How to Find a Reputable Coin Dealer: 12 Checks

A crooked coin buyer and an honest one look the same from the sidewalk, and no single license makes a coin dealer reputable. Members of the Professional Numismatists Guild must even tell retail customers that the coin market is speculative and unregulated. So the checking falls to you. The first nine checks can be done from home. The last three happen at the counter.

The 12 checks at a glance

1. Is the dealer a PNG member?

The Professional Numismatists Guild is a dealer association that vets its full members before they join. A full (Gold) member must:

• be at least 21, with at least three years of experience as a professional numismatist
• be sponsored by four full PNG members
• agree to a background check and submit a current credit report
• agree to binding arbitration of disputes over coin deals

Members sign a 17-point code of ethics. With non-professional customers, they pledge not to buy or sell “at unreasonable prices” or use high-pressure sales techniques. They also pledge to grade accurately, to disclose any altered or “doctored” coin, and to arbitrate any dispute over a purchase, sale or trade. Violators can be censured, suspended or expelled.

One caution. PNG also has a Silver membership for people who aren’t professional numismatists but are “affiliated with the numismatic community,” with no experience or sponsor requirement listed. A PNG logo alone doesn’t tell you which tier you’re looking at. Look the dealer up in the “Find a PNG Dealer” directory at pngdealers.org and make sure the listing matches the shop you’re visiting.

2. Is the dealer an ANA member?

The American Numismatic Association is a collectors’ organization that dealers can join. Its dealer members sign a dealer code of ethics. They pledge to buy and sell at prices “commensurate with a reasonable return,” to give advice to the best of their ability, and not to knowingly sell counterfeits, unmarked copies or altered coins unless they’re clearly labeled. They must publish a return policy that gives buyers a set number of days to send coins back for a refund. Bullion is excepted. A dealer who sells a counterfeit or a coin with an altered date or mint mark, or who misrepresents a grade, can be disciplined for refusing to refund or replace it, even if the mistake was honest. “Any violation of this code will be grounds for expulsion.”

The ANA’s dealer page lists member benefits, not entry requirements like PNG’s. What membership gives you is a complaint route. The ANA runs a mediation service for disputes over coin deals. The fee is $150 to $500, depending on the amount in dispute and whether you were an ANA member at the time, and you have two years to file. You can search dealer members by name, location and specialty in the ANA’s coin dealer directory.

3. What does “PCGS or NGC authorized dealer” mean?

PCGS and NGC grade and certify coins. An authorized dealer with either one can send coins to that service for grading, including coins you bring in. That’s mostly what the label tells you.

PCGS screens dealers before it authorizes them. Its published requirements:

• at least three years as a full-time coin dealer
• no felony convictions in the past five years, for the applicant or key employees
• at least $100,000 in capital, inventory included
• three credit references and three references from other PCGS authorized dealers

PCGS also publishes a Customer Bill of Rights. Hand an authorized dealer coins to grade and you’re entitled to a receipt listing them, delivery to PCGS within 10 days, a copy of the PCGS submission invoice within 15 days, and your graded coins back within 5 days of the dealer getting them from PCGS. If an authorized dealer offers an unreasonably low price for a PCGS-graded coin, or knocks PCGS’s grading to justify a low bid, PCGS asks you to report it at 1-800-447-8848.

NGC’s dealer locator says the dealers on it are “independent from, and unaffiliated with, NGC,” that NGC isn’t responsible for their services, and that collectors should “carefully evaluate” them. It lists no entry requirements.

So a PCGS listing means the shop met PCGS’s entry requirements, and an NGC listing means you can submit coins to NGC through it. Neither one sets what the shop pays you for a roll of silver quarters.

4. How do you read a coin dealer’s BBB rating?

BBB letter grades run from A+ to F and are BBB’s opinion of how a business is likely to treat customers. The inputs include complaint history (weighed against the size of the business and how it responded), time in business, transparency about ownership and address, licensing, and whether the business honors BBB mediation settlements and arbitration awards. Customer reviews on the BBB site don’t count toward the letter.

