way to a higher authority than myself on these.

It might be worth doing pictures of the British coins if they're in good condition, then we could value those for you also.

Edit: * - I worked out there sabout 23.5 ounces of gold in them.

Edited May 31, 2005 by Emperor Oli

[Guest Failing expat.]

Thank you for your reply Emperor Oli.

The 2002 is shield back and the COA say's Brilliant Uncirculated so I guess the lowest price you quoted is the one its worth.

Need to dig the case out of the bottom of the wardrobe to get the details of the sovereigns but will do it tomorrow morning and list the dates (will put the batteries for the digital camera on charge now so I can take pics too) got 2 more £5 gold coins but can't remember any details on them so if you'r OK with me adding to this post I'll put them on tomorrow.

Will have to get the bag of 'clinker' from the bottom of the cabinet downstairs but a lot of it really is 'clinker' being the winning hands from the trip home when I was a soldier so it's made up of Norweigen, greek and whatever small coins that everybody was trying to get rid of when we made our way home from exercise in the 70's.

Seems to me that 60% is a very large mark up on the coins - is this because thay are hard to sell on?

[Emperor Oli 0]

Seems to me that 60% is a very large mark up on the coins - is this because thay are hard to sell on?

It's not a markup. Essentially, book prices are what you would expect to pay a dealer for a coin. As such, dealers can't buy at book and sell at book because there would be no profit. So the benchmark that dealers would pay for coins, if you will, is about 60% of book. This allows the dealer to sell at actual book at to get about a 40% profit. However, many of Spink's values are severely overrated. Sometimes a dealer would only get 20% or 30%.

I'm sure Chris, the proprietor of this site, would be most interested to hear of which coins you have.

Edit: And it's not just these coins. Generally, all coins are bought at 60% book except gold, where it could be more.

Edited May 31, 2005 by Emperor Oli

[Guest Failing expat.]

My sincere thanks Emperor Oli.

Will dig out the sovereigns and post the dates tomorrow.

If I turned up at Heathrow almost pennyless but with these gold coins would they be easy to sell for a good price?

[Emperor Oli 0]

If I turned up at Heathrow almost pennyless but with these gold coins would they be easy to sell for a good price?

They should be. Bt as I said earlier, a more informed person would be better to advise you further.

[Geoff T 3]

While I'd agree with the sentiments above, I'd just issue a caveat that you'll need to make sure of the legalities of importing that amount of gold into the UK. I'm not at all sure if there are restrictions but it would be wise to check first that HM Customs & Excise aren't going have an issue, or that neither does the country they're being exported from for that matter.

Geoff

[Chris Perkins 228]

Yes, I would imagine it would be very unlikely that you would get them into the uk without customs charging you an import tax. The odd coin you could cenceal about your person, but 100+ with cases etc will be much harder.

The loose sovereigns should of course be kept in separate packages right now, or they bash each other and that won't do them any good at all. For the worn or later sovereigns you should at least get bullion value for them, and if I had that kind of money spare at the moment, i'd be glad to purchase them.

Some of the better grade sovereigns will be worth more, but personally if you're looking for a quick sale you can't go far wrong selling them at bullion value (or a few % less). The effort involved in sorting out the better ones and selling them separately would be a drag, and many are likely to just be worth a little over bullion. Shield back Victorian coins are generally bought at more than bullion.

I don't like turning sellers away, but if I were you, I'd remove the shield back coins, and high grade victorian and accept melt price for the rest where you are now...Unless they are all of a very very high standard you probably won't be doing yourself out of much.

The more modern stuff isn't really my cup of tea. It's difficult to sell, and generally on the open market they tend to sell at around 70% of book (although some are more sought after). I'd offer bullion plus a certain percentage, but certainly would fall over myself for it. I do have a regular buyer for modern proof/gold issues though.

[Sylvester 15]

I was radaring staright in on the shield reverse sovereigns there. Someone's beat me to it though.

Definately pull the shield reverse ones out and sell those as collectors coins. But as a former collector of shield reverse sovereigns perhaps i'm biased?

Also if you've got any Victorian half sovereigns amongst the bunch it might be prudent to sell those separately as well. Especially ones issued before the old head of 1895. Also any half sovereigns with mintmarks should be examined also, cos some date/mintmark combinations are sought after.

Other coins to look out for and sell separately are any Canada mint ones from the Ottawa mint, the mintmark on these should be found on the reverse just above the date (one the ground below St Geo's horse). I think in this case it would be 'C'.

1918 'I' mint soveriegns are always good ones to pull as well, not because they are rare exactly but because some collectors collect sovereigns by mint and India only minted them in 1918, so it's a key date of sorts.

I can't think of anything else at the moment.

[Guest Failing expat.]

Firstly could I say a big thank you to everybody!

It's getting late here and will soon be time to go to bed so I will post again tomorrow.

Thank you for all your replies and I will give more info on what I have.

I do have some half sov's but really do have to pull them out from the bottom of the cupboard with the full sovereigns so please give me time do that and find out what dates and mint marks are there (thank you Sylvester!).

