Trouble selling a silver coin collection as prices wobble

In 1980, I became a serious coin collector.

Well, about as serious as a 10-year-old can be. I already had a baseball card collection with a few good Red Sox cards. I inherited my father’s stamp collection, which was interesting but kind of overwhelming.

The great thing about coin collecting was that it didn’t cost anything to get started. Sifting through pocket change, I could find “wheaties” or “wheatbacks” (1909-1958) among my pennies.

Even more exciting was the rare Buffalo or “Indian Head” nickel (1913-1938). No insult to Thomas Jefferson intended, but these old nickels looked way cooler. They were designed by American sculptor James Earle Fraser, who had grown up in frontier South Dakota and wanted a distinctly American look for the nickel. These went into cardboard holders:

I could also walk down to the neighborhood bank and exchange a dollar bill for two rolls of pennies, and sort through them to find rarities. I stored my finds in random candy boxes, medicine containers, and cardboard binders.

What really lit a fire under my new hobby was the prospect of finding real treasure. Some readers may remember the Hunt brothers cornering the silver market in early 1980, briefly sending the price soaring to $50 per ounce ($208 in today’s dollars). Suddenly, any 90% silver dime, quarter, or half dollar minted before 1965 was worth a lot more than its face value. I began to seek out old silver coins in my parents’ change. I even purchased a few numismatic collectables like Morgan dollars from the 1880s. I built a small silver coin collection:

As I entered my teens, interest in coin collecting faded. I would idly look for wheatbacks or check the dates on worn quarters in my pocket change, but the fire was out. For decades, the coin collection languished in a plastic storage box at the back of a filing cabinet.

That is, until last month. I was aware that the price of silver was climbing, and people were mentioning the Hunt brothers again. While the price of silver was high, maybe this would be a good time to deal with the silver coin collection, so our kids don’t have to do it later.

Nicole received a flyer for one of those travelling roadshows where they purchase precious metals. I drove to the hotel on the morning of January 30 with my collection. Was the roadshow a scam? Some had a bad reputation, with consumers frequently confusing them with the legitimate Antiques Roadshow. I used Google Gemini to identify the market price for a range of coins in my collection, so I wouldn’t get lowballed:

When it was my turn to talk with the buyer, I started with a single 1-ounce silver medallion and was given a quote for $80. When I had checked the silver price earlier that morning, it was above $115.

I questioned the buyer about the 35% spread. “The spot price is down,” he claimed. “The smelters are backed up.” $80 was their best offer for an ounce of pure silver.

I brought out some other silver coins, a Morgan dollar from 1887 and a Peace dollar minted in the years following World War 1. Both were 90% silver, containing roughly ¾ of an ounce. The numismatic value of these coins was marginal. 

The Heartland Roadshow buyer looked them up on the app on his phone. “Hold on, I gave you the wrong price,” he said, tapping away. “I’ll give you $35 for each of them,” he said, including the pure 1 oz silver medallion that he had just quoted $80 for.

“No thank you,” I replied. I left, miffed, thinking he was jerking me around.

I didn’t realize the price of silver was collapsing again. That morning, silver had briefly topped $120 before swinging wildly following the announcement of a new Fed chair. A flash crash ensued, dropping the price to $78.53 per ounce by day’s end.

The coin collection is still waiting to be sold. I am not going to bother with the road shows. I may end up going to the same local coin shop outside of Boston where I bought my Morgan dollars and Walking Liberty quarter decades ago, and sell them all. Even the wheaties. 

But I just might keep that buffalo nickel, to remember the thrill it gave me when it turned up in spare change at the corner store in the summer of 1980.