If you have coins to sell in Nebraska, you have three real options: a local coin shop, an online marketplace like eBay, or consignment with an auction house. The right choice depends on what you have, how much time you have, and what you actually mean by "fair price." This guide walks through how consignment works, when it beats the alternatives, and what to expect at each step if you consign with USCNE.
The three options, side by side
A local coin shop pays you on the spot. The price reflects what the shop can resell the coin for, minus a margin that has to cover their inventory risk, store overhead, and the time it takes them to find a buyer. For common-date silver and bullion, this is fast and reasonable. For better-grade or scarcer material, the on-the-spot offer is almost always well below what the same coin would bring at auction with the right audience.
eBay and similar marketplaces give you direct access to that audience, but you're doing all the work: photos, descriptions, listing fees, shipping logistics, dispute handling, and the friction of explaining grading to non-specialists. You also pay platform fees that compound (listing, final-value, payment processing) and you carry the risk of chargebacks.
Consignment splits the difference. The auction house handles photography, cataloging, marketing to buyers who already specialize in coins, settlement, and tax reporting. You give up a percentage commission in exchange for someone else doing the work and reaching a higher-value audience. Done well, the higher hammer price more than covers the commission for anything above raw bullion.
What "consignment" actually means with USCNE
You retain ownership of the coin until it sells. We hold it in secure storage, photograph it under controlled lighting, write the catalog description, place it in an upcoming auction, manage the live bidding, charge the winning buyer's card, and wire your share to your bank account a few days after the close.
Our standard commission is 20 percent of the hammer price. That drops to 18 percent at $25,000 in cumulative sales (Silver tier) and 15 percent at $50,000 (Gold tier). Buyer premium is a separate 10 percent paid by the winning bidder, not by you, so the commission is the only deduction from your hammer.
You sign a consignment agreement up front that spells out the schedule, the reserve policy, and what happens if a coin doesn't sell. We don't take title, we don't pay you up front, and you can withdraw an item before the auction goes live with no penalty.
The intake choice: pickup or mail-in
We offer two intake paths.
Mail-in is the right call for most consignors outside the Omaha metro. You request a shipping label through your portal, pack the coins per the standard guidance (rigid container, no loose change rattling around, signature confirmation), and ship insured. We log receipt within one business day and you'll see each item appear in your portal as "received."
Pickup makes sense within roughly 200 miles of Omaha and for shipments where the cumulative value or volume makes shipping awkward. The standard fee is $0.50 per mile round-trip, waived for consignments estimated at $5,000 or more. Pickup is by appointment, scheduled through the consignor portal. We bring inventory sheets and you walk us through what's going.
Both paths converge on the same intake workflow: receipt confirmation, photographic cataloging, condition grading, and listing into the next available auction. From the consignor side, the visibility is the same; only the first step differs.
What happens between intake and the auction
After we log receipt, items move through a few status stages that you can track in the portal: received, photographed, listed, in auction, sold (or unsold). Each transition fires a status update so you're never wondering where your coin is.
Our default photography pass captures obverse, reverse, edge, and any relevant detail shots (mint mark, key date, varieties). For slabbed coins, we photograph through the slab and verify the cert number against the issuing service's database. For raw coins, we apply our own grade based on Sheldon-scale criteria; if you've already had a coin graded by NGC, PCGS, or ANACS, that grade is what we use in the catalog.
If you'd rather receive one daily summary email instead of one notification per item per status change, set your portal preference to "Daily digest" under the Payments tab. Active consignors with a dozen items in motion can otherwise see a dozen emails per day during intake week.
Sunday close, settlement on Tuesday
Auctions close Sunday at 8:00 PM Central. Soft close adds a 30-second extension every time a bid lands in the final 60 seconds, so the actual close time slides forward in any lot still being actively contested. This is what gives the underbidder a fair chance to respond, which usually pushes the final price up by 10 to 25 percent compared to a hard close. The same dynamic is why internet snipe-bidding tools don't beat us.
Settlement runs Monday morning. We charge the winning buyers' cards (captured at registration, no separate "did you pay" follow-up needed), reconcile any failed charges, and generate your settlement statement showing each lot, sale price, commission, and net payout. The statement is downloadable as PDF directly from your portal.
Payouts wire to your Stripe Connect account on Tuesday, typically arriving the same day or the next business morning depending on your bank. The portal shows the transfer ID so you can match it on your end.
Tax stuff: W-9 and 1099-NEC
For US tax law, we're required to issue a 1099-NEC if your cumulative annual proceeds reach $600. To stay compliant, every consignor needs a W-9 on file before payouts can be released, regardless of whether you'll cross the threshold this year. Upload yours through the Payments tab in your portal; PDF or photo of the signed form is fine. We hold it as proof of collection and issue the 1099 each January for the prior tax year.
Nebraska sales tax is collected from the buyer, not from you, so you don't need to handle it on your end. The settlement statement shows tax for record-keeping but it doesn't affect your net payout.
When consignment isn't the right call
Three cases where you should consider an alternative:
- Pure bullion at spot. Common silver eagles or generic gold rounds aren't going to draw competitive bidding above melt; the local coin shop's offer (within 1 to 3 percent of spot) is probably as good as you'll do, and you'll have cash today.
- Coins under $50. The intake, photography, and cataloging work has a fixed cost, and the auction commission on a $30 coin doesn't cover it. We'll group small items into mixed-lot offerings, but if everything you have is in this range, a coin shop or a single bulk-lot listing yourself is usually better.
- You need cash this week. Consignment compresses ~3 weeks of work into a clean process, but it's still ~3 weeks (intake, listing window, auction close, settlement). If you need money in 5 days, sell to a shop.
For everything else, especially graded material, key dates, US gold, world coins with collector audiences, or estate collections of mixed quality, consignment with the right audience usually wins by enough to make the math obvious.
If you're ready to start, the inquiry form takes about two minutes. We'll respond within one business day with a recommended path (mail-in or pickup) and a rough timeline for your specific situation.