When you come to sell your rare coins, whether it’s a monumental decision or the plan all along, you need to make sure you get the best price possible. No one wants to sell their coin for a loss either!

But the buying price you see online doesn’t always match up to the selling price. Pawn shops, collectors, and eCommerce marketplaces all need to make a profit, so they will not offer you the full value of the coin – usually you’ll need to settle for less.

One way to get a high price for your coin is to sell it yourself, covering the listing and shipping fees from your own pocket. You can also auction off your coins, hoping that bidders will go above the market value in a competitive environment.

This guide will take you through the best places to sell coins online, plus a check list guide for selling so you know exactly what to do.

TLDR; Sell Your Coins Here!

Sell Your Coins Here

The best place to sell your coins online is eBay. Low fees, plenty of customers, and the ability to auction or sell your coins directly. However, some of the larger auction sites that are dedicated to coins will enable you to fetch a higher price for your extremely rare coins… at the cost of convenience.

Buyers who have a large budget to spend on a super rare coin tend to only buy verified coins. With eBay, you have to trust the seller’s integrity and honesty. With sites like Heritage Auctions and JM Bullion, buyers know that the auction house has verified the coins, so they’re definitely get what they pay for.

Ultimately, it comes down to the value of the coins you are selling and whether you want cash quickly, or a lot of cash at the cost of convenience.

8 Great Places to Sell Antique Coins Online

Here are 8 of the most popular online places to sell coins. The more well-known the website, the more customers will come across your coin. If you have no luck on any of these sites, you could also try advertising your coin in a forum, letting coin collectors contact you directly to negotiate a sale.

eBay

Sell Antique Coins Online on eBay

  • Coins only: No
  • Auctions: Yes
  • Verification: No
  • Fees: 12.9% sale price plus $0.30

eBay is the online marketplace where you can buy and sell anything, including rare coins. To sell your coins on eBay, you don’t need to go through any verification process – eBay won’t check that you’re an antiques collector or that your coin is authentic, for example.

This makes eBay a great hassle-free place to sell your coins. However, there are scams on the platform and fake coins being sold, so buyers will be naturally a little wary. Furthermore, if you’ve gone to the trouble of authenticating and grading your coin, the price you’ll get from it on eBay might not be as high as you expect.

In a nutshell, eBay is great for convenience and a quick sale, but it won’t get you the highest price for your coin.

APMEX

  • Coins only: No
  • Auctions: No
  • Verification: Yes
  • Fees: N/A

APMEX is a precious metals dealer that buys gold, silver and rare coins from collectors. They then sell these items via their website. To use APMEX, you simply sell your coins to them, and they handle the rest. There’s no listing, waiting, or fees involved for you.

You simply contact APMEX for a quote, ship your coins to them, and let them authenticate the items. If your coins fail to be authenticated (e.g., they’re fake) then APMEX won’t buy them off you. However, if they are genuine, APMEX will send you payment for them.

The whole process takes only a few days. Of course, the price APMEX will buy your coins for will be lower than the price they sell them for – this is how they make a profit. If you want to get the highest price for yourself, you’ll need to use a site from this list that enables you to sell your own products for a small fee.

JM Bullion

Sell Antique Coins Online on JM Bullion

  • Coins only: No
  • Auctions: No
  • Verification: Yes
  • Fees: N/A

Like APMEX, JM Bullion is a well-known dealer in precious metals, bullions, and collectible coins. Likewise, they will purchase your rare coins off you and sell them on – all you need to do is get a quote from JM Bullion, send in your coins for authentication, and wait for payment. If there are no problems, you should receive payment in 1 to 3 days.

The fast service and decent prices you can get for your coins makes JM Bullion a popular choice. They usually have thousands of coins for sale on their site, including modern coins as well as antiques, so they attract a fair number of customers.

If you want a hassle-free way and a quick payment for your coins, JM Bullion is worth checking out.

Etsy

  • Coins only: No
  • Auctions: No
  • Verification: No
  • Fees: 6.5% sale price plus $0.20

Etsy is a place where people all over the world sell antiques, vintage items, and handmade crafts. Although it’s not the first site you think of when you want to sell rare coins, there is an opportunity to be found here.

