Tall Grass Coins

I'm back!

2008-02-03T19:16:00.001-06:00

Been busy with other things and am just now getting back to doing something with the coin collection. Tonight I figured we'd start with some Silver Dollars (Peace and Morgan) that I pulled randomly from a box.

New eBay fees going into effect on February 20th and I plan on getting as many of these coins listed before then as I can. The way I figure the math, the new fees will be a substantial increase based on how I'm selling the coins. I don't mind paying eBay for what they earn, but I'm not going to pay any more than absolutely necessary.

The first few coins will start going up about 9:30 CST tonight... click here to see what I've got going.

Thanks for checking things out!

Little Progress Report, Lots To Learn

2006-07-09T10:23:00.000-05:00

It's been a while since my last post simply because I haven't been sure what to say. It's a little ignorant and counter to why I started this to just sit here and ramble off the coins I have listed on eBay. It was my thought that I could somehow summarize what I am learning about grading coins and their value, and that it would be a benefit to someone else who found themselves in a similar situation. But for all my reading, looking at coins, and even going to a local coin auction, I haven't had any epiphanies. At this point I don't feel I have much to add to the public conversation that isn't already published in books or available online. If I have learned anything, it's that I will always have a lot to learn about numismatics.

That being said, I am changing the purpose of my blogtime. I'm simply going to eliminate any sort of defined mission or purpose, while maintaining the focus on coins and currency. I’ll do my best to not ramble about stuff you can see for yourself, such as the auctions I have listed.

With that in mind, I've found a very helpful website in the last week:

World and Ancient Coins
http://www.beastcoins.com/
I'm learning (and financing my learning) by selling many of the non-US coins in the collection. Beastcoins has some great photographs of these types coins. I happened upon them while researching a Mexican 1/2 Real coin dated 1820. The photo on the site allowed me to positively identify the coin, and gave me lots of information on silver content and mint marks. Since I don't have too awfully many foreign coins to deal with, and since most of them appear to be of limited value, I have not invested in the current world coin books. From what I've read, these are the books to have:

Interesting Old Coins

2006-06-14T21:09:00.000-05:00

When I first found all the WWII era German coins in the folders from my Dads collection I was quite excited. While I didn't expect they were exceptionally rare -- I'm sure many were brought to the states as war trophies -- it's pretty disapponting that market just isn't very strong. They're quite simply neat coins that represent a dark, landmark period in our worlds history. I rushed to get them listed for eBay's 20 cent listing sale... they end tomorrow night. Maybe we'll have some last minute bidders.

What's going up tonight... well I do have a few more of the German Reich coins, this time the pfeinnigs, and a pre-WWII 2 German mark coin. I also tossed in a few good early American coins. 3 capped bust dimes, a rare 1918 Illinois Centennial silver commemorative, a lot of 1996 proof and silver proof sets, and a well worn 1864 2 cent piece.

That 2 cent piece was exciting because the flip it was in said "Small Motto" which, even in the poor condition it is in, is shown at $110 in the 2006 red book. Wow, might be some real money there I thought... well, I got to looking at photos of the 2 types and I am not convinced it really is a small motto version. The bids should tell us...

I'm getting better at taking coin photos too. The light I have with an intigrated magnifier works really well for illuminating them. I am still trying to get rid of the shadows behind the rim, but the colors and details are showing up really well in the photos. The camera really provides significantly better overall image quality and the flow is faster than the scanner.

Tonights auctions are starting slowly as I type this. Thanks for paying attention, and thanks to everyone who has trusted me with your business.

Time away...

2006-06-05T18:54:00.000-05:00

Well, it's been a couple weeks since I've really even looked at the coins. I got through many of the items that were, well, easy and now it's down to the brass-tacks. I knew it before I started, but this is like... real work.

Not much to report, but I do have a handfull of mid-20th century German coins, a nice 1903 German 5 Mark coin, and a 1925 silver commemorative going up on eBay tonight. I might have been able to move the German coins individually, but the modern German coin market just doesn't seem that strong on eBay. (or maybe the coins just aren't desireable) For those interested, I do have quite a few pre-1945 German coins as well. I may wait till later in the summer or into the fall for them. Too many folks have too many other things to do than eBay in the summer, and I'm not convinced they will sell as well as I think they should.

Thanks for looking.
-Jeff

Busy Busy Busy...

2006-05-14T23:18:00.000-05:00

This past week I've had so little time to spend thinking coins that I did not get a single thing listed tonight. I had photographed a small collection of WWI and WWII foriegn paper money, started to list it and in research realized it wasn't worth listing each note individually. So, I'll probibly just create a few lots and be done with 'em. There isn't that much paper money in the collection to worry about.

I was at an real-world auction today with my pays-the-bills business and picked up a nice 1925 Stone Mountain commemorative. It may not be as good as I what I paid (my preliminary grade is about an AU-50), but it was a fun diversion in the midst of a slow moving sale. It's a pretty coin.

Got a few more supplies in the mail including some nice white gloves so I won't be finger-printin' all over the coins when I photograph them. They are nice gloves... thicker than most I saw available on eBay (most look like glove shaped cheese-cloth). I got them from eBay Seller ID JayGlove - they also have a website www.jayglove.com. I recommend them.

Thanks for all your bids tonight! I'm so pleased how well tonights auctions ended, when I really didn't have anything I thought was terribly thrilling listed. I appreciate your business and thank you for helping me along on this journey.

