We are buyers of coin collections in Tampa

If you are in the Tampa area, we are interested buyers of your coin collection

• U.S. Coins

• Foreign Coins

• Rare Coins

• Any Coin Collection

• Lifetime Collections
  

 

A Village Stamp & Coin

813-962-3880

 

How long have you been active buyers of coin collections in Tampa?

Ed: Since 1980. We have been buyers of coin collections in Tampa with over 30 years at the same location.

Jack: I’ve been buying coins since I was a kid. Not necessarily all in one place, but since I was a kid. We’ve got over 150 years of coin buying experience between the three of us.

Ed: We are the place to bring your coin collection.

Jack: We have been the top rare coin buyers in Tampa since 1980. We have handled rare coins from several dollars to tens of thousands of dollars. When you want to sell your rare coins in Tampa, contact us for the best price. We also will buy collections of coins and paper money, old time collections, and inherited collections, small to large, all collections are wanted.

We’re interested in your accumulation of coins that you may have inherited, or collected over time.

What kind of coin collections do you have come in? What’s an average collection you might see?

Jack: It has 5% of stuff that may make it into the showcase. The rest of it is what we call “bucket material.” Those would be highly-circulated common coins.

What would be an example of that?

Jack: This gentleman that just came in, he had a collection what I would have paid him six dollars for. And six dollars of it was silver, and the other forty-two cents of stuff that was there was bucket material. There was a wore-out Buffalo nickel, a wheat penny. Yet, it’s from 1940, it’s eighty years old, it’s got to be valuable. No, it’s not.

So there’s nothing you can do for him?

Jack: Well, I still make money with what we call “bucket material”. But if I give you two cents for something, I might get three cents for it, but I’ll do it thirty-five thousand times. Because that’s how much of that comes in. Come here, let me show you something.

(We walk to another part of the room.)

We Need Your Coins For Our Retail Customers

Jack: This comes through the door. (We’re looking at a two foot high pile of penny bags.) And there’s more. And there’s more of it out there. Alright? Here—Buffalo nickels. (Running his fingers through the bins.) Buffalo nickels. Buffalo nickels. Buffalo nickels. Steel pennies. More nickels. It’s what we see 99% of the time.

There is nothing rare in this whole set here?

Jack: Nothing.

So this is the average coin collection that comes in.

Jack: Tonnage. Now, I want them to bring it in. We need even cheap material.

I see your point.

Jack: Okay, now this stuff, like these? These I can sell. You know, I can buy ’em for sixty cents and sell them for eighty cents.

And you’re referring to War Nickels just now.

Jack: Yes, they’ve got a little silver in them.

What’s a War Nickel?

Jack: It’s a nickel that was made during World War II. They have silver in them.

I never knew that. There are nickels that have silver.

Jack: Yes, ’42 through ’45.

That’s amazing. I’ll bet not many people know that. So as leading buyers of coin collections in Tampa, what do you want your customers to know?

Ed: We want your silver dollars, even if they’re a twenty dollar model, or they’re the twenty thousand dollar model. We need all coins.

Jack: We need all your coins.

Ed: Don’t be afraid to bring your coins in. Because if it’s worth a little bit, or it’s worth a lot, bring it in and find out.

Jack: Like what I said earlier. I’ll buy it if it’s cheap, I’ll buy it if it’s expensive.

What would you call the good things in a collection? A gem, or, you know…? A gem in a pile of…? (Laughs.)

Ed: A real collector coin.

A real collector coin.

Ed: Right.

“I’ll buy it if it’s cheap, I’ll buy it if it’s expensive.”

How often do you see a rare collector coin in a collection?

Jack: If twenty collections walk in the door, you might find ten real collector coins.

Well, that puts it in perspective, that you don’t expect a lot of rare stuff to show up.

Ed: Right.

Jack: If twenty collections walk in, the total count of coins might be in the thousands. And there might be ten coins in there that’ll end up in the showcase.

Just ten coins out of several thousand.

Ed: Which is okay. Condition is everything. A Buffalo Nickel from 1937 could be worth…

Jack: Ten cents. Or it could be worth a small fortune.

Ed: If it’s got a partial date, it’s worth ten cents. Or, it could be worth thousands of dollars.

Customer Bob: Or how about a three-legged?

Jack: A three-legged could be worth six thousand dollars.

What did you mean by partial date?

Jack: The date is worn to the point where there’s only part of the date left on the coin. That’s a partial date. And you can have what we call a slick, which has no date left. Funny story, guy called us up one day and said, “I have a really rare Buffalo Nickel, it was made with no date.” But it was just a wore out coin, it was worthless.

Okay. So partial date is a more valuable coin?

Jack: No.

Ed: Worth nothing.

And three-legged, what does that mean?

Jack: Well, that’s a mint error.

And that’s valuable.