On Etsy, coins are often sold in sets with a few coins sold on their own. Novice collectors check Etsy for deals and it’s also a good place to sell worthless coins. Bundle together your poor quality, worthless coins and sell them on Etsy for people to use in crafts projects, for example.

The fees for Etsy are a little lower than eBay, but you’ll need to go to the trouble of setting up an Etsy store and filling in all the about sections, etc., if you want web viewers to trust you as a seller.

Great Collections

  • Coins only: Yes
  • Auctions: Yes
  • Verification: Yes
  • Fees: $3 to $10 listing fees plus 5% for sales under $1,000

Great Collections is a site that’s solely for coins and paper money. You send them your currency, in a similar way to JM Bullion and APMEX, however the coins are then put up for auction. You get paid whatever the final auction price is, minus the fees listed above.

It’s important to note that Great Collections only accepts coins that have been graded by PCGS, NGC or ANACS. If you have raw or ungraded coins, get in touch with Great Collections because they may be able to get you a discount on grading. Once graded, Great Collections will auction them via their site.

This is a good site to sell your rare and valuable coins, as there’s no percentage for coins that sell for over $1,000 and the listing fee is pretty low.

For low value coins that would cost more to grade than they’d fetch at auction, Great Collections isn’t interested.

Stack’s Bowers

Sell Antique Coins Online on Stack’s Bowers

  • Coins only: Yes
  • Auctions: Yes
  • Verification: Yes
  • Fees: Undisclosed

This rare coin auctioneer and dealer is amazing if you have a large or very valuable collection of coins. Working with estates and museums, Stack’s Bowers is well-known in the industry. Their auctions are legendary, and they have stores in New York, Philadelphia, and Boston.

You can sell your coins directly to Stack’s Bowers, or you can send it them to be auctioned off. They don’t disclose their commission rate on their website, so you’ll need to call or email them for a quote.

Stack’s Bowers offers free appraisals if you go to their stores, but if you have an exceptionally large assortment of coins, they may send a representative to visit your home instead.

We recommend approaching Stack’s Bowers if you have a number of extremely valuable coins and you want a premium service when it comes to selling.

Heritage Auctions

  • Coins only: No
  • Auctions: Yes
  • Verification: Yes
  • Fees: Undisclosed

Heritage Auctions will pay you in cash for your coins, or you can use their service to auction off your coins. This is one of the biggest currency auction sites not just in America, but around the world. They deal with a huge number of antiques and offer excellent prices. With so many customers, your coins are guaranteed to sell if they’re a high quality.

Heritage Auctions offers free appraisals, so you can email them with photos of your graded coins, and they’ll let you know how much they are willing to pay for it. If your coins are ungraded, Heritage Auctions can grade them for you. Of course, Heritage Auctions doesn’t do this all for free – they will take a commission for every sale. You’ll need to contact them for a specific quote.

Learn more about Heritage Auctions’ process for selling coins and currency in this video.

CoinsForSale

  • Coins only: Yes
  • Auctions: Yes
  • Verification: No
  • Fees: 5% sale price

Confidently calling themselves “The Premium Coin Marketplace” CoinsForSale.com is a site where you can upload and sell coins yourself. It’s like Etsy or eBay, but solely for coins!

You don’t need to be a professional coin collector, you just need to create a count and make a listing for the coin (or coins) you wish to sell. In terms of fees, CoinsForSale make it easy – there’s a flat 5% fee on all sales with no additional listing fees.

Coins don’t need to be graded and they don’t even need to be antiques. You have the choice of selling your coins for a set price or starting an auction.

Bear in mind that you are responsible for packaging and posting the coins, so you can add that expense to the 5% sale price fee. You may also want to bear in mind that CoinsForSale isn’t as well-known as the large auction houses, like Heritage Auction or JM Bullion. As a result, there are fewer viewers looking at what’s for sale. If your coin struggles to sell on this site, head to one of the above options instead.

Other Places You Can Sell Coins

The 8 online sites listed above are great, but if you want to avoid fees altogether you can always sell your coins directly! Joining forums and groups is a great way to connect with coin collectors who may be willing to pay you directly for a coin they want.

