I inherited some coins – how do I find out what they’re worth and what should I do with them?

My grandfather recently passed away and left me his coin collection. It's about 200 coins in total - mostly older US coins (some silver dollars, wheat pennies, and what look like Buffalo nickels), plus some foreign coins he collected during his military service.
I'm completely new to coin collecting and honestly have no idea where to start. The collection is in a couple of old albums and some are in those little cardboard / plastic holders with handwritten notes.
My main questions:

How do I figure out if any of these are valuable?
Should I clean them? (They look a bit tarnished)
Is it better to keep the collection, sell it, or maybe keep just the special ones?
If I decide to sell, what's the best way to do that without getting ripped off?

Thanks in advance

Posted by Anonymous on 1:23 PM March 10, 2025

Replies

Admin 1:16 PM March 12, 2025

Another great tool for finding a coins value is eBay believe it or not. But you really need to look at Buy Now Items, not Auction Items...auction items might be listed at just a few dollars, and the seller is waiting on bidders to bid the coin up. While By Now Items by professional sellers have the coin priced at pretty near the true value of the coin is.

+1

Admin 1:19 PM March 12, 2025

If you like eBay and want to find the actual value of a coin, what it just sold for, or most recent sales then use the advanced feature setting to find SOLD ITEMS. The sold items page looks like this...and you can see the coin you shared just sold for $62, while in January and also December it sold for $46 and $41 dollars.

+1

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