Here's the deal. A long lost Aunt passes away and the executor of her will says they are mailing you a package of aunties items that she willed to you.She heard through the family grapevine you like coins and such. You've met this Aunt maybe 5 times in your life and wouldn't recognize her at the store if she was standing in front of you.

The package arrives and it is a small container of different WW2 medals from her predeceased husband, some silver chains and a few coins. Just so happens one of the coins is an 1857-S $3 Gold piece in AU and retails around $10,000. Surely, you have to do something.
What do you do? Keep them or sell? What's your reasoning?

If she wanted me to have it, I would keep it, sell it? No freakin' way.

Indeed, it is a cool coin, but it isn't really that sentimental. Because you said you hd only met her a handful of times. I would probably get it slabbed, then sell it. I would then buy some coins that I need or want, and put the rest in a CD or in some stocks or something. That's just my opinion...

Well that statement says there is no sentiment involved - at least on your part. If she just left you $10.000 cash - would ya put the bills in the safe deposit box and never spend them because of sentimental value ?? Not likely.

I see no difference because it is a coin. Do what ya want - and don't worry about it.

If you collect American coins.....keep this one, they are VERY hard to find and you will prob not have a chance at another one $3 gold is really hot right now

I didn't vote. I couldn't, you missed my option...

Who cares about sentimental value, I want the 1857-S $3:)

Nuts to sentiment, sell the sucker!

Depends;

Now personally i think you don't have too much sentimental feeling about this one so i'll leave that out of the equation. However two things i'd consider;

Ever fancied starting a new gold type collection?

Or would you prefer to get some of those early coppers? you were having problems with?

Or buy some medieval hammered gold!

I personally would either make a new collection around it or i'd sell it and reuse the funds to buy other coins i needed for my set. I don't get very sentimental about expensive coins though. Inexpensive coins yes...

Mainly due to the fact that I didn't really know her, and that it's a high-end item, I'd probably sell it and put it towards something I'd use or remember (ie. school tuition, car, house payment...). The rest, of course, I'd keep.

$10k sounds like hell of a vacation

Unless you need the $$, keep the coin. Its already a good investment. If its undamaged and uncleaned, it will only go up in value. On, and have it slabbed by NGC, nobody does US gold better.

Plus the starting cost of buying the coin is...........$0!

I would keep it and let the value increase. Sure it may be $10k today, but what about ten years down the road?

Well, I got some coins from my great uncle when I was a kid, and they were just common coins kept in a coffee can, but I remember selling the silver dollar when silver was at $50 an ounce and keeping the rest, and I've felt bad about that ever since. To this day I have every other one of those coins marked and I will not sell them, and it was a similar situation in that I only met him once or twice, but since he was my grandmother's brother he was one of the few connections I had to that generation (the one born at the turn of the 20th century). So I keep the rest of them in honor of him, even the completely worn large cents and 2-cent pieces. You can do what you want, you could use the cash, or you could use this to connect with a part of your family that you had little connection with before. Aren't you the least bit curious what she was doing with a key date $3 gold piece?

Enough of my emotional plea, there is also a more pragmatic concern for you to think of, and that is taxes. Apparently the executor just thought these were minor coins worth little, so there was little in the way of tax consideration. Now sell that coin for the $10K, and you might be looking at a sizable inheritance tax. I don't know what the exact rules are, but you might want to look into that before rolling it over into something that will help you remember her like your house payment (I don't think I've laughed so hard in my life, I just hope when I pass on someone honors me with a memorial mortgage payment, or maybe even a payday loan! ).

Sell it? Why? It aint eating anything, doesn't cost me anything to keep it. I'd just toss it over in the box in the corner with the rest of the coins that don't fit in with the rest of my collecting goals and the miscellaneous duplicates I have acquired over the years. Some day someone else can have the same hypothetical dilemma.

Since I have less than zero interest in ANY gold coin I would probably trade it off to a gold collector for other coins in which I was interested--and he would probably get one H--L of a deal.

Jim

I'd sell it and use the money to buy something else AND other coins that will fit better in my collection. 10K is a lot of dough.

I would take pictures of it... show everyone I can.. then sell it for the most I can get. Pay off the credit cards and make a nicee payment on my car. I got bills, but not that many.

-Bobby

I would love to keep it but knockin' 10G off my debts would be soooooooo tempting.

I'd keep it, because it would be another hole filled in my type set

but, apart from that, I'd keep it anyway, as it's something I inherited from a relative. Might not mean much to me right now, sentimentally, but that might grow.

If I already would have that coin in my type set (very unlikely!!), this one (AU) would probably a very good upgrade, so I'd sell the other one.

I voted for part sentimental and part cool coin.

OK, so you did not know this person very well, yet they thought enough of you to bequeath this to you. (If I never see my nephew again, he may never remember me, but I will have known him. Catch my point?)

And whatever bills you had prior to this, you have had plans to pay them somehow. And whatever your collection goals, they would be followed anyway. This is something that would not be purchased on its own. So you "lose" nothing by keeping it, and the potential realized value is always there. And hey, you never know when this person might come up again in your lifetime. Not only that, you never know which way your collection goals will lead you.

I would keep it.

Did I like the Aunt?

I chose keep it because of the sentimental value. I don't have a lot of interest in the coin itself but I would probably end up keeping it.

Slab it and keep it. George is right about NGC and US gold coins. Their grade on the slab adds greatly to the appeal of it to collectors should you ever need to sell it. Now, the silver chains could be sold to me if they're old and of uncommon patterns.

I would also keep it unless you have bills or other important things to spend the money on. And I'm not talking about vacations. What ever you do with the coin or the money enjoy it....

I have done the same thing witht he coin I got from my Grandfather even though most fo them have ben upgraded and are no longer in my sets. Same with the various coins I have from my Dad.

Just call me the problem solver....
Send me the coin and you can visit whenever you like....
no hassle no worrying.
Hope this helps :-D

Same, Grandpa and Dad.

Keep the medals for sentimental reasons and sell the gold coin to furthur an area of collecting that you are interested in.

As nearly every investment guide says : "Past performance is no guarantee of future performance." [or similar wording to the same effect]

Considering the 'cost' to yourself, the present state of the numisma market and your own needs and goals, you probably can't go wrong in keeping it for a while.

Of course, if there is a strong, non-numismatic need for the cash, sell it.
CAVEAT: Any quick sale will be at a fairly deep discount, so if you don't really need the $$$ now, submit it to tone of the major auction houses for a sale at a major show [ANA, FUN, Long beach, etc.]. Get it authenticated/graded ASAP.

I don't like slabbing; however, the process does protect the item and lends a certain pedigree to the coin.

Just my US$0.02 worth...

I agree with the 'slab it and keep it' idea -- it's a really nice coin and really not mega-valuable -- if it were a half-million item then the equation might just change!
TOM