The First Couple of Days

I wrote the following before deciding to setup a blog. The blog just makes sense, otherwise this would turn into just one very long, unwieldy webpage hidden in the murky depths of eBay. Now it's... a bunch of short, long winded web pages hidden in the murky depths of the net.

April 19, 2006 - I have sold on eBay for several years, but in that time have only sold a handful of coins... until now. I received my grandmother's second husband's collection to sell on eBay. The collection was in storage for nearly 20 years since his passing, is quite large and unfortunately not cataloged. The coins are not professionally graded and I not an expert in grading coins. I will be learning as I go, starting off with the small stuff -- mint sets, commemoratives, foreign coins, mixed lots of raw US coins, and more. Your constructive feedback on my listings and grading (where appropriate) is welcome. When I've had the time to gain some experience then we'll move on to the silver and gold. I'm not sure what all we'll find as we open the folders, but if you add me to your favorite eBay sellers list then you can be updated in email when new items are listed.

April 25, 2006 - As the ANA book suggested, I had a good sit-down last night with a magnifying glass, light, and a jug of raw coins (err... my change jar). The book actually suggested getting coins in rolls from the bank but then I would have to wait for the bank to open and I wanted to get started. So coin after coin I started working my way through the jug looking at the sort of things that could happen to a coin in circulation. Darn these things take a beating. I found a 1943 mercury dime in there, a silver clad bicentennial quarter, a couple of wheat cents, and a Canadian nickel (oh boy). Nothing worth a bunch, but I did learn a lot just from the couple of hours I spent. I'm sure to be doing more of this since I only got through part of the jug, and I would like to try looking at some bank rolls.

April 26, 2006 - I got my scanner working again, so now I should be able to get decent scans of the coins. The challenge of taking good photos of coins is one reason I have avoided selling coins online. The scanner will have problems of its own, especially in presenting true colors, but at least I won't have to deal with flash glare.