Are these good buys?
 

One pound of old US estate coins with a guaranteed BU gold coin
50 Roman coins with 3guaranteed gold coins

1000g/2+pounds of foreign coins with 1 guaranteed large silver and 1 50-70 yr old gold

1 pounds of coins with 5 guaranteed foreign silver coins, 1 silver eagle, and 1 guaranteed gold coin

They are all from the same seller. What do you think?

Re: Are these good buys?
 

I would personally avoid them. Don't like not knowing what I'm actually getting when I buy something. Plus those "guaranteed to be some silver and gold in here!" things make me leery and suspicious. And are they talking in troy pounds or avoirdupois? Etc...

Re: Are these good buys?
 

The seller likes avoirdupois. Also, his feedbacks and descriptions indicate that he manually puts the gold coin in the lot.

Looking at the prices, the coins are probably 1/20oz-1/10 oz coins.

Re: Are these good buys?
 

The probability of getting a "good" deal, i.e., paying less that the sum value of the coins is pretty remote. There will be an amusement factor though.

Re: Are these good buys?
 

I think a good rule of thumb is to avoid any lot of coins that are being offered by pound - period.

It's too gamey. If nothing else look at it this way: the seller ALWAYS knows what the lot contains and is selling to make money, and the buyer NEVER knows precisely what the lot contains.

Re: Are these good buys?
 

The Troy ounce is the only ounce used in the pricing of Precious Metals...the fact that he is using avoirdupois is all you need to know to know he is looking to screw you.

A pound is 16 ounces avoirdupois and 12 ounces troy, so if he says he'll sell PM's to you at spot, you are getting a major screwing.

Re: Are these good buys?
 

If I was buying pm's by the pound I would prefer avoirdupois pounds.

One troy pound equals 12 troy ounces.

One avoirdupois pound equals 14.583 troy ounces.

Re: Are these good buys?
 

I am not a numismatist, so to say, in all but a casual sense, but I do watch language patterns.
Read these ads like a lawyer, look for what they don't say. One pound is a fair number of coins. If you are only certain of one "BU gold bullion coin," and 5 of this and one of that. And then the silver is of unknown percentage. so that the seller feels compelled to toss in an SAE, in at least one of these ads.
One of these ads features an unspecified number of US cents. If you add up the promised minimums and consider that weight, you will have lots of room for pennies. Meaning you should expect a many of them.
Many foreign coins have very low weight. The Mexican 2-1/2 Peso is a tiny .0603 troy ounces gold. (As per APMEX catalog. As of this writing you could get one for under $60 bucks.)
The seller mentions the other coins and type, but omits the percentage of other coins, and the likely value of those coins.
The seller claims little knowledge of many of these coins, but you see they know how to tell many of the selected gold and silver apart from the lot. (They list dates and types.) This means the seller has at least looked over each lot, carefully to ensure they have at least one bullion BU (etc.)
I would be surprised if anyone at all got a super deal.
People were melting pennies and nickels for their base metal, but The Mint has now banned melting. There are probably several people out there trying to sell off drums of those. You just might be buying a sack of base metal coins that has been seeded with high quality PM, but likely in low quantity.
There is a chance that they are "diamonds" in the rough, but a low one.
Or, you might want to make a collection to start a kid on numismatics, or fill socks with pennies to make blackjacks, and you may want these anyway. So, keep your bidding low.

Re: Are these good buys?
 

I wouldn't touch any of these auctions. The coins have been picked through and any coins of numismatic value are gone. What you have left is junk.

Re: Are these good buys?
 

Just to make sure that I understand, you rate those coins at significantly below the lottery as an investment vehicle of choice?

Re: Are these good buys?
 

I would safely say that you understand Rossl.


I put a certain "fun" value to these sort of auctions. Of course, $100+ is rather expensive to come out disappointed.