Orion’s Attic is the place to start when you’re trying to answer that question. Although we’re based in Silver Spring, Maryland, we serve all of Montgomery County and the greater DMV (Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia). We can handle coin collections large and small.
Orion’s Attic can also point you in the right direction when you have silver, gold and other extremely valuable coin collections that may be beyond our capacity to buy. We did just that on a Takoma Park estate liquidation project. One of our trusted dealers bought more than $100,000 worth of coins and silver bullion.
What kinds of coins are worth selling?
We previously provided a short primer on the various types of coins that dealers buy.
For American coins, we’re looking for coins made in 1964 and earlier. Specifically, we mean dollars, half-dollars, quarters and dimes. They are made of 90-percent silver. ) Forget about nickels and pennies made before 1965. They are for the most part worth only their face value. Few dealers want to bother trying to re-sell pennies for 1.5 cents or nickels for 7 cents. (We will write about foreign coins and ancient coins another time.) American coins worth more than face value also include silver proof sets.
We didn’t catch the flaw in this coin when we bought it and then paid to get it graded. Oops.
Graded coins are also likely to be worth more than face value and more than melt value. By graded coins, we mean coins that are sealed in protective cases with a grade on them assigned by a professional grading company. Just because Grandpa kept coins in plastic sleeves and wrote what he thought the grades were doesn’t mean the coins are those grades.
Another bonus tip?
Do not get your coins graded just for the purpose of selling them. It’s very easy to spend a ton of money getting coins graded only to find out you wasted your money by sending in coins that earned poor grades. Let a dealer risk his or her own money grading coins. We certainly goofed a few times over the years by submitting coins we should have just sold as is.)
Dealers like us are of course always looking for pure silver coins and for gold coins.
How dealers determine what to pay you for your coins
For non-graded pre-1965 coins, dealers like us are going to pay you a percentage of the “scrap value” or “melt value” of the coins. Remember, melt or scrap value is the value derived from extracting the silver content from these coins. That percentage depends on the volume and value of your collection. The same math applies to silver and gold coins.
American coins made after 1964? Spend them or deposit them in your bank account.
Ask a pawn shop what percentage of scrap value it pays for coins and you’ll find it goes to great lengths to avoid giving you a direct answer. Pawn shops pay less than anyone and will try to get away with paying next to nothing to uninformed sellers. In our puppy days as a company, we learned some pawn shops will try to get away with paying as little as 30 percent of melt value.
Some traditional jewelry and coin shops try to avoid answering directly, too. If you do go to a coin shop, simply call ahead to find out what percentage of scrap it pays for basic American coins. (We can almost always pay you more.)
Explaining how dealers determine what we’ll pay for graded coins is a little more complicated. We have to thoroughly assess sales histories for such coins, think of our own past sales, and what we know our regular buyers will pay.
One of the reasons that we and our trusted partners pay more for your coins than traditional brick-and-mortar shops is because we don’t carry the overhead they do. The nicer the coin shop, the more they’re paying for rent. That means less money for you!
Next steps for selling your coins
Contact us today! Orion’s Attic is a full-service estate liquidation, downsizing and home cleanout company based in Silver Spring, Maryland. We also buy antiques and collectibles. We serve the greater Washington, D.C./Maryland/Northern Virginia region. Our service area includes Montgomery County (Bethesda, Chevy Chase, Gaithersburg, Germantown, Olney, Potomac, Rockville, Silver Spring, Wheaton, Takoma Park, etc.), Frederick County, Howard County (Columbia, Ellicott City), Prince George’s County (College Park, Greenbelt, Hyattsville) plus DC and Northern Virginia.
Learn more about liquidating estates in our Estate Liquidation and Downsizing Guide.
Learn more about selling all kinds of collectibles in Sell Us Your Stuff.