Cataloguing Coins

[StephenO]

Hello. This is my first time posting on the forum so please be gentle with me!

I've been collecting coins for about twenty years since my godmother left me a small collection in her will. Since then I've spent far more money than I should on it but have only recently got round to cataloguing the coins for insurance purposes. Not being very organised, though, I haven't kept the receipts and don't have a record of where or when I bought most of them. My question - does this matter? The coins are mainly milled British, ranging from a 1672 farthing in VF to a Churchill crown, plus a few Roman ones. I purchased them from various places including a local antiques shop and coin dealers such as Baldwin's, R Ingram and Coincraft.

Thank you for any advice you can give.

[PWA 1967]

Hi Stephen and welcome 

If you have not got them it wont have to matter 

I am sure there will be someone ,perhaps on here who can give you an up to date written price for your insurer.

[jelida]

I would say that from a numismatic point of view it would only make much difference to a coin that had previously been part of a well known or important collection, where the name might have attracted a premium.  Knowledge of dealers who have handled the coin  would make very little difference in the vast majority of cases, so I wouldnt lose sleep over the lack of records, though most of us would keep an acquisitions log or ticket note to keep track of outlay as well as provenance.

Jerry

[Michael-Roo]

 

I think what Stephen is asking is will a lack of receipts, purchase records, etc. be a problem when applying for cover from the insurance company.

Edited August 25, 2016 by Michael-Roo

[azda]

8 minutes ago, Michael-Roo said:

 

I think what Stephen is asking is will a lack of receipts, purchase records etc. be a problem when applying for cover from the insurance company.

No.......But what does Stephen reckon the value is? How many coins are there? Attribution and grade would determine value, if they are of low value then IMO they wouldn't need insuring, if you're looking at high end, rare grade coins, then of course insurance is always good, but so are bank vaults. Some pictures and perhaps a list of what we're talking about might help the cause.......Churchills aren't of any value to be perfectly blunt, £1 a coin in UNC as there were millions of these minted......

So before Stephen decides that insurance is the best way forward, with a recurring premium, perhaps letting us know roughly what we're looking at is a good start, and not to be too shabby, Ingrams and Coincraft are expensive for common coins, Baldwins, well, they are expensive, but generally a little more exclusive

Edited August 25, 2016 by azda

[Peter]

Coincraft....Oh dear....be prepared for bad news.

[jelida]

56 minutes ago, Michael-Roo said:

 

I think what Stephen is asking is will a lack of receipts, purchase records, etc. be a problem when applying for cover from the insurance company.

Ah, of course. But receipts would not be very helpful anyway, unless to be insured on the basis of price paid,  rather than current value. They would not even be definitive evidence of ongoing posession . Best an independent current valuation from an expert, or a photographic record with agreed value logged with the insurer. With regular review. As stated above, the collection may not merit separate insurance. I would get a decent quality safe, however, as a minimum.

Jerry

[azda]

Receipts are useless these days, of course you log them as a collector, but if you're talking 10+ years or more then they are irrelevant unless there is serious provenance as the prices have changed so much just in the last 8 years........If you're talking provenance then you're talking money, before and afterwards and a majority of those coins will be recorded

[StephenO]

Thanks for the help and advice, everyone. I enjoy collecting because I'm fascinated by history and because I love the look, the feel and just about everything else about coins, if that makes sense.

I have around 200 coins altogether. I've valued them according to Spink's catalogue and Coin News Yearbook and, presuming the grading is accurate (a big presumption, I know!), then the collection is worth between £10,000 and £13,000, depending which book you go by. It's made me realise how over-priced certain dealers are! A lot of the coins are only worth a few pounds but the most valuable include a VF denarius from Tiberius's reign, a Godless florin in EF and an uncirculated 1915 sovereign. I've had an insurance quote for £105 a year to cover the collection. They don't mention whether or not they need receipts.

[jaggy]

Well, I have all my receipts going back to the 1980s but that is just me. I also have the auction catalogues where I bought coins (when at auction) so that, when I started my computer catalogue, I was able to record when and where the coins were acquired and at what price. In addition, where there is 'provenance' (e.g. Willis), I also record that in my system.

As a buyer, I like to know where a coin has come from if that information is available and I note that both Heritage and DNW will include the info. 

[Peter]

Don't forget you will only recoup 50-60% of pricing guides.Your choice but whenever I go away the coins are hidden.My feral cat would rip the throat of any intruder and then I have my dog,a 19C police baton and 15 stone of prime Suffolk muscle. 

