Returning problem coins

I spoke with a dealer who had sold me a Bust half dime a while back; I saved the dealer's flip that indicated the coin was choice AU. He charged me GS bid. ANACS graded it "whizzed" AU details. I subsequently showed it to a couple of sharp dealers who agreed with the assessment. When I approached the dealer yesterday he still thought it was a nice coin but offered to refund less than half of my purchase price. I don't see this fellow very often because he does not do many shows. What is proper protocol in dealing with show dealers who represent coins as a particular grade but then when the grading service makes a proper judgment, reject the value of such third party grading assessments?

 

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I think there isn't much you can do at this point.
The coin has been authenticated so you know it's not a fake.
With the seller probably the best you could do was trade it back to him. I have done that with some success. You may get more than half the value that way.
But you may do better with another dealer.

 

My dealer buys back anything i wasn't satisfied with, sometimes he pays me more than I payed, but I am a yn

 

This sounds like you need to buy graded coins only. And graded by the big three graders, PCGS, NGC or ANACS. The dealer sold you a AU coin and ANACS said it is a AU coin. The problem is you did not see that the coin was whizzed. I hate to say this but I feel you are both at fault. The dealer for selling you a whizzed coin and you for not knowing what a whizzed coin looks like. You did learn one good thing, don't trust this dealer again. I am sorry you had to learn this leason the hard way but remember we all have been there ourselfs, the key is to learn from your mistake and when buying coins try to get help from someone other than the person selling the coin. Jim

 

What did you pay?

 

Did you buy the coin in hand, or purchase it through the mail/eBay without seeing it first? If you held the coin and had the opportunity to examine it in hand, then paid for it, and now ANACS says it not what you thought it was, you probably should have examined it more closely before you paid for it, or returned it within the specified time. Grading is a judgement call, even with standard criteria, and a grade on a flip doesn't necessarily mean the coin will grade that through a 3rd party service. I'm thinking the dealer has no obligation to accept the return after you waited "a while..." and it did not get the grade you hoped. You would be pretty much stuck with the coin.

(i'm assuming "in hand", because you mention his appearance at coin shows)

 

I would chalk it up to a lesson learned and move on.

 

Good points but the graded coins are usually sold above GS ask; so raw coins are a crapshoot but give you the only shot at making money or at least not losing, but also have the highest risk. As Don Willis said on another site; most coin dealers do not know how to properly grade.

In terms of the rules and laws governing this, I am afraid we do not complain as often and loudly enough.

http://forums.collectors.com/messageview.cfm?catid=26&threadid=295472&STARTPAGE=2


“When (if) you represent that a particular coin is a particular numerical grade, you have made an express warranty that the coin is, in fact, the grade you represented it to be, and if it isn’t, you can be held liable for damages.”

 

Bottom line: Offering you 1/2 what you paid is a rip.

Don't go near him again.

 

Grading is something that can be learned, others do it and get paid for it, use your experience as a grading lesson, unless there is some reason that you cant learn how to grade for your self using the opinion of others can be costly and even the guys that get paid to do it make mistakes. It happens many times and I can prove it many times by showing some photos of bad grading. Bill Collector

 

There may be some validity in certain real world situations to the quote above, but when you purchase a raw coin that cannot be traced or documented as having been unchanged then that quote does not apply at all. A raw coin in a flip can easily be switched or altered and the dealer can state that it either was not the coin he sold to you or that you changed the appearance of the coin. In either case, it would be up to you to prove that not only is the coin the same, but that the level of preservation never changed. This is generally impossible to do. Additionally, the dealer did not give you a numeric grade, but rather gave you a descriptive grade. That is, your post indicates the coin was sold as "Ch AU" rather than AU58 and therefore the dealer did not give "a particular numerical grade". Lastly, ANACS agreed with the descriptive grade of AU, but also pointed out surface issues.

If the dealer knew that it was the same coin and that you had not altered it, then you know that you have found a dealer that you cannot trust. If the dealer believes you are lying to him and that it is a different coin or that you altered the coin then you know you have found a dealer who does not trust you. In either case, this is the type of dealer I would advise to avoid unless you know you are getting a wonderful deal on a future transaction.

 

The case you cite doesn't really apply in this instance. Near as I can tell from reading some of the posts (the link to the article did not work for me) that was against a basement slabber who certified his coins as higher than they were. In your case, what you got what the dealer's opinion (not a certification) of what that coin would grade, and as you state, he graded it AU and it came back from ANACS as AU. The whizzing is pretty much irrelevant, since you didn't notice it either. And it would be difficult to prove you specifically asked if the coin was cleaned or whizzed, and he answered "No". So, based on what you've written here, and the support for your argument you just posted, I'm sticking by my original assessment.

And before we throw out the "...He's a dealer, he should have known..." argument, look at what the first line of the quote above says (but the graded coins are usually sold above GS ask; so raw coins are a crapshoot but give you the only shot at making money or at least not losing, but also have the highest risk.) It seems that you bought this coin with the intention of flipping for a profit, so what makes this any different than any other dealer. I agree with crapshoot analogy, but throw craps in Vegas and see if they give you back your bet. You win some, you lose some. If my thinking is correct, you rolled the dice thinking you could make some money, and didn't. This really isn't the dealer's fault. As a coin buyer, it falls upon you to know what you're looking at. Especially if you intend to profit from the deal.

 

In the case of the dealer in question, he agreed it was the same, thought it was a nice coin as AU, and disagreed vociferously or rather tried to laugh it off. I subsequently showed the coin in and out of the holder to others who thought it was whizzed. So yes, I made a mistake but an 1829 H10c in an AU details holder is not worth anything near what it is worth as an AU.

The CU thread deals with companies such as Numisgroup which sent out raw material and attached grades to the raw coins. They were held liable, both Paul Montgomery and Mr. Swiatek, if memory serves, testified that the objectivity of coin grading may be open to minor debate, but cleaned and other problem material prevent any significant marketability of the problem material. It's one thing if someone offers coins "as is" as with cars or other sold merchandise acknowledging the problem, it is quite another for supposed experts to be hailing their material as nice and high end when an objective judgement proves otherwise. What other business is there where such discrepancies pass so regularly?

 

If the dealer acknowledges that it is the same coin and has not been altered then I'm not certain what you can reasonably do to make up the $100 difference in price. Of course, you can still refuse to do further business with the dealer.

 

Sorry, I have to side with the seller. It's not fair that you buy a raw coin, submit it to a TPG and then come back wanting a refund because it didn't slab (or get the expected grade).

 

It is a little late to say but when you first bought it even if you missed the fact it was whizzed you could have posted it here and asked others of their opinion. I have posted coins here and after people mentioned that one was a problem coin and that the other was overpriced, I returned them and exchanged them for junk silver. Can't go wrong with that since silver was low at the time. Didn't you know that the majority of older coins have been cleaned at least once?

 

I told the dealer before I bought it that I get all my coins graded. That was the understanding; a lot of people miss problems on coins.

 

You assume that this coin dealer is, in your words an expert, but who said he was a expert. I have met lots of dealers who know less about coins than most collectors. He sold you a AU coin, ANACS said its a AU coin also. Did he state the coin was totally original and never been cleaned or whizzed? Maybe he did not know the difference also. You learned a hard lesson about buying raw coins. People buy raw coins because they think they get a deal and buy the coin for less than the graded coins. When the fact is most people should buy graded coins so this never happens to them like it did to you.

 

Bottom Line, you just got to learn to grade for yourself, and if it's not what you think it is, don't buy it.
Bill Collector