rare coins. how much are they worth?

Question

i have a 1936 indian head/ buffalo nickel,1929 dime,1940 nickles , wheat pennies from 1900 to date . where can i find out how much they are.

Answer 1

A good judge of what things are worth today is how they fare on the eBay market.

Beware of using the word rare, the coins you have are not considered rare, just so you know. They are old coins but not rare.

Be very alert to "overgrading" your coins, novices usually do this and so do scam sellers, ie: saying the coin is uncirculated when in fact you get it and its about worn out.
this drives the price up but can get you in hot water with the buyer, fast.

typically coins of that era are about worn out, however its on a coin by coin basis. ones that were tucked away could still be in good to uncirc condition.

you will not want to make fingerprints on the coins, the oil from your hands will devalue them.

do not clean your coins with ANYTHING, including pencil erasers, steel wool, sandpaper, emery cloth, acids, bleach, anything, under any circumstances. this devalues the coin immediately

do not compare your coins to others that are graded or "slabbed" by coin grading companies unless you have that coin under a microscope. there are subtle differences that are $$$$ different.

Answer 2

A coin dealer will pay about 25 cents for the buffalo nickel, $1 for the 1936 dime, 5 cents for the nickels (you still occasionally find nickels from the 1940's in circulation). Wheat cents started in 1909. Common dates before 1940 are worth about 5 cents, 1941-1958 are worth 3 cents, except 1943 which is worth 15 cents. There are a fair number of early cents that are not common and worth a bit more.

Answer 3

Go to a store that deals in coins and get a "blue book" or a "red book." Look on the coins for mint marks. You will find a D or an S or nothing on the coins. D stands for the Denver Mint. S is for the San Francisco Mint. No mark at all means the coin was made in Philadelphia. The book will tell you where to look. After finding the mint mark and establishing condition, you can find a rough approximation of value in the book. Generally, the blue book will tell you what a dealer will pay you for the coin. The red book will tell you what the dealer will charge you for the coin.

I hope one of your wheat ear pennies is a 1909 S VDB. It is the most valuable of the Lincoln pennies.

Answer 4

Ebay is one of the best places to get the true value of collectibles, because you get to see what people have actually paid for them in the past.

If you have no idea which books you can use to look up the value of coins, you probably don't know how to rate their condition, which affects their value as much or more than their rarity. You may want to go to a couple coin shops or find a collector friend to help you with this--I don't think it will be as simple as just checking a book, though the book would give a rough idea. Just read the part on rating condition carefully, as a few barely noticeable imperfections can cut a coin's value in half.

Answer 5

You hav $1.50 - $3.00 tops in coins depending on where the pennie was made