Week 2 Drawing To A Close

2006-05-07T16:29:00.000-05:00

Well, tonight the second round of listings will end. Things are looking good so far, but I'm a tad anxious because a few of the items are not doing as well as I hoped. There's still time left, so that may change.

I spent quite a bit of time this week trying to figure out how to get a good, clear scan of very reflective silver coins. I've concluded it isn't possible with the hardware and software I have, so most coins now will be photographed instead of scanned. I thought the scanner would be able to better show detail and coloration with a lot less lighting problems - and that does appear to be the case on copper and nickel coins, but try as I might the silver just looks too fuzzy.

This past week was very busy, so I didn't get as much work done on the collection as I hoped. I've pulled many of the coins from folders and have them in individual flips. And I did get a good magnifying light ordered so I can better inspect the coins. I understand not everyone grades with magnification, and maybe I'll be able to do that at some point -- right now I just think I'm better off with a better view of the details.

So what did I find this week? I was excited to find a 1909-S cent (not VDB) in one of the folders and a 1925 half-cent in really good condition. I also found a box of 1965 special mint sets in their original envelopes, a couple of which are sealed. I was going to just list those tonight but after looking at a couple of the coins I think it'd be better to break the sets and have Kennedy halves slabbed. Ray ordered these in 1965 and left them sitting in the original box as they were sent fron the mint. They got pushed to the side for now.

I can't really say there is much exciting going to be up for auction tonight. I guess I could be surprised, but I just didn't have the time to get much else ready to go. I'm very anxious to get some of the raw coins listed and am spending more time looking at and cataloging them (for accounting purposes).

Now that I've got some money to work with (from the first sales), there's a really good chance I'll get some of the coins sent off to be graded and slabbed. More on that later in the week.

First Auctions Closed

2006-04-30T22:34:00.000-05:00

The first auctions I launched 7 days ago ended tonight. Woohoo! Thanks so much for all your bids, in my eyes it was a wildly successful night -- especially considering there were only 8 auctions ending. Sure, 2 them remained unsold, but then I didn't expect those two would sell unless I got lucky.

Twelve more auctions went up tonight with a handfull of great SILVER proof and uncirculated lots. These are mostly from my Dads portion of this collection. Actually, everything after 1986 will be from the portion of the collection that came from him.

I'm still reading through the ANA Coin Grading book. Where the 2006 redbook is more comprehensive (in the learning about coins arena) than the 1998 edition I had, it's not nearly as helpful to me as the ANA's book. I have a habit of studying the hell out of just about everything I get involved in and the broad history of grading and its importance is something I devoured.

Just ordered a whole mess of cardboard and plastic (no PVC) flips along with a few large bill holders. I still need to find a good magnifying light. Things like that aren't easy to find out here in the middle of nowhere, but I'm headed to the *cough* bigger city this week and hope I can pick something up there. If not I may have to look online - in this case I just really want to see/feel what I'm getting.

Again, thanks for your bids this past week. Click here and take a peek and the new items up for sale!

Moved to a blog

2006-04-28T13:48:00.000-05:00

I started this story on my eBay listing page, but then I thought I might be skirting eBay's listing policies and moved updates onto my eBay Me page. Well, now I moved it to this blog so that I can better manage it and provide a better way for folks to see updates. There's still work I need to do so the blog template looks like the rest of the site and auction listings, but for the most part it is similar looking. I've always been a stickler for details (some say umm... retentive), but I think having something that looks clean and polished (no, no, not the coins!) is just the way to go.

The First Couple of Days

2006-04-28T12:15:00.000-05:00

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.

Why Tall Grass Coins?

2006-04-28T11:47:00.000-05:00

Tall Grass... I live in Kansas... land of the tall grass that the buffalo ate before they were slaughtered. Now it seems to be mostly wheat and sunflowers. Coins... well that' explains itself too, doesn't it... (though I have some paper currency to sell as well)

In any case, because coin collecting and dealing is such a specialized field, I thought it was important to have a place on eBay dedicated to that purpose, so I took one of my old eBay ID's (z00ker) and changed it to tallgrasscoins. (see my eBay ID history) Now I've got a name and I certainly have inventory, so I should really figure out how to describe these coins.

My true passion is antiquarian books... well books in general... but especially the old ones. (I have some great and rare books in my collection concerning Greek and Roman coinage that I will be listing in the future.) When these coins came to me, the first thing I knew I needed to do was get some books on the subject, and far be it from me to miss an opportunity to buy books, I got online and ordered the ANA Grading Standards book (6th edition) and the 2006 Redbook Guide to US Coins. They're here now and I'm reading the introductory sections...

Starting Something New

2006-04-28T11:30:00.000-05:00

What started as a brief comment in the bottom of my eBay auction template has grown into a mission and something of a story, so I will treat it as such.

From the top again:

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 coin collection to sell on eBay. The collection has been in storage for nearly 20 years since his passing, is quite large and unfortunately not cataloged. At the same time I recieved my dads and his fathers coins. None of them are not professionally graded and I am certainly not an expert in grading coins. I will be learning as I go.

I figure the best way to get going is to start with the small stuff -- mint sets and commemoratives. The sale of those will give me some starting money to buy supplies, books, as well as give me time to do research and see how and what coins to move on to next. There are quite a few old foreign coins, tons of mixed lots of raw US coins, and more.

I hope anyone who follows this adventure will give constructive feedback on my auctions. Comments on my (eventual) grading skills is welcome, and suggestions on how I might improve. When I've had the time to gain some experience then we'll move on to real valuable stuff - the silver and gold. Though I have looked through them all and have some ideas, some surprised are sure to turn up as we open the folders.