How to sell your rare or valuable coins?

One of the most difficult things to do is to sell a coin collection and reap the maximum return out of it.

When selling rare coins, it can be difficult to know where to turn You might have a 1930 Penny, an 1813 Holey Dollar or an 1852 Adelaide Pound that you’d like to sell.

Sell Your Own Coins

Firstly, you can try and sell it yourself.

Our view would be that this is difficult as you have to find the right customer and without a large customer base, this will be a struggle.

The additional issue is that you might not get the same price as a reputable dealer. On the other hand, the price you achieve is what you receive

Sell At Auction

The second option when selling valuable coins is to sell at auction.


The costs associated with auctions are insertion fees which can be 10%, and the hammer fee that the buyer pays which is often 22%.

If your treasured collection of predecimal-proof coins sells for $100,000, you will likely only receive $90,000. Additionally, the true retail value of those coins would be $122,000 as the buyer factors in the hammer fee.

Auctions also leave the potential for low-price realisations. The auction house does not have an equity stake in the item and their priority is that the coin sells in order to achieve a commission.

It is not unfair to say that their primary motivation is to sell the coin, not maximise its price. This critique is also valid for the consignment of coins directly to coin dealers.

Lastly, there is always the potential for the item at auction not to sell if you insist that the starting price not be too low. It is a common occurrence that items such as star banknotes and gold sovereigns pass at auction due to the starting bid being too high.

Sell To A Coin Dealer

The third option is to sell directly to a coin dealer like us.

We are always buying numismatic rarities.The benefits of selling to a reputable coin dealer are that we will buy the complete collection and you will not have to wait for an auction to occur.

We are also able to be extremely competitive with what we pay. This is possible due to having a customer base for these products and no insertion fees or hammer fees.

Recently, we purchased a substantial gold coin collection. We worked out that our margin in totality was just under 10%.

This seller would have been between 12-22% worse off going to auction.

In another example, we helped liquidate the remaining elements of an old Sydney collection after poor results at auction.

We calculated that the vendor would have been 20-25% better off selling to us directly.

Lastly, we provide estimates based on previous sales history that we happily share as part of the purchasing phase. We can also provide the tools to do your own research to verify our valuation.

Get in Touch Now 

If you'd like to get in contact with to explore the possibility of selling your coin collection through us, please get in touch via our contact page below or call us directly.