• Accreditation is a paid program. Accredited businesses pay a fee and must keep at least a B. Accreditation isn’t among the seven rating factors BBB lists, so a shop can have a strong grade without it.
• NR isn’t a bad grade. BBB says NR “is not a grade, and it is not negative.” Small shops often have thin files or none.
• The complaints tell you more than the letter. Read the shop’s answers, and watch for complaints that repeat: an offer that dropped once the coins were in the back room, payment that never arrived, coins held without a receipt.

5. Does the dealer need a license, and does it have one?

Licensing for coin buyers is set by states and sometimes cities, and it varies a lot. Two examples from states we cover:

• Florida. Chapter 538 requires secondhand dealers, including precious metals dealers, to register with the Department of Revenue, record each seller’s photo ID and right thumbprint, and hold precious metals for 30 days before reselling. Its definition of “secondhand goods” leaves out coins and assayed bullion that’s properly marked for weight and fineness. A shop that buys only coins may fall outside the law. One that also buys gold jewelry falls inside it.
• New York City. A business that buys or sells used goods in the city, other than cars, generally needs a Secondhand Dealer General license from the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection. Businesses that deal only online are exempt. The department publishes its issued licenses on NYC Open Data, so you can look a shop up yourself.

IDs, thumbprints and holding periods are there to help trace stolen goods. A license tells you the shop keeps records, not that its offers are fair. Where one is required, though, a shop without it is a hard no. Ask what license the shop holds and who issued it, then check with that agency.

6. What should you look for in coin shop reviews?

The star average tells you little. Read the reviews from the past 12 months and look for:

• Offers on coins like yours. “Gave me a fair price for my father’s silver dollars” tells you more than “great service.”
• First-time sellers and heirs. How the shop treated people with an inherited collection is how it will likely treat you.
• Complaints that repeat. One angry review is noise. Three saying the number changed after the dealer took the coins out of sight is a pattern.
• Dates. The FTC tells consumers to “watch for a burst of reviews over a short period of time.” A strong record from years ago says less if the shop has since changed owners.

An FTC rule announced in August 2024 bans fake reviews, rewards for reviews of a particular sentiment, and threats used to get negative reviews taken down. That doesn’t make every review real. The FTC warns, “Don’t assume that, just by looking, you can spot the difference between a real review and a fake one,” and suggests looking at a variety of sources.

7. How does the shop answer complaints?

Owner replies on Google and answers in the BBB file show how a shop treats an unhappy customer. Good replies are calm and specific and give the customer a way to follow up. Bad ones argue with the reviewer or post the customer’s details. Silence isn’t damning; some good dealers never reply online. A shop that attacks reviewers is showing you how a dispute with you would go.

8. Will they tell you their buy prices?

Common silver and bullion are priced off spot, so a reputable shop can give you a number over the phone. Ask what it pays per dollar of face value for 90% silver dimes, quarters and halves, or what percentage of spot it pays for Silver Eagles. Some shops post buy prices on their websites.

Know the metal value before you call. At today’s silver price, a 90% silver quarter holds … of silver and a Morgan or Peace dollar holds …. The offer checker compares any offer to melt, and what coin dealers pay covers normal spreads.

Collector coins can’t be priced sight unseen, so don’t expect a phone quote for a 1916-D Mercury dime. A good dealer can still explain how they’ll price it: which price guide they use and how grade moves the number. “We pay top dollar” in an ad isn’t a red flag by itself. Refusing to give any number when asked is.

9. Is there a real storefront with a track record?

A shop with a counter and years at one address has more to lose than a buyer who rents a hotel room for a weekend. Check that the address is a shop and not a mailbox store, that the posted hours match the ones online, and how long the business has been around. Time in business also feeds the BBB grade.

Some legitimate specialists work by appointment from an office. For them, the PNG and PCGS directories carry more weight than a storefront would.

Be wary of any buyer who finds you first. The CFTC’s precious metals fraud advisory lists sales calls from a company’s salesman and a license that’s hard to verify among its warning signs. It’s aimed at people buying metal, but a stranger who calls or writes offering to buy “your collection” deserves the same suspicion.

