I had hoped to shoot a Saturday evening match, but I started
working on my father’s coin collection and lost track of time. Most of his coins are from circulation so
they have little collection value other than face value. It was the excess coins that troubled me.
What’s a lot of pennies from 1949 to 1960 worth? Let’s start off with the fact they are ‘wheat
backs’ which are no longer minted. Also
understand they minted millions of each wheat penny each year. Nobody knows if they will be worth anything
for at least 150 years. I base that on a
large penny I have from 1848 in good condition that might be worth $3
bucks.
Current pennies are a copper clad zinc coin, but these are
solid copper. I checked the selling
price of copper, the weight of a penny and 158 pennies could earn you around 2
bucks. I suspect many US metal recyclers
will not want to handle pennies, afraid of laws about defacing US
currency. Factor in the cost of a trip
to Canada where a US penny just is a disk of copper, and I suspect you need to
take tons to come out ahead.
Many of the coins in circulation have features raised above
the coin’s rim and are quickly eroded way along with their value. Most Indian head nickels have lost their date
and you might be able to sell such a worn coin for 8 to 10 cents. It seems during the Depression, hobos would carve an Indian head nickel to resemble some other figure and would try to
trade their handy work for a meal or shot of Ol’Red Eye. So there is still a small market for the coin
as artistic media.
So it goes with most coins in circulation, a dime without
silver is worth 10 cents. A Kennedy post
1964 half dollar might be worth a few cents more to a collector or someone who
want to imitate George Raff flipping a coin.
The only real way to make money on most circulated coins, other
than to spend ‘em is to sell them to other new collectors who can no longer
find a 1941-S penny. From my knife
selling experience, forget ebay. You
could rent tables at coin, hobby, and flea markets, spending a lot of weekends
to make peanuts. You should prepare to
spend years to sell circulated coins with a face value of $100.
So what does this have to do with knives?
Knife collectors are kind of in the same situation. If your heirs aren’t interested in your
collection, they will want to sell it.
So what’s a fair price? There
aren’t that many people willing to plunk down bucks for used Case knife. If you have one from the 1930s, it may be
valuable to the right person, but you’ve got to find that person. Even custom and semi-custom knives go out of
style and drop in price as the maker becomes more obscure.
Yes, there are exceptions.
Loveless, Randall and others are still in demand, partially because the
organizations still exist and are still making knives. Others aren’t so lucky. Most factory made knives only drop in appreciation
as newer design and more sophisticated steels are introduced.
 |
| It is a nice little knife in its own right. Does the blade engraving make it more valuable or less valuable? I think more to me, less to everyone else. |
As knife collectors we are told to list or provide
documentation to our heirs to help them understand what we believe the knife is
worth. We are often guilty of
over-evaluating our collection. We would
like to believe the club knife or special event knife should be worth more,
especially if only a few were made and it’s old. The same with knife lines no longer manufactured. Scarcity and age do not determine price. Price is determined by the transaction
between seller and buyer. And it can be
different on any single day depending on who’s at the table and how much each
wants to buy and sell.
So, do I have a solution to the coin and knife
collector? Of course I do!
It’s a two part solution.
The first is selling your collection yourself. You enjoyed putting it together; now enjoy
haggling and selling it. You’ll make,
lose or break even on the deal, but at least you’ll have fun doing it. The second part is don’t worry about it. Enjoy your collection while you can and let
the heirs deal with it. So what if the
kids sell your custom made ivory handled Fairbairn-Sykes combat dagger for 50
bucks and threw in a sharpening stone.
It isn’t like you can use the money, is it?
