Coin Collecting for the Dummy Numismatist

1943 S Lincoln Cent Obverse

As Leaf Group spreads more and more of the eHow.com canon around to niche sites, the Antisocial Network research team keeps coming across familiar names in "new" settings. The sad fact, however, is that the content doesn't change (except, sometimes, to get even worse) – it's still the same drivel written by the same unthinking crew of "contributors." Today's DotD candidate is one of those familiar names, ten-time winner of the award Larry Parr, whom we found expounding on "How to Buy Coins Wholesale"¹ for some silly place Leaf calls PocketSense.com.

According to Parr, a retired cartoon writer responsible for high-minded content like episodes of  "The Smurfs," buying coins wholesale is, while not impossible, improbable:

"U.S. coins have a 'face value,' regardless of age or condition. In other words, a dime is always worth a dime and a quarter is always worth a quarter. That makes buying coins wholesale somewhat difficult. The one exception is when you purchase 'junk' silver coins at less than the value of the silver in the coins.That [sic] is the one time it can be said that you are buying coins wholesale."

Ummm, yeah, Larry: that's the "one time" you can buy coins wholesale...

Unless, of course, you happen to own a coin collecting business. Although numismatics is no longer as popular as it was a couple of generations ago – state and national park quarter sets notwithstanding – you can still find coin shops and coin shows in just about any small to medium-sized city. It's even easier to find coin dealers online, though at least half the fun of collecting has always been the searching.

Parr says to buy junk silver, publishing a (rather stupid) set of "instructions" for doing so that starts with "Study the price of silver" and ends with "Purchase your bag of silver." Had the cartoon guy given his topic more than a few seconds' thought, though, he might have realized that every coin ever minted has a wholesale price and a retail price to coin collectors. Those prices are controlled by demand, which is a function of rarity.
We took a look at penny prices using the industry standard for coin pricing – The NGC Price Guide – and chose a moderately rare coin for an example: the 1943 S steel Lincoln cent. That little disc has a retail price in the range of anything from $11.00 to $4250, depending on its condition. If you were to believe Parr, however, its wholesale value is one cent. Dayumm, but we sure wish we could get one of them for a penny!

No, Larry, anyone can buy coins wholesale. First, though, you'll need to establish yourself as a coin dealer; which presupposes that you know how to evaluate the condition of coins and read the Coin News for pricing. Then you can buy coins wholesale in one of several ways, including buying individual coins from walk-up customers, appraising and buying coin collections, or establishing a reseller relationship with a larger dealer. That Larry couldn't figure out that the OQ was curious about coin collecting is just one more reason we're naming him the Dumbass of the Day yet again.

¹ The original has been deleted by Leaf Group, but can still be accessed using the Wayback machine at archive.org. Its URL was   pocketsense.com/buy-coins-wholesale-6706619.html

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