What is the best way to sell old silver coins?

Conehead_Hamster

Hello,

I am trying to find the best way to sell silver coins. A lot of the coins are pre-1920 which I understand are .925 standard. The prices offered by high street buyers are very low as are those offered by companies who buy "unwanted" precious metals. In a thread from 2011 the best way to get a reasonable price was to sell to coin dealers. Is this still the case?

QrizB

I'm not sure this is really an "over 50s" question.

I'll ask for this thread to be moved to the "savings and investments" board where discussion of buying and selling coins is a regular thing.

Brie

I've moved the post as suggest by QrizB.

In my limited experience most buyers will only offer based on the metal content and not consider the actual item (coin/ring/chain) so a coin dealer is likely required. And they are likely to offer maybe 1/3 - 1/2 the value you might see something selling for on ebay or wherever as they have to make a profit. And if the coin is not in really good condition or incredibly rare they may not be interested. You might benefit from talking to an auction house and see where they might direct you.

Nebulous2

I haven't looked at anything like this for years, but the two main options are,as you have said:-

1. Sell for the silver content,(scrap value) to a bullion dealer, which will be purely based on the silver content.
2. Sell to a coin dealer. Generally they will only be interested in coins in very good condition, from rare years, or with unusual features which had limited production numbers.

For option 1 they will simply weigh them, calculate the silver content (92.5% for pre 1920 coins) and give you the current bullion price less their cut.

For option 2 you need to do your research, grade the coins and know their prices. I used to buy books of coins, years and values by grade. Even then I found that dealers had their own ideas, might consider them to be a lower grade than I did, and rarely wanted to come close to the 'book' value.

If they are very high value coins it might be worth getting them professionally valued and consider putting them to auction, but you should still do some preliminary research to see if you have anything of value before considering that.

Looking online I see some websites that say they will offer valuations, but as I don't know anything about them I'd hesitate to name them.

Krakkkers

There are facebook groups for coin collectors, i found a rare £2 coin recently and got £50 for it on there.

DRS1

I don't know if it would help but there is a coin fair coming up in London soon (you'll have to pay to get in)

London Coin Fair 2026 | London | September 2026 | Other / Specialty Trade Fairs

It will be packed with coin dealers from all over - but of course they are there to sell. Still you could always take some coins along and see if anyone wants to buy them (and if you see what they are selling you can probably tell if they are likely to be interested in buying what you have). If nothing else you may get some names and contact details for people you could talk to later.

Sometime auctioneers attend these events as well and they may be able to tell you if you have anything worth putting into an auction. The ones who go are ones who sell numismatic coins so even if they are not interested in yours you may still want to try a local auction house.

There is also a forum called The Silver Forum where some people buy and sell coins. I suspect you need to know what you have if you want to sell on there.

Finally if you have an antique centre near you they may be interested in old coins - the sterling silver ones will be true antiques.

Sam_666

Not to forget, any sale will be subject to CGT, if above threshold.

Enzo_L

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82114069#Comment_82114069

Silver coins which are British legal tender currency, including pre-decimal ones, are exempt from CGT.

poseidon1

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82114069#Comment_82114069

Contrary to this post and to reassure the OP and inform others, silver coins are tangible moveable property for the purposes of the £6,000 individual chattels relief.

Consequently, unless any single coin ( not being legal tender) sells in excess of £6,000 or any group constituting a set similarly exceeds the chattels threshold, there will be no reportable CGT on disposals so the £3,000 general CGT exemption unlikely to be relevant -

https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/capital-gains-manual/cg76881

Conehead_Hamster

Thankyou everybody. That's been very helpful and I now feel better informed than I was.

Hammer56

Don’t put them into an auction house, the commission will kill it for you.

Let’s say you have a coin worth £100 (the value a coin dealer would sell it at).

Typical auction commission is 20% plus VAT for the seller. The Buyers Premium is also usually 20% + VAT.

let’s say somebody goes to the auction and is prepared to pay the price they would’ve had to paid in a dealer shop, £100.

Let’s say they bid £85 on it hammer goes down. With the buyers premium and VAT, it will cost them £105.40.

The seller will get £85 minus the 24% commission and VAT. £64.60.

The seller’s £100 item turned into £64 …. Only the auction house wins unless the buyer overpays.

Selling at auction is only useful if you need it definitely gone quickly, and price is not important to you, because you haven’t got the time to find a better buyer.