Please excuse me but I posted this without having the goods in front of me and need to get them from the hiding place to see what really is there - will be back tomorrow to post again with more details of what is there but a big question - 1957 sovereign - bullion or collector?

[Chris Perkins 228]

1957 - Bullion, a little more if it's in perfect condition, but I'd certainly only pay bullion for it, and hope to sell it for bullion +10% (or maybe 15%)

[Sylvester 15]

Here's a list of sovereigns to pull out and sell separately if you find any of them. I'll start with the 1887 Jubilee head ones and work my way through. I expect you'll find alot of 1910-1915 coins of the London mint and countless 1925s. Not all C mint ones are rare but alot of them are. The ones to watch out for are these;

1887-S

1888-S

1899-P

1909-C

1910-C

1911-C

1913-C ** (This is a biggie)

1914-C *

1916 No mintmark (London)

1916-C *** (£6000 or more in VF)

1917-C

1918-C

1918-I (Not rare but only India issue)

1919-C

1919-M

1920-M **

1920-S **** (If you find one of these your dealer was careless!)

1921-M ***

1921-S **

1922-M **

1922-S **

1923-S **

1923-SA *

1924 (Any)

1925-P

1926-P

1926-S ***

1927-P

1928-M *

1928-P

1929-M **

1930-M *

1931-M *

1937 (Proof only issue always sell as a collector's piece, these are a bit like Hen's teeth, sovereign date and type collectors want them and 1937 set collector's want them.)

Any half sovereigns you find with mintmarks just list them on here and i'll look them up.

[mint_mark 9]

Any half sovereigns you find with mintmarks just list them on here and i'll look them up.

I hadn't seen any half sovereigns with mint marks at all in several years of looking until a few showed up on ebay recently. They just don't seem to turn up often. Victorian half sovereigns are generally scarce too. Basically, most half sovereigns can sell for more than bullion value unless they are really worn.

Hmmm, I bet I'm the only one here interested in Norwegian change from the 70s

[Guest Failing expat.]

Please excuse the delay with posting the pics but - how do I post them?

[Guest Failing expat.]

mint_mark - if you really are interested in clinker from the 70's your in for a treat!

Was a big winner in the card games on the LSL's coming back from Norway and the pile of coins I'm trying to post has lots of them!

[Guest Failing expat.]

Sylvestor - 3 of your list but need to get a magnifying glass to check the mint marks on some others - the eyesight is not as good as it was!

1911C

1918I

1927P

[Emperor Oli 0]

Please excuse the delay with posting the pics but - how do I post them?

First you need to register an account. Then there are two ways of posting pictures:

1) Attach to the message - this uses up lots of bandwidth.

2) Use a hosting service like photobucket.com.

[Guest Failing expat.]

Thank you Emperor Oli - will do it now from photobucket - don't want to annoy the owner!

[Chris Perkins 228]

Please excuse the delay with posting the pics but - how do I post them?

First you need to register an account. Then there are two ways of posting pictures:

1) Attach to the message - this uses up lots of bandwidth.

2) Use a hosting service like photobucket.com.

Actually, I've got another deal on hosting now, so it's £200 per year and that includes up to 5gb per month bandwidth, so feel free to use the forum for a few more images from now on.

[Guest Failing expat._I'm_a_Guest]

Registered and looking for the pic thing.

[Guest Failing expat._I'm_a_Guest]

Thanks Chris but can I wait to sign up to that?

[Guest Failing expat._I'm_a_Guest]

How do I sort that pile out so you can see if there's anything there?

Mint_mark - the Norwegien coins are yours if you want them.

Just pulled a roman coin out and I'm pretty sure it's silver.

[Guest Failing expat._I'm_a_Guest]

Another view of the pile which really is lots of dross.

Only 3 £5 gold coins - seem to have lost one! The way things are going I have visions of 4 cockroach's carrying the other one off under the instructions of the lead boss and cashing it in for lots of smelly meat!

[Sylvester 15]

Sylvestor - 3 of your list but need to get a magnifying glass to check the mint marks on some others - the eyesight is not as good as it was!

1911C

1918I

1927P

Next question do you know how to grade?

If so then;

1911-C £70 in VF, £90 in EF and £120 in UNC.

1918-I Bullion Value only, but should you sell it on say Ebay or something make a point about 1918 being the only year of India mint sovereigns, thus whilst not rare they are sought after by collectors.

1927-P £90 in EF, £110 in UNC

If you can't grade then post pictures of them on here and we'll do that.

All the others will sell for bullion but you might make a tenner or so more on these by selling them separate rather than just on gold level, because these years have some collector value too.

[mint_mark 9]

What an amazing selection! I can see loads of countries in there... and some older coins too. It reminds me of a tin of coins a friend gave me to sell for him (much smaller, around 300 coins). I sold it in small lots on ebay over a few months and got over £100 for him in the end... he was pleased. I got to keep the ones I wanted for the price I wanted

I'm sure Chris will have a feel for how much such pile might fetch from a dealer... I expect it would basically involve weighing it. As for posting it anywhere... a small fortune!