Coin Buyers Serving Grapevine, TX

Old money in an old Texas town

Grapevine was settled in 1844, a year before Texas joined the Union, and it takes its name from the wild mustang grapes that once covered the prairie. Those grapes come back every September in GrapeFest, and tasting rooms now line Main Street. The street itself is on the National Register of Historic Places, from the restored Palace Theatre, which opened in 1940, to the old Cotton Belt depot that was moved there and now sells tickets for the Grapevine Vintage Railroad and its 1920s coaches.

The town takes its history seriously. The Torian Cabin, dating to the mid-1840s, is the oldest standing structure in the county, and the Grapevine Historical Society saved it from demolition in 1976. Nash Farm, built in 1859, still runs as a working farmstead. That same instinct to keep things shows up in Grapevine families. We see coins that sat in the same drawer for three or four generations.

From the farm families, those coins tend to be practical money: Barber and Mercury dimes, Standing Liberty quarters, Walking Liberty halves and Morgan dollars that were spent and saved over decades. A few households kept $10 or $20 gold pieces from before 1933, when gold still circulated. These coins are often worn, and that is fine. Worn gold still holds its full gold weight, and a worn Morgan with a scarce mint mark can still be a better coin than a shiny common one.

Grapevine bills itself as the Christmas Capital of Texas, and the holiday habit runs through the collections we see. Grandparents gave a Silver Eagle in a stocking every year, or a proof set from the Mint under the tree. Twenty or thirty years later, the grandchildren bring in a box with a matching run of dates. We price those Silver Eagles from today's silver spot and look at each proof set to see whether it holds silver or clad coins.

Lake Grapevine, finished by the Army Corps of Engineers in 1952, and DFW Airport, opened in the 1970s, brought waves of newer families to town. Their collections lean toward bullion, Gold Eagles and graded coins bought from catalogs and television ads. We tell you plainly when a slab bought at a high premium is now worth closer to its metal.

Weekday appointments are set by request. If the family estate is big enough that loading it feels like a chore, call to set up a home appointment.