How to Sell Estate Coins
Here is an estate coin special guest post from Virginia M. where she discusses selling an estate and point out some things to know when selling an estate with estate coins. We had a prior post on Selling Estate Coins. NOTE: please consult an attorney or estate adviser when selling any estate as this article is not intended to constitute legal advise.
HOW TO SELL AN ESTATE WITH ESTATE COINS
Selling a property, in general, is not usually easy. It involves a lot of inquiries, paper work and some little repairs especially for a property that is not in good condition. Nevertheless, it can be a bit stressful when you’re trying to sell the property of a deceased relative’s vintage cars, estate coins, his 1980 bottle of scotch, jewelry and a host of other properties.
But not to worry, in this article, we’re going to give you tips on how to sell someone’s belongings when they pass away. Without a doubt, selling the property of a late family member is one great challenge to deal with as you’ll have to make so many decisions on which property to sell and which not to sell. But the good news is that there’re a lot of ways and methods you can use to sell an estate.
Thankfully, the internet has made things much easier as many valuable possessions can be put online for sales today. So, whether you’re selling an individual property or all the estate of your late family member, you should know how to go about it after reading this article. Below are a few tips you will find helpful in this regard.
Follow the legal procedures
You have to ensure that the estate’s legalities are in order before thinking of selling out the property. Usually, before the deceased passes away, he would have written a will including the name of a professional or executor to help with the sale of his properties. If this is true, the process could be a bit easier. Alternatively, in a case where there’s no will or testament and no one is named as the executor, a family member may take up the responsibility for the estate. Nonetheless, this process could be a bit lengthy as you’ll need to apply for a probate in court.
In some places, the application is tendered to a Supreme Court. And this is usually done two weeks after the death of the person. To this end, the Supreme Court will issue Letters of Executorship and thus appoint an executor.
Put the property in order
The condition of the estate determines its sale. Often, your potential buyer will carry out some inspections on the estate before making an offer. You need to meet the requirements of your potential buyers. Say a house, for example. You’ll need to carry out repairs. This is usually if the house was rented out for over a long period say thirty-five to forty years. The house needs to be cleared and restored back to its original state. The time for repairs is usually short. This means you’ll have to take some money off your wallet to get it done in a short period. It’s worth it anyway.
In addition to fixing the property, you’ll need to remove some of the personal belongings of the deceased before selling the property. There are often too many memories attached to those personal belongings, and it can easily trigger emotions too. Sometimes this can be another difficult part of the process because some people can’t deal with it.
Contact an expert
While you can do some things by yourself, there are others you might not be able to do. You might also want to talk to some family friends and colleagues that have gone through a similar process. But there’s a limit to the help and advice they can offer. If you’re new to doing something like this, you’ll need help regarding price negotiations, meeting market requirements and all of that. That’s why there are experts and professional like an estate agent at your service. Estate agents are trained to do most of the paper works and meet market requirements for the property. They take the burden upon themselves and guide you through the selling process.
You might want to ask how to get a good estate agent or liquidator. Like I mentioned earlier, talking to a friend or colleague that has passed through a similar process is a good idea. But since they’re not experts, it’s advisable to check with experienced estate planning attorneys, certified public accountants, and financial planners. These people can refer you to experienced liquidators.
How do I sell an estate with coins?
Most of the time, the deceased might leave a collection of coins behind for his successor. But how do you sell the estate coins? There’re many processes of going about this but here’s a straightforward one.
- First, you’ll need to separate the coins into their various types. By this, I mean picking the coins that look similar and putting them in one place. This is usually easy to do. For example, put the Franklin Half Dollars in one place, the Peace Dollars in another place and so on. You might need to make a further separation if possible by putting the coins with similar silver value separately from the others. This will give a quick and easy identification of the coins.
- Secondly, you’ll have to itemize the coins. This is a way of documenting your coins. Create a spreadsheet with the list of the coins. Make sure the list is simplified. You can achieve this by creating columns for each type of coin and rows for the quantity of each available plus the mint date if necessary. Finally, when selling, it’s will be a good idea to send the list of the coins you made to your potential buyer. This will give your potential buyer more time to take a good look at the coins you have and their value range before you meet face to face. The list will save you a lot of time and make the sale smooth and flexible.
- Be sure to take photos of the estate coins. You can email these to potential buyers to give them a good idea of condition prior to meeting. It is also a good way to document the coins in case questions arise later on.
- Never clean coins. Cleaning estate coins will only decrease their value.
- When looking through the coins, keep an out out for the following:
- Pennies minted before 1959
- Nickels minted before 1955
- Dimes minted in 1964 and before
- Quarters minted in 1964 and before
- Half dollars minted in 1969 and before
- Silver dollars minted before 1936
- Albums, folders, packages, or sets of coins
- All gold and silver coinage
- Any coins in holders or those already identified
- Storing estate coins is fairly straight forward. Do your best to keep them in a dry, room temperature environment. You can read an article about coin storage here: How to Store Coins
- Consider a coin appraisal. If you are keeping the coins you may want to have them insured. If you are selling the coins you should know what the estate coins are worth. Here is an article: Coin Appraisals
- Consider keeping a few coins as a memento. If there is any sentimental value to the coin collection, I would recommend keeping a couple of the coins from the estate. You never know if a family member will be a coin collector in the future and family coins are the best coins in any collection.