My wife and her sister have inherited a relatively large coin collection from their father. It is a collection from he and his father dating back to early 1900's. My own father is somewhat of a coin buff , although he is not as active as he used to be. I had him look it over to give a broad overview of what he thought it was worth. He ended up saying it would take a tremendous amount of time to really go through it and actually estimate anything accurately, although his personal opinion is that the majority of the worth was in the silver bullion value that about say 75% of the coins had. He sorted them out for me in piles of "silver coins, have bullion value", and "non silver coins, unknown collector value". He said it would take a really knowledgeable coin guy to be able to recognize what, if anything, had actual liquid collector value.

All that to say: the silver containing coins weigh about 38 lbs. Without even taking time to sort through the collector value, my googling says that's around $13,000 of silver bullion. Now, I know that's based off spot prices, doesn't take into account all the middle men who need margin, general illiquidity of this type of asset, etc. So the question is, what is the most efficient method of discharging a collection like this? None of us have the time to sort through 1000's of coins. I can only assume that if I show up at a coin shop here in Birmingham I would be lucky to get 25% of the value if that. I also assume if I google up an internet coin shop I can expect perhaps higher amount, but then run the risk of getting scammed, shipping lost, etc.

Anyone ever undertaken something like this? What are the practical options? Of course one option is to put in the back of the safe and forget about it and let silver bullion values take their natural course over time. But ... eventually ... how do you liquidate something like this? I really need someone to look it over and see what, if anything, has significantly higher collector value than bullion. But you hate to just hand something like this to an unknown person and have them look it over unsupervised. No telling what would be pilfered out it or mischaracterized.

Aldeer usually has the answer, so I'm interested to see if anyone has actual experience in this topic.

I had several pounds of a silver coin collection a few years back. Same problem you are going to have. Not only do you have to identify every coin, but THEN, you have to know/look up the fact that , say, a 1927 "D" Liberty head dime is worth $25? $50? $1000?, while a "C" series of the same coin, or one from another mint, is only worth bullion value. Hundreds of hours of work and if you are lucky, you might make another couple of hundred bucks over silver spot price.
I saved a few silver dollars to put in grandchildren's stockings, cashed the rest in, and bought a gold piece. .

I’m wishing you the best but you’re in a place I saw my children in and have tried to do the work for them. I started collecting coins in 1976 when I was 11 and you could still find pre 1964 silver coins in change. That year I got a coin magazine and ordered an almost uncirculated roll of buffalo nickels for 17.00 after saving my yard money for a month. That roll is now worth somewhere north of 1700 but I pulled out 5 good dates and replaced them with same condition nickels. I went through all my coins and labeled the ones separately that have collection value and also rolled the coins that are just worth the silver value. Coin collecting is not such a popular thing with the younger generation but still lots of older guys fool with them every day. My advice would be find and older guy who knows coons and is hopefully someone you can trust and let them sort though your collection. I’ve ended up with a good pile of silver coins that are worth nothing but spot price because I had pay telephones for years back when there was such a thing and I have those non collectible coins in bags that are marked that way. Good luck and keep us posted in your journey

If they are US coins they will be 90% silver. Except for 35% silver war nickels 1942-1945 and 40% Kennedy halfs 1965-1970.
Precious metals are measured in Troy ounces and there are less of them to the pound than 16.

There is a local pawn shop here that I use for such things. The owner and I trust each other.

If you feel like taking a drive, I would be glad to assist. The pawn shop is on Hwy 9, in Alpharetta, GA, just across from Wellstar North Fulton.

I said that because the owner, Joe, is a coin guy. He asks me about guns and optics, and I trust him on coins and jewelry.

Probably the easiest way is to get the entire collection evaluated and an offer broken down by coin types by several coin dealers. After a few offers it should be easy to determine what is just worth silver bullion. At that point just sell the bullion and then deal with the more valuable coins based on offers.

Thank you Uncle Huck. I am used to frequent the Alpharetta area this summer for my son’s lacrosse events. I still may go over a couple times per year for events. I’ll let you know if I can get over that way soon.

I have a collection that was appraised at 5 figures 30 years ago

Ok

Take it to a reputable coin and bullion dealer. Have them evaluate it. They will make you an offer for it. It sounds like most of that is junk silver aka 90% silver pre-1965 silver etc...
You need to learn how to calculate that amount but the general rule of thumb is $1.40 = 1 troy ounce of silver.

Sounds like I may have grossly overestimated the value. I thought it was a lot more than $1.40 per Troy ounce. I better educate myself more before waltzing in a coin dealer.

No you didn’t grossly overestimate the value. Silver is at $24.99 a Troy ounce right now. 14 something Troy ounces to the pound.

That’s what I was thinking too.

I think I will spend a reasonable amount of time creating a spreadsheet breakdown of the denominations and year ranges of pre-1964 coins. Then learn some rules of thumb and lingo. Then visit 3 or 4 shops I’ve researched to be reputable. From there I should have a basis on telling wife and sister in law a proposed course of action.

You miss understood Skinny. He means face coin value equaling $1.40. Spot silver is $25 bucks per Troy ounce,

Oh ok, I see. Thank you

A dealer will say "I will pay $15 X face" If you have $400 in junk silver face value, then its 400 x 15 = $6000 .

Current market is just over $25 per troy ounce.

At that price, full spot value for your 90% silver coins would be about $18.15 per $1 face value, based on today's market. Most dealers will want to buy at $2-3 less, as would any knowledgeable collector..

Thanks for the guidance guys

If you decide to sell it, let me know