selling Advice on selling my decimal coin collection and accessories

[ELV]

Hello everyone,

I'm a novice collector looking for some guidance. I have a collection of mainly British circulated coins and accessories that I'd like to pass on to better hands.

What's included:

The coins are mostly £2, £1 and 50p pieces, with some interesting smaller denominations. I've got a nearly complete 2p collection running from 1977 to 2013, plus some duplicates. Some international as well, incl. Chinese, Polish. Photos of most coins attached. Face value totals over £160.

The accessories include a coin holder album and wooden display box from Safe Albums, along with some Hartberger coin holders. These were worth over £100 when purchased new.

My questions:

• What might a collection like this realistically be worth? I've had a scan online and looks like £300 could be a reasonable price the coins and accessories combined, but I'd appreciate input from people who actually know what they're talking about!
• What's the best way to sell something like this? eBay? A dealer? Somewhere else entirely?

Any advice would be very welcome. Happy to provide more details or photos if helpful.

Thanks in advance!

[Sword]

I would suggest eBay and selling the coins and accessories separately. 

[Paddy]

There are four approaches I can see:

1. Break it up and sell it in single lots or small groups on Ebay. This requires quite a lot of effort on your part and will take some time, but gives you the best chance of recouping your investment, or even making a profit. The Coin cases and storage materials my do best.

2. Sell it through a local auction house who will break it down into maybe a handful of lots. It will be bought by dealers, who will break it down and sell to private collectors to make a margin. (Collectors don't generally buy bulk lots at auction.) By the time you have allowed for auction commissions and dealer's profit margins you will be lucky if you get face value for the coins.

3. Find a dealer who is interested and do a direct deal. The price will still not be great but at least you take the auction house commission out of the equation.

4. Sell the best pieces - some individual coins and the storage material - on Ebay and take the rest to the Post Office at face value. It sounds brutal but you will save yourself a lot of effort and end up with broadly the same as options 2 and 3.

You have to look at it as making the rewards from enjoying the collecting process rather than profit. Sorry if that all sounds a bit disappointing but I think it is a realistic answer.

[Rob]

As a dealer I can safely say that if sold as a complete collection, you might get a small profit if taken as a whole but that would have to include the genuinely scarce pieces like the Kew Gardens 50p. The vast majority will go at face value if collected from circulation. I bought a complete collection of issued decimals in 2013 and still have most of the circulation pieces. Collecting them from circulation was no mean feat, but when everyone else can do the same, it eliminates much of a premium. Plus everyone wants coins with no marks if possible. One offs in sets sell for a premium, but not that many collect 1p, 2p, 5p 10p and 20ps, so you are left with profits coming from 50p, £1 and £2 coins. Nobody wants the £5 coins. If modern, most people buy year sets and get the job done in one go.

[Paddy]

I had a very similar experience in about 2018. I spent best part of £1k on a huge collection of 50p, £1s and £2s with multiple duplicates. The scarcer pieces sold fairly easily - one Kew Gardens and a handful of Jemima Puddleducks, some of the £2 coins. The rest became a millstone around my neck and I ended up taking the bulk of them to the Post Office in 2023 at face value. Hence my advice above.