1927 Peace Dollar: Please Grade and Educate Me

This was not bought on eBay, and the coin advertised in the pic is not even the one sent to me. I understand buying online carries risks, but in any other business this would be called fraud.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

Newbies! Gotta love them!

 

A lot of people here have given good feedback, even the guy who said to take this as an expensive lesson. No need to be sarcastic here, and reading books is somewhat irrelevant to this situation, although it doesn't hurt to read a book, any book.

 

I have only started buying online recently and learned the hard way about what can happen. Interestingly enough, my experiences with eBay so far have been good, largely because I snatch slabbed coins for cheap, and it's harder to sell a bunk coin in a slab.

 

It's not a big deal. The worst that will happen is that the dealer refuses to take the coin back, and I will take a small loss by reselling it on eBay with an honest description. I figure someone on eBay will pay a little extra even with the cleaning because of the date, or at least I'll get melt value. I will then gladly review the dealer and allow this to be a learning experience.

What I would advise to others is to look out for key dates or semi-key dates selling for bargains on certain websites. I trust Apmex though, because it is so big and does not need to cheat here and there to make ends meet.

 

The coin in the dealers image is a legitimate mint state coin, but the coin that you received is a polished AU. I would ask the dealer if there was a mistake in shipping the wrong coin.

 

No, because the holder was marked as MS60. What upsets me about this is not just the money and time spent, but the bad faith of some coin dealers. I know coin dealers have to deal with scummy people and cheats, as my local coin dealer tells me, so it's sad to see a coin dealer (in my view) acting in bad faith. It makes me feel low for this person, because it does not strike me as an honest mistake. The world is what it is. At least I learned from this mistake and will be very, very careful with prices that are too good to be true. I mean, this guy advertised a 1927 Peace dollar MS60 at $68.95. While this may not differ greatly from the supposed "book value," the reality is that virtually no one else sells the 1927 MS60 for that price. So it should be of no surprise that there might be some cheating. Let this be a learning experience!

 

Unless the holder was a slab by PCGS, NGC, ICG, or ANACS, any Joe can write MS60 on a 2x2, doesn't mean it is.

 

you can not be afraid of a few scraped knees if you are going to learn to ride a bicycle

 

That's not polished it was scrubed

 

With what looks like a brass brush. It's not even the same coin .I would be upset.

 

Is this "dealer" and I use that loosely, an ANA member? I'd be interested in knowing who it was. Pm or in the thread.

 

I think that the MS60 is about right. It does looked polished to me too.

 

Well, I knew there would be a major deduction, but I am leaning toward the view that when a coin gets scrubbed to that extent, it loses its mint status. Unless one looks under a light, the hairlines are not that noticeable though.

 

Regardless of what the holder says, your coin is a polished AU coin.

 

I agree. I never pay attention to what is written on the holder (well, sometimes, because they can at times be accurate). I drew attention to it as evidence that there was bad faith on the part of the dealer. This makes it less likely the coin sent to me was mixed up with another.

 

what grading company graded it.i bet they are not intop 4.if you buy a coin online you may want to buy from the best graders.then your issues will go away.just my opinion.

 

Well, it is a fact that even the third party graders are now calling AU coins MS, so there is a bit of subjectivity involved. I still believe the traditional way of judging a coin as MS should be adhered to. I mean, why not just call every coin an MS65 to make everyone happy? Then the hobby loses credibility. No one wins when everybody is a winner.

 

It was in a cardboard holder, not a TPG slab. But I agree that buying coins in slabs is an effective way to ensure that one receives the quality one expects. But even then, one must watch out for overgrading and the grade inflation I just wrote about.

 

I deferred to the grading company for the MS60. It looks cleaned to me from the photos but I would like to think that the grading company, with the coin in hand, could establish a cleaning status better than me. I'm far from professional grader of Peace dollars.