Sell your coins in the Sacramento region

Red buys US coins, whole collections, estates and bullion from collectors and families around greater Sacramento — one coin or one basement full.

It starts with an email. Send a few photographs and a rough idea of what you have, and you will get a straight answer about what it is, what it is worth, and whether it is something Red wants to buy.

What Red buys

US coins of every era — half cents and large cents, Seated and Barber type, Morgan and Peace dollars, and the 20th-century series, in any grade.
Graded coins in PCGS, NGC, ANACS or ICG holders, with or without a CAC sticker (CAC is an independent second opinion on a coin already graded).
Raw coins — ungraded, in albums, folders, flips, rolls or a coffee can.
US gold, $1 through $20, plus modern Eagles and Buffaloes.
Bullion — gold and silver rounds, bars and generic coins.
Pre-1965 US silver by the roll or the bag: dimes, quarters and halves. (“Junk silver” is the trade term for common-date circulated silver bought for its metal.)
Whole collections and estates — albums, the loose jar, the notes in the shoebox, all of it together.
Tokens, paper money and world coins, usually as part of a larger group rather than one at a time.

Usually not a fit

Copies and replicas — often stamped COPY on the reverse — and anything that turns out to be counterfeit.
Modern issues sold as collectibles: coloured or gold-plated state quarters, “tribute” pieces, most late-night commemoratives. They rarely resell above face or melt.
Bucket-lot circulated foreign coins with no silver in them.
Cleaned or badly damaged coins, unless the date is scarce enough to carry the damage.

None of that is a hard no. A photograph costs nothing, and Red would rather look than have you throw something away. Odd, ugly and unidentifiable are all welcome in the inbox.

How it works

You email photographs and a rough list — or just “my father left three albums and I have no idea”.
Red answers with a number, a range, or the questions needed to get to one. No obligation either way.
You meet or you ship. Meets are arranged by email, at a time and a public place that suits you both.
The coins are looked at, the number is agreed, and you are paid. Nothing is committed until you both say yes.

What to send in the email

Front and back of anything worth photographing — the whole coin in the frame, in focus, in daylight if you can. Avoid a flash fired straight at the coin; it hides exactly what needs to be seen.
For a graded coin, the label with the certification number readable. That number can be looked up before you get a reply.
For a collection, photograph the pages and boxes rather than every coin, plus a rough count of what is there.
For bullion, the weight and purity stamped on the piece, and how many of them there are.
Anything you know about where it came from — who put it together, and roughly when.

Please do not clean anything. A cleaned coin almost always sells for less than the same coin left alone, sometimes a great deal less. The fine scratches left by a cloth or a dip are permanent, and every grader can see them.

How the offer gets made

What moves the number is the date and mintmark, the grade and the eye appeal, whether it sits in a holder, and what that coin is actually trading at wholesale right now. Dealer price sheets move on their own schedule; gold and silver move by the minute, so anything bought for its metal follows the metal on the day it is agreed.

A number quoted from photographs is always subject to seeing the coins in hand. Photographs hide cleaning, rim damage and the difference between two neighbouring grades — which on some coins is most of the value.

Red will also tell you which pieces carry the value and which are bulk, including when something is worth more sent to auction than sold outright. You are free to take that and walk.

Where — the greater Sacramento area

Sacramento and the towns around it: Roseville, Rocklin, Folsom, El Dorado Hills, Elk Grove, Citrus Heights, Carmichael, Fair Oaks, Davis, Woodland, Auburn, Lincoln, Yuba City and the rest of the valley and the lower foothills.

Everything runs through one inbox — meets are arranged by email rather than by dropping in, and there is no phone queue to sit in. It keeps the photographs, the numbers and what was agreed together in one thread instead of scattered across half-remembered calls.

Further out, or out of state? Email anyway. For the right group of coins, shipping is worth arranging.

Send the photographs

Put roughly what you have in the subject line — “Morgan dollars, about 40” or “inherited collection, Elk Grove” — and attach what you were able to photograph.