Coin appraisals

[Doozer]

Hey Beyond, can anyone recommend a good coin appraisal shop in Calgary?

A relative has a fairly extensive coin & bill collection as part of an inheritance to deal with, and is looking for recommendations on where to go.

Thanks!

[ExtraSlow]

Albern does that stuff, but I have no idea if they are the best place. I took some silver dollars in there and they basically laughed at me.

[Seth1968]

First check the online sites. For example, Google, "Canadian, US, (whatever) coin values".

Condition of the currency is everything.

[Doozer]

Originally posted by Seth1968
First check the online sites. For example, Google, "Canadian, US, (whatever) coin values".

Condition of the currency is everything.

That's what I would do if it was like, a binder.

This is a trunk, probably 100lbs, full of (I'm guessing) thousands of pages of individual packaged coins & bills. She doesn't live in Calgary, but will probably have to come here to get it valued. There's no way she's going to start googling individual stuff, it would take her years.

[Seth1968]

Wow, that could be goldmine. If so, perhaps she should contact her house insurance company for suggestions on how to proceed.

[The Wanderer]

I have found dealing with Calgary coins to be the most honest of the coin dealers I've gone to

[03ozwhip]

interested to see how this plays out...keep us posted

[Doozer]

Originally posted by Seth1968
Wow, that could be goldmine. If so, perhaps she should contact her house insurance company for suggestions on how to proceed.

Fingers crossed about the gold mine. But this whole effort is FOR the insurance company. The coins weren't documented on the previous insurance, so as part of the ownership transfer, they need to be appraised. On an interesting note, I've discovered that in the 1920s, they used to have a $0.25 bill. Not a coin, but a 25-cent bill. Probably other ones too. Weird.

Originally posted by The Wanderer
I have found dealing with Calgary coins to be the most honest of the coin dealers I've gone to

Good to know, so I went to the website. Seems like it's just 1 dude who runs the whole show, so I'm not sure he's got the bandwidth to put into an effort like this. To be honest, I'm not sure if anyone does.

Originally posted by 03ozwhip
interested to see how this plays out...keep us posted

Will do. I think she wanted to find a place by next week. Could be a box of junk, but who knows.

[ZenOps]

Calgary coin is just the one guy - Robert.

He does appraisals, but it costs money. What you probably want to do it just bring in some sample coins, some from what seem to be rare and see if they are worth anything.

If you really want to do it the expert way, ask to see the "junk silver" pile of coins and see what he is selling at melt spot price before you even try to sell anything. A surprising number of collections are not worth anything more than spot.

Dumping a big collection on him all at once is not a great idea.

Albern lost one of the better local coin people in some sort of issue that no one really wants to talk about:

http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/ca...046/story.html

[Doozer]

Originally posted by ZenOps
Calgary coin is just the one guy - Robert.

He does appraisals, but it costs money.

Anything worthwhile has a cost associated (not always financial, but in this case it is). She's expecting that.
She spoke to him the other day, sounds like he's pretty busy, but knows his stuff.

Originally posted by ZenOps
before you even try to sell anything.

Not selling anything. Appraisal for insurance purposes. Maybe eventual sale but the collection is supposed to be continued.

Originally posted by ZenOps
Albern lost one of the better local coin people in some sort of issue that no one really wants to talk about

That's just a weird story. Their reward website is gone though.

Spoke to someone at Albern the other day, they seem a bit more flexible with the evaluation, since Robert requires you to stay with him however many hours while he evaluates (probably for liability purposes).

Apparently there are different levels of appraisals too, where there is a probate appraisal, insurance appraisal, general? appraisal, ie - something that can't be used for insurance purposes.

Still a lot to figure out.