[jaggy]

3 minutes ago, Peter said:

Don't forget you will only recoup 50-60% of pricing guides.Your choice but whenever I go away the coins are hidden.My feral cat would rip the throat of any intruder and then I have my dog,a 19C police baton and 15 stone of prime Suffolk muscle. 

I only have a safe and a Glock. 

[Peter]

I have a safe but no guns...we are British.

[copper123]

Oh come on peter you must have something in your pocket that goes off every so often ;0)

[azda]

3 hours ago, StephenO said:

Thanks for the help and advice, everyone. I enjoy collecting because I'm fascinated by history and because I love the look, the feel and just about everything else about coins, if that makes sense.

I have around 200 coins altogether. I've valued them according to Spink's catalogue and Coin News Yearbook and, presuming the grading is accurate (a big presumption, I know!), then the collection is worth between £10,000 and £13,000, depending which book you go by. It's made me realise how over-priced certain dealers are! A lot of the coins are only worth a few pounds but the most valuable include a VF denarius from Tiberius's reign, a Godless florin in EF and an uncirculated 1915 sovereign. I've had an insurance quote for £105 a year to cover the collection. They don't mention whether or not they need receipts.

Please don"t value according to Spink.....

[Peter]

Very rarely nowadays although I had the pleasure of 3 Mrs Peters friends (ladies i might add) who turned up plastered over the weekend.I just kept it tucked into my sock.

[azda]

4 minutes ago, Peter said:

Very rarely nowadays although I had the pleasure of 3 Mrs Peters friends (ladies i might add) who turned up plastered over the weekend.I just kept it tucked into my sock.

Lucky bugger

[Peter]

Dave always the pink over the brown

[copper123]

If they were that plastered you should have locked them in your house (for their safety) and spanked them , they would think twice about doing it again

[TomGoodheart]

Welcome Stephen.

A fair number of dealers will value a collection for insurance purposes, either with a fee or sometimes a charge for travel expenses.  In such a case receipts wouldn't really be needed.

Years ago I had mine valued by the local Numismatic Society.  Of course, I've sold a few and bought others since.  Hence I do keep receipts and provenance information. As my coins are all effectively unique (being hammered) I keep photographic records of all of them so if they ever did resurface on the market they would be easy enough to identify.  You can also get stuff like SmartWater .. I don't see why it would mark coins and it's linked solely to you, so again if stolen coins turn up they could be identified as such.

Mine are covered by my household insurance policy, though they do require anything over a certain value to be listed separately. 

How well a lump of cash would compensate for the work of 10+ years of collecting however I'm not sure.  And hope never to need to find out.

Insurance is good to have, but other precautions (such as not advertising you collect, keeping the collection out of sight of casual visitors etc) shouldn't be overlooked.

[azda]

If i remember correclty there was some insurance Company in Dorset or so who cater for coin collections, can't remember for The life of me The  name but it was discussed on here a few years back.

Maybe someone has insurance with them on here? Oh and welcome back @TomGoodheart i See You eventually got back in, i forwarded your Email to Nordle, he thinks it's a Forum coding problem 

Edited August 26, 2016 by azda

[jaggy]

My collection is insured through my home insurance and I provided the insurance with a list of the coins and my values. My cataloguing software allows me to do that quite easily.

I suspect that most collections are simply not valuable enough, or easy enough to dispose of, to be of interest to the professional thief. And deterring the casual thief is just a matter of reasonable home security and a safe.

[StephenO]

41 minutes ago, jaggy said:

My collection is insured through my home insurance and I provided the insurance with a list of the coins and my values. My cataloguing software allows me to do that quite easily.

I suspect that most collections are simply not valuable enough, or easy enough to dispose of, to be of interest to the professional thief. And deterring the casual thief is just a matter of reasonable home security and a safe.

I tried to insure my coins through my home insurance last year but they told me they didn't insure collections even if I paid an additional premium. 

[Michael-Roo]

 

Stephen, I have my collection included (covered and specified) with our home insurance. We're currently with MORE TH>N, it might be worth giving them a go next time you're looking for cover.

[jaggy]

2 hours ago, StephenO said:

I tried to insure my coins through my home insurance last year but they told me they didn't insure collections even if I paid an additional premium. 

Maybe you need to change insurer.