| How much can you get? |
| |
| Well, I've tried to tell you the truth so far, at least
as far as I know it. It's the old "what will the market bear?"
question. You've probably guessed that there's a reason why this was the
third question answered in my FAQ. Yup, it was deliberate. I know things
kind of spew out randomly here but this actually had a purpose. I'm going
to talk about medals here but most of what I have to say applies to coins
as well. |
| |
| You see, first you should know what your medal is.
And second, you should know what your medal may not
be. |
| |
| That being said, first I'll talk about what should
make a medal valuable. It should make a difference if the medal is rare.
It should make a difference if the medal is in good condition. It should
make a difference if a medal has intrinsic beauty, is in fact a miniature
work of art. Fortunately for my sanity all of these things usually do
make a difference. |
| |
| A beautiful medal, in excellent condition and of the
utmost rarity should bring the highest price of all. If you have inherited
such a treasure and wish to give it a new home someone should pay you dearly
for the privilege. Unfortunately it doesn't always happen. Here's an extreme
example. This piece is one of three struck
in copper. Even the British Museum doesn't own one of these! I do. And I
bought it for $25. Why? you ask... Well, now we get into the real discussion. |
| |
| Colonel Herries is virtually unknown to history. This
piece was undoubtably struck by his friends as a personal memorial and probably
accounts for the rarity of all examples whether copper or white metal. Unknown
to the market but eagerly found by myself I placed the minimum bid, waited
everyone out and snapped it up. What's it worth? Probably $25. Rare as can
be but maybe 2 or 3 collectors in the world who would be interested. |
| |
| Ah, but Napoleon is another matter isn't he? Everyone
knows (or thinks they know) who Napoleon was. Of course there's those who
confuse him with his insipid nephew Napoleon III but I'll leave them out.
OK, what's a medal with Napoleon on it worth? From $1 to $10,000 and possibly
more. Realistically, $85-175, depending on a lot of factors. So factor one
is: who is on the medal? |
| |
| Factor two: what is the subject on the reverse? Is it interesting or is
it just text? |
| Factor three: if French, is it original or a re-strike? Is it a later
production that simply commemorates the period? |
| Factor four: condition; is it virtually perfect or barely identifiable
or somewhere in between? |
| Factor five: metal; copper or bronze, silver, gold? brass, white metal,
tin, pewter, other? |
| |
| By the way, all five factors can be interchangeable
in importance depending on the collector. Heck, I'm not sure the order reflects
my actual collecting style... I try to collect only originals, taking
re-strikes under two conditions, near perfect strikes and impossibly cheap.
I consider them place-holders for the future. But the question isn't what
will I pay; it's what is your medal worth? |
| |
| I've found that the relative prices go something like this: |
|
- Nelson and original Waterloo Medals
- These can be the most expensive of all and copies & fakes
abound!
- Napoleon Medals
- Silver prices can be quite high and large gold pieces are often
associated with Napoleon himself
- Wellington Medals
- Pieces from the Peninsular period are worth more than his death
medals
- All other French Napoleonic medals
- The subject will often drive the value here
- British medals
- Less valuable than their French contemporaries and therefore
usually a good deal
- Austrian, Prussian and Russian Medals
- Relatively few collectors keep these low in price
- German States jetons
- These were produced probably by the ton and are usually cheap
|
| At the high end you might be looking at nearly $1,000
for some examples. Other examples will rapidly drop into the "Napoleon"
category where virtually perfect originals can command $145-200. Wellington
pieces often get as high as $150 or more while other French Napoleonic
pieces
hover in the same area. Now prices drop to where British, Austrian, Prussian
and Russian pieces range from $50-95 with particularly nice British pieces
in the upper end of the range. While dealers that specialize in Russian
material price their medals quite high I don't see many collectors compared
to the rest. I suspect it's the language that throws people as the medals
are usually exceptionally beautiful. German States jetons can start as
low as $1 and seldom
get above $25 except in cases of rarity. |
| |
| Silver and gold examples, if original, are usually
an order of magnitude more expensive. What does that mean? It means they cost
more of course! Gold pieces just aren't that common and therefore are usually
quite expensive. This is true of silver pieces as well with a major exception
springing to mind; Napoleon's coronation. Here, silver pieces were struck
in large numbers and obviously saved by the recipients considering how
common
they are. The really common silver are the 15mm
coronation pieces that were produced to be thrown to the crowd. I
have purchased these as low as $15 and have seen poor examples sold for
as much
as $50. They're probably worth $25-30. |
| |
| All of these prices presume originals in excellent condition.
Of course there's a sucker born every minute and most of them seem to bid
on Napoleonic re-strikes on eBay! Uneducated newbie collectors driving up
the price of medals that aren't worth a tenth of what they're paying for
them are the actual origin of these pages. At some point it just has to
stop. What's amazing is that many of them are bidding on medals clearly
marked as re-strikes! I hope they're not investing their kids' college money...
I always discount my rule-of-thumb numbers above by at least 50% for a re-strike
and continue to subtract for everything wrong with the medal. If what I'm
willing to pay is still more than they're asking I'll fire off a cheaper
than dirt bid and am happy when I'm outbid; which I usually am. |
| |
| Coins are actually easier than medals. You just need
to get a comparison that's meaningful. If you have a French coin take a
look at this site.
Just be aware that their prices seem a bit high compared to what people
actually get on say, eBay.
Now eBay is an excellent resource for seeing what the market will bear but
not always a proper weathervane as to what something is worth. Again,
virtually any coin is being sold on eBay at any given moment. If you don't
believe me go take a look. At least you'll know what someone else thinks
the coin is worth and if they show you a picture you can adjust your expectations
up or down depending on your coin's relative condition! |
| (Estimates based on June, 2003 prices.) |