Minnesota Law Restricts Gold and Silver Sales

Sorry Minnesota Customers — Law Effectives Today Deprives Citizens Of Their Choice Of Coin Dealers
Liberty Coin Service’s Monthly Review of Precious Metals and Numismatics
Volume 20 Issue 7 July 1, 2014
http://libertycoinservice.com/images/stories/lcsnewsletter/current/currentnews.pdf
[Will be archived after 31 July 2014 as http://libertycoinservice.com/images/stories/lcsnewsletter/2014/june.pdf]

Last year, the Minnesota legislature and the governor worked together to enact a law imposing horrendous regulatory burdens on coin dealers buying and selling “bullion coins” with Minnesota consumers, even if such transactions were conducted face-to-face outside of the state. The pretext for passing this law was an allegedly unacceptable level of deceptive and fraudulent practices by Minnesota coin dealers inflicted on consumers in the state.

As of yesterday, only about 30 Minnesota coin dealers had registered with that state’s Department of Commerce and only one dealer outside of the state had registered.

A survey taken in the past 24 hours by the Industry Council for Tangible Assets, the national coin and precious metals dealers trade association, revealed that about 85% of non-Minnesota dealers were going to cease doing any business with consumers in Minnesota.

Other information revealed that a significant percentage of existing Minnesota coin dealers were going to close their businesses. Many others were changing their operations to no longer handle any coins that have a gold, silver, platinum, or palladium content of 1% or more.

The two Minnesota coin shows scheduled to take place in July have seen table rentals fall sharply. Almost no out-of-state dealers are willing to enter Minnesota to take a booth at a coin show.

Unfortunately, in the name of trying to protect consumers, the politicians in Minnesota have actually deprived the state’s citizens of the opportunity to work with a large number of reputable coin dealers.

For now, Liberty Coin Service, like most non-Minnesota coin dealers, will no longer buy or sell to Minnesota customers, even if they physically come to our store in Michigan.

Registration and compliance would cost thousands of dollars per year and generate oodles of detailed paperwork for each transaction.

We pray that the damage inflicted on Minnesota citizens from the unintended consequences of this law will encourage a quick repeal or a major reduction in the paperwork and financial burden imposed on coin dealers. We hope that it may be possible to resume serving our much appreciated customers in Minnesota before too long.

http://libertycoinservice.com/images/stories/lcsnewsletter/current/currentnews.pdf
[Will be archived after 31 July 2014 as http://libertycoinservice.com/images/stories/lcsnewsletter/2014/june.pdf]

 

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How does Minnesota regulate the conduct of businesses in other states? I'm in Michigan and my customer comes from Minnesota, I still do business. Minnesota can go pound sand.

 

Its always been my policy not to do business with Minnesotan's.

 

Well dang.

 

Is it because they talk funny?

 

How would they prevent ebay sales? If I have a customer in MN, I would gladly ship.

 

The law does not include :

(b) A bullion coin dealer does not include any of the following persons:
1.18(1) a person who engages only in wholesale bullion coin transactions with bullion
1.19coin dealers who sell at retail and are properly registered under this chapter;
1.20(2) a person who engages only in transactions at occasional garage or yard sales
1.21held at the seller's residence, farm auctions held at the seller's residence, or estate sales
1.22held at the decedent's residence;
1.23(3) a person who is properly registered pursuant to chapter 80A, or the federal
1.24Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and rules promulgated thereunder as a securities broker
1.25dealer or broker dealer agent;
2.1(4) an auctioneer who auctions coins at auction on behalf of an owner, if the
2.2auctioneer does not take title or ownership of the coins, or the operator of an Internet Web
2.3site that allows users to offer the sale of coins through that Web site, does not set the price,
2.4is not the seller of record, and does not take possession of any coins to be offered;
2.5(5) a person who engages only in transactions at occasional trade shows where the
2.6consumer is present and the transaction is made at the trade show; or
2.7(6) a federally or state-chartered bank, bank and trust, savings bank, savings
2.8association, or credit union or any operating subsidiary of them.

http://legiscan.com/MN/text/HF157/2013

 

Absolutely ridiculous. Happy I live in New Hampshire where we tend to not make to many stupid laws for the time being at least.

 

Government tends to make things like this worse, not better. More over-reach intended to protect citizens who do not really need/want protection (but the government will force it on you anyway). Another example of "the surgery was a success, but the patient died" type of law.

 

Before you know it they will make gold illegal to own again like they did in 1933

 

yeah this governor is terrible. I hope the cheeks in that chair change pronto.

 

Not gonna happen. His family name makes him a god in this state.

 

he's a steaming pile as far as I'm concerned.

 

Is there a specific reason why this is now covered in two topics? This post https://www.cointalk.com/threads/new-minnesota-coin-law-targets-shady-dealers.233901/#post-1951098 was made two minutes before this new topic got started ...

Christian

 

Good question, and I don't think the law applies to you as much as it does the buyer. I believe the burden is placed on the buyer to ensure they are buying from a dealer registered with the State of Minnesota and is compliant with their law.

This little blurb does concern me a little:

This is an even greater stretch than the practice of assessing sales tax on sales that occur outside the state via the Internet.

 

LIBERTY PARENT OF SCIENCE & INDUSTRY is the legend on the obverse. Heritage Auctions is offering a rare 1792 Silver-Center cent, technically a pattern coin of the US Mint, in its upcoming September 3-7, 2014, Long Beach Sale. All 26 known specimens have been accounted for, and tallied at auctions. Of those 14 have been "plated" (photographed and published). Walter Breen's Complete Encyclopedia of U.S. and Colonial Coins asserted that only 12 were genuine, the others being "dangerous counterfeits" by which Breen might have meant that they were struck later at the Mint from original dies for friends of the Mint management, a common