But it's made me a little money on eBay. So I thought it would be a great idea to
blog about it.Since it's something easy that you can do too.
Here's the short story of how I started. My Grandfather owns a pawn shop
that deals mostly with jewelry and coins these days. So I've been no stranger to
seeing morgan silver dollars, barber dimes, ect. As well as having a basic idea on
how coins are graded by numismatics or collectors. Very basic... But never been
into collecting coins myself.
One day on my regular morning shift, I was given some loose change from a
customer to pay for their purchase. I noticed that it sounded a little funny when
he dropped it on the counter. The best way I can describe it was hearing a deeper
sounding "pong", rather than a higher pitched "clinky" sound today's coins make.
(great sound effects right??? lol)
I began to look through what he'd given me, and found A 1946 US Quarter...
I looked it up on
CoinTrackers
I found out it was 90% silver. It was a little scratched, but still in good condition
to the right collector. So I swapped it out for one of my own quarters.
I had never sold any coins on eBay before this, just other types of items.
I knew there was obviously a market out there for them, I just didn't know how
active the buyer and bidder market for them would be.
So, since I decided that this was a first time attempt to kinda dip my toe in the water,
and my cost was only .25 cents, I put a starting bid of .01 to attract some attention.
And it got it. Even after the first few hours
I sold the coin for $8, so after paypal and ebay fees I was looking at about
$7 to $6.50 profit. Off of a coin I paid the face value for...
Take a look in your pocket, or wallet.
Go ahead, i'll wait for you...
Do you have a couple of nickels, dimes, quarters, ect?
Why not take a look at the dates and mint marks (S,D,P, or no mark) of a few of them
and then go look up how much they have sold for on eBay.
Not what they are selling for or listed currently.
This is a misconception a lot of people make using ebay to see "what your item is worth".
Just because you see a listing for $1000 buy it now doesn't mean that someone else
didn't list it for $100 and sell it for that.
The stuff that really generates the most attention though are the silver coins obviously.
This is because you are attracting 2 strong types of buyers. Ones looking to collect
the coins for their values, and others looking to profit off of the silver or smelt them
down for other products.
A great way to turn this into a business if you have time on your hands, which I stopped
doing this as frequently because other life stuff happens lol, but once or twice a week
head to your bank. Take $100 and get it in rolls of dimes, nickels, or quarters. Look
through some of the dates, check out which ones have more value than others.
But always be sure to check your marketplace on ebay to see what others are doing
selling coins of that year, or condition. Then just replace the ones out of the rolls and
take them back to the bank. So your start up cost is a few dollars at most.
You'll usually find a few good ones that you want to put up.
The most I'd found in one trip was 9 decent quarters. All ranging
in fair to very fine condition. 1940s through 60s, but after they all sold, minus fees,
I walked out with around 60 bucks.
For selling pocket change...
And of course spending a little time looking around and researching things.
Not bad.
So try this at home, and make "chump change" turn into dollar bills.
More good stuff to come...
Stay tuned
The Net Nerd
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