https://www.littletoncoin.com/webap...y|10001|10001|-1||LearnNav|Famous-Hoards.html They list here a number of famous hoards they have bought. They certainly have the capital to buy large hoards. Are they paying the estate or the owners top dollar?
GOOD QUESTION! My feeling about Littleton is they charge too much for the stuff they sell, bordering on unethical behavior. Given that I feel they are on shaky ground ethics-wise, my feeling is that they probably do not pay top dollar.
I saw David Sundman and company buying at the Baltimore Show. Personally, I am not sure an educated seller would get top dollar selling to them; if it were my coins, I would get several offers at a show like Baltimore. Heritage will right down on stickies their buy offers so the seller can shop the coin around and come back to them if there are no stronger buys.
If you had a large hoard to sell, would you just contact one possible buyer? There are many that advertise their buying depth and availability. Littleton has to outbid these individuals to obtain such. I am sure they don't get all they bid on, but as they get some, it indicates that hoard buyers are about equal in what they will pay. With any hoard you get the good, bad , and ugly and have to bid appropriatrely.
But more unethical are the buyers who always say "...how much do you want for that coin? Our buyer has found that the coin has problems, we will offer you $xx; It's in an ANACS/ICG/PCI holder, therefore we can only offer you the next grade down; the market has dropped quite a bit on those coins, so we will offer less, but with cash; we will offer you a large lump sum for those coins in cash (around melt)"... And we have seen feeback on some of their selling practices: http://www.cointalk.com/t173890/
I agree that their business practices are on the shaky side all-around, but look at where their main market niche is. They sell mostly widgets or average-at-best coins in a Wal-Mart like non-specialized fashion, aimed at novice, basic, or general collectors at highly inflated prices. If you think about this, most of the competition they have for these "hoards" are more along the lines of TV hawkers than rare coin dealers. 220,000 Ike dollars or 1.7 million cents and nickels? How many dealers do you think would be willing to handle coins like this? "Top dollar" is a very relative and overused term.
Just their rep for high prices on what they sell, Little also has a rep for paying high prices on what they buy. Been that way for as long as I can remember.
Littleton tends to be rather picky about what they will buy but they also tend to pay well for it. Their prices are high but when you consider their overhead and the loss margin of people not returning or paying for items sent on approval then it really isn't as high as you might think. Is their service something I would use? no but if I were in a rural area with no coin store and was concerned about buying without seeing first I might consider it.I have never bought from them but I have gotten some of their product when buying collections and the coins are not problem coins and are graded either accurately or often conservatively. to label them as "unethical" because they price higher than you think is right without taking everything into consideration is not fair. You don't have to buy from them.
Littleton takes advantage of collectors who, apparently, are unsophisticated. To me, that puts them on shaky ethical ground. YMMV
I don't know about their buying practices but I sure bought a lot of silver eagles back when silver prices were down paying roughly melt value plus a little bit! Of course I had to return the approval coins and dis-enroll from future mailings because they were overpriced but I got a couple hundred "Uncirculated" silver eagles over 2 or 3 years using proxy buyers; it works for coin merchants so I took advantage of it as well; strangely, my conscience never bothered me! It was unbelievable how bad the quality was though. They must have bought weak strikes from wholesalers; it was an education in commercial numismatics as well.
I don't believe they really do anything shady. I wouldn't advise anyone except beginning collectors to buy from them because their prices aren't low and they do a lot of "value added" stuff that collectors should do themselves. Perhaps they should do more to explain what "approvals" are and this is a sore spot with me. But when it comes to buying they are among the best. They don't want everything and they are very picky but they pay very strong prices for what they buy. The TV shows approach unethical sometimes (mostly with their claims) but Littleton mostly stays well away from the line. I think they do the hobby a great deal of good. Most of the harm they do is burying the unwary and ill informed in coins they don't want and at priced significantly higher than they can be obtained elsewhere. Many of their customers go on to become advanced collectors and most get fair value for their money. Does it really matter if someone pays $29.95 for a complete set of circulating SBA's for example? The set wholesales around $15 and nobody's going to go bust paying the little extra for the convenience of getting the whole set at once and a cheap folder to hold them. The coins will be nice and if you get them yourself a couple wouldn't be nice unless you cherry picked a little. They do a good job so the coins aren't going to be finger-printed or damaged in handling. They are really providing a service so collectors should simply go elsewhere and find coins unless they are desirous of their services.
Fyi there was a earlier discussion on Big Sky hoard and there is some good info. http://www.cointalk.com/t198158/
Go get 'em, Coingeezer! Probably a Littleton employee fighting back and paid to do so. They have a lot of mouths to feed up in northern New Hampshire.
Sounds rather "shady" to me. Still sounds shady. Good point. No one is going to go broke doing this ONE time, but that is not Littleton's MO, is it? What about the people who have been buying month after month, year after year? Can you honestly say (with a straight face) that these people "get fair value for their money"? Littleton is little different from the TV coin hawkers as both take advantage of the uninformed and do it in a very deceptive manner. Yes, some of their customers go on to become advanced collectors, but many a budding collector has been turned off to this hobby due to the business practices of firms like Littleton You're right. Collectors should go elsewhere. Unfortunately, not all realize this until after burying themselves in severely overpriced or borderline ripoff priced coins. Others never realize it. Still sounds shady. Sorry, but I respectfully disagree.