10. How do they handle appraisals?

A dealer who tells you what your coins are worth and then offers to buy them has a conflict of interest, even an honest one. That’s fine when you only want an offer. It matters when the value has to stand up for someone else: an estate, heirs splitting a collection, an insurer.

Ask which one you’re getting:

• A free look-over. Useful for deciding what to sell. Treat it as the first half of an offer.
• A written appraisal. Ask the fee, whether coins are listed individually with grades, and what the values mean (retail replacement, what a dealer would pay, or fair market value). Then ask whether the appraiser will also bid on the coins. If so, get a second opinion before selling to them.

Both the PNG and ANA codes pledge members to give advice “to the best of my ability,” so ask directly and expect a straight answer. Our coin appraisal page lists shops whose own websites say they do free, paid, written or in-home appraisals.

11. Do they itemize offers and put them in writing?

Ask for the offer broken down by coin or by pile, written down with the date and the spot price used. A single number for the whole box hides which coins the dealer is paying up for and which ones they’re getting cheap. Our guide to selling a coin collection has the exact questions to ask.

Keep the coins in view. If a dealer needs to take them to the back, get a receipt listing every coin first. Ask before you sell whether they pay by cash, check or wire. For a large sale, a check or wire leaves a record, and a reputable shop won’t mind. The final receipt should list what you sold, not “misc. coins.”

12. Red flags: when to pack up and leave

Walk out on a buyer who:

• says the price is only good right now, or that silver is about to drop (PNG members pledge not to use high-pressure sales techniques)
• advertises “top dollar” but won’t give you a number for common silver
• won’t itemize the offer or write it down
• rubs or polishes a coin to “check” it, or tells you to clean your coins first (NGC says unskilled, improper cleaning is among the most common reasons a coin gets a Details grade instead of a numeric one, and harsh cleaning can’t be fixed by conservation)
• insists on cash, hurries you through a large sale, or won’t give a receipt
• weighs coins on a scale with scrap jewelry and pays one rate for everything
• contacted you first, by phone, letter or at the door
• offers to sell you unmarked replicas (the federal Hobby Protection Act bars selling imitation coins that aren’t marked under FTC rules)

How CoinShop Finder shows these signals

Our shop listings are built around these checks. Where we’ve been able to verify it, a listing shows:

• Credentials and licenses. NGC authorization checked against NGC’s dealer locator, and CAC Grading dealer status checked against CAC’s own dealer list, each with a link so you can verify it. Licenses linked to the public registry, such as New York City’s secondhand dealer licenses and Texas precious metal dealer registrations. Memberships a dealer claims only on its own site, such as ANA or PNG, are labeled “per their website.”
• What recent customers report. We read up to the 60 newest Google reviews and count what they mention instead of quoting them: how many describe a fair offer and how many a lowball one (shown as a percentage only when there are at least three such mentions), how often the owner replies, how many reviews came in over the past year, and what people brought in.
• What the shop says it does. From its own website: what it buys, whether it does free or written appraisals, whether it posts buy prices, and how it pays sellers.
• What we leave out. Shops Google lists as closed are dropped. Listings with only a P.O. box, no walk-in storefront or an out-of-area phone number don’t get a linked profile page.

Not every listing has every piece yet, and each one says where its facts came from. The methodology page explains how we collect them.

How to find a reputable coin dealer near you

1. Make a shortlist of three. Start with our pages for Texas, Florida, New York, Ohio or Pennsylvania, or coin shops near me, and cross-check names in the PNG, PCGS and NGC directories.
2. Run checks 1 through 9 from home.
3. Call all three. Ask what they pay per dollar of face value for 90% silver, whether they buy whole collections, and when the person who prices them is in.
4. Visit the two that gave straight answers. Bring the coins sorted, get itemized offers in writing, and compare them the same day.
5. Check each offer against melt with the offer checker before you sign anything.

To compare several dealers in one afternoon, go to a coin show, and run the same checks on the dealer list before you go.