Jack: Here, come here. This is what’s called a cull Buffalo Nickel. It’s nasty. This is what’s called a slick. The date’s gone. This is what’s called a partial date Buffalo Nickel. A little bit of the date is readable. This is what’s called a full date Buffalo Nickel. All of the date is readable. Still not valuable. But it’s all categories of Buffalo Nickels.

Going generally from the less valuable to the more rare.

Jack: From ten cents to a quarter.

Bring it in. Soup to nuts. Top to bottom. We’ll buy the junk, we’ll buy the good stuff.

Jack: Now, you can get a Buffalo Nickel… [looks around in the case]

So on the high end, a Buffalo Nickel could be a certified, slabbed, pristine, or whatever else?

Jack: [Puts a coin on the counter.] There’s a Buffalo Nickel that’s just like the day it was made.

We’re looking at a 1938D MS-64.

Jack: Right. But to you, you could probably look at a partial date and look at this and it probably wouldn’t make much difference to you one way or the other, because you just don’t know. But this coin that’s ten cents back there is now forty dollars over here.

Now, does it matter that somebody’s already certified that?

Jack: It’s not certified.

Oh, it’s just—what do you call that, put in a…

Jack: It’s just put in a holder.

So you might find a coin loose or in a simple holder and determine it’s one of those more valuable ones. But that’s pretty rare, right?

Jack: The whole thing is condition. And what a lot of people do is they’ll find a 1937 Buffalo nickel that’s barely readable, and they’ll go on the internet, and they’ll find somebody that’s selling a proof, mint state 66, special 1937 nickel that’s a thousand dollars. And they’ll come in here with their nickel and think it’s a thousand dollars. And it’s ten cents. And I have to deal with this all the time. We’ve got people leaving, calling me names, or leaving us bad reviews on the internet.

Hopefully less often when they get a chance to read this. So what haven’t we touched on that people would want to know about your being buyers of coin collections in Tampa?

Jack: People want to be able to trust us. To know that we’re going to treat them fairly. That’s the biggest thing with their coins, they have no idea of the actual value. There was a guy that went to a coin show and spent a hundred dollars on a coin, that we would buy for eighty, comes in here and wants to sell it to us for a hundred and ten. Then he’s mad at us because we won’t give him a hundred and ten for a coin that was only eighty dollars. He doesn’t understand the fact that dealers have to make a profit.

Frank: I had a guy that came in earlier today that had a bunch of stuff from shopping on television that were all replicas and copies of gold coins. He spent eight hundred dollars on it. And we sell them out of the case over here for five bucks apiece.

We are buyers of coin collections in Tampa with over 30 years at the same location.

Jack: So if you ask me about how do you buy a coin collection? Every coin collection is different and unique.

Ed: What about something you’ve inherited, or something that was a collection that was bought years ago, and is a real collection? From a real collector—instead of someone that accumulated coins—that you’ve inherited those. That make sense?

It makes a lot of sense, actually. That’s a collector’s coin collection.

Ed: We want everyone to know that we’re interested in your accumulation of coins that you may have inherited, or collected over time.

Jack: A collection of coins is a sock full of pennies in a drawer to most people.

Ed: That’s accumulation.

Jack: They’re calling up and saying, “My dad collected pennies, he’s got a sock full of them.”

Or on the other hand, “My dad was a serious collector and knew something about it.”

Ed: We’re interested in the accumulation and we’re interested in the serious collection.

We want your silver dollars, even if they’re a twenty dollar model, or they’re the twenty thousand dollar model. We need all coins.

Jack: You know, we’ve done this for decades, successfully buying collections of every shape and size. Lifetime collections, we can help with those too.

What is a lifetime collection?

Jack: You’ve collected coins all your life. You died and your kids inherited it.

So they’ve inherited a lifetime collection.

Jack: Bring it in. Soup to nuts. Top to bottom. We’ll buy the junk, we’ll buy the good stuff.

Do you ever refuse to buy a coin collection?

 

Jack: Yes.

 

Does that happen often?

Jack: Well, the only reason I’d refuse it is if people have totally unrealistic ideas about what the value is.

Okay. Do you end up buying the whole collection, or do you just make an offer for the one coin?

Jack: No, we don’t pick a collection. We will buy it all.

So what you mean by “pick a collection”, is where you’re picking through it, that’s what that means?

Jack: Yes, that means just picking out the stuff that you know you can make money on.

How would someone recognize something that’s good, and not junk, if they found a collection in the attic? What are the signs that it’s a good collection? That they’re already slabbed?

Jack: No.

Ed: If they’re housed in albums.

Jack: Yeah, if the album is complete. If the album is partial it’s probably missing all the good stuff. There’s a reason why it’s not got all the holes filled because the expensive ones are not there.

We are buyers of coin collections in Tampa with over 30 years at the same location.

This article features screenshots from our video “How can I sell my coin collection in Tampa?” Find it on the video page.