Originally Posted by Chris142
You can do your in online research and get a good idea what the value is. Most coin dealers will charge you 6-8% if you sell them to a dealer. If a coin is worth $100 plan on being paid $92 for it.
You clearly have never sold anything to a coin dealer. The only item some might work on as little as 6-8% is moving bullion, or gold/silver coin which are basically just bullion. For run of the mill, non bullion items.....expect to get at most 50-75% of their full market value. There are exceptions for rare stuff. But the odds that the OP has any of that are slim. And expecting a newbie to be able to grade, authenticate and appraise older US gold and silver coins from the internet is folly. Detecting fakes, cleaned, puttied, and damaged gold coins is an art unto itself. Most people can't tell an AU55 from a MS64 coin...and the difference can be a factor of 2X to 10X in price.
Fwiw, that 1881 $5 gold coin in the first post gets 95-99% of its value from bullion. There is essentially NO numismatic premium for those in circulated grades unless they are low mintage or rare dates...like an 1881-cc for example. Why is this so? Because almost no one collects $5 Liberties by date. And the serious ones that do focus on rare dates or choice/gem condition.
There are too many coins in the series (200 or more), all costing at least $285 due to bullion content, and with dozens of rare dates in the 1839-1908 period costing multiples of that...some into 5 figures....most Charlotte, Dahlonega, New Orleans, and Carson City mints are expensive....while many 1850's to 1870's San Francisco and 1860's Philadelphia mint coins cost a pretty penny. It costs a ton to complete a set....2/3 bullion coins and 1/3 rare coins. And there are so many US gold coins saved from the 1878-1929 period that they are pretty common vs. the number of collectors looking for them. Most of them in circulated grades are just bullion now.
There are large supplies still coming back to the US from Europe and overseas in uncirculated condition that were originally sent away following the FDR's March-April 1933 gold confiscation (finalized in the January 1934 Gold Reserve Act). Here's one case where while they aren't making them any more at the US Mint, the supplies from overseas have been swamping the market since 2009....which has caused numismatic premiums to contract to near nothing on circulated examples. Increasing supplies to US markets....and constant to lowering demand....means lowering prices. For those few lucky to have a rare date, or a pre-1934 US classic gold coin in choice/gem mint condition, those do bring premiums. I saw my local dealer buy 4 rare US gold coins over the counter....for $25,000. Thing is, they were choice tp near gem condition rather than just decent uncirculated (MS64 vs MS62/61).....and really worth $80,000-100,000. That jump in grades is not easily determined by even long time dealers. That's called 25c on the dollar.
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