Of course, the drawbacks are that there’s no payment guarantee, dispute resolution, and you still need to manage posting and packaging yourself.

If that doesn’t deter you, take a look at:

Guide to Selling Coins Online

Guide to Selling Coins Online

If you are new to selling coins, use this as a checklist.

Authenticate and Grade

You need to know what your coin is before you can sell it. The best way to authenticate and grade a coin is to send it off for professional grading. PCGS is the most well-known grading company, but they are quite pricey.

For very rare and expensive coins, professional grading pays for itself when your coin finally goes up for sale or auction.

However, for lower quality and more common coins, you might not want to waste money on PCGS grading. In this case, post photos of the coin on forums for help identifying it. When it is time to sell, make sure your coin listing clearly shows both sides of the coin so potential buyers can judge the quality for themselves.

Determine Value

Getting a price for your coin can be done in several ways:

  • Physically take it to an appraiser or pawn shop near you,
  • Get an online appraisal by sending photos to an expert,
  • Using a service that appraises and sells the coins for you (see our list above),
  • Researching what your coin has sold for in similar (or the same) condition in the past. Heritage Auctions has a good record of past auctions that will be helpful!

If you aren’t sure how much your coin is worth, you can always aim high and then reduce the price at a later point if no one is interested in purchasing it. Likewise, you can use a site that enables auctions to get a price that’s even higher than you anticipated.

Don’t forget to calculate in fees and shipping costs when you decide on a total selling price.

Photograph

Photograph Taler 1654 Archduke Ferdinand Karl

Photograph your coin clearly, showing both sides and close-ups on any damage or area of interest. Most modern smartphone cameras are well-equipped for this, so you don’t need any professional photography equipment.

Tips for taking great photos of your coins include:

  • Use a plain contrasting background – a sheet of white paper, for example.
  • Add a ruler or point of reference if your coin is an odd size,
  • Make sure the coin is in focus,
  • Use bright light but avoid any glare or reflection off the surface of the coin.

If your coin is graded and in a plastic case, make sure that the identifying numbers and/or barcode is present, so potential buyers can check and verify the coin against a database before even purchasing it.

Upload Listing

Next, choose a site to sell your coins through. Double check the policies for creating a listing, fees involved, shipping policies, potential taxes in your jurisdiction, and more.

In your listing, you’ll want to mention:

  • Name and year of the coin,
  • Mint mark,
  • Grade (or estimated grade),
  • Total price including shipping,
  • Shipping time estimates and a return policy, if you need to organize this yourself.

Make sure to upload your photos too. There’s no such thing as ‘less is more’ when it comes to creating a listing. Buyers want to know as much as possible about your coin, especially if you are selling a very valuable item.

Shipping Coins Correctly

Shipping Coins Correctly

The best way to package your coin is to wrap it in tissue paper, placed inside a card box to provide some protection. Then place this box inside a mail bag that’s lined with bubble wrap.

You can use an excessive amount of tape to bring it all together!

When you send the mail, either by USPS or a courier, you must get the right insurance and protection for the package. Delivery confirmation (so the recipient must sign for it) is a good idea too.

You should get insurance that covers the price of the coin. If it’s stolen or lost in the mail system, you can refund the buyer without leaving yourself out of pocket.

FAQs

Where is the best place to sell coins online?

Most coin collectors – novice and expert – will browse eBay, so that’s widely regarded as the best unofficial place to sell coins online. If you are selling very valuable coins and want to advertise them in front of a wealthy coin-collecting audience, a more bespoke service like JM Bullion is good too.

How can I get the most money for my coins?

Getting your coins professionally graded ensures you get the most money possible when it comes to selling them. However, grading isn’t free so most collectors reserve it for their most valuable coins. You can also use a site that enables auctions (eBay, Heritage Auctions, etc.) to drive the price up at the point of sale.

What is the safest site to sell valuable coins?

The safest sites are ones where you sell your coin directly to the website, and they handle selling it on to customers. This includes Great Collections, APMEX and JM Bullion. You only deal with the company, not awkward buyers. However, you may receive a lower price for your coin compared to selling it directly yourself. It’s the price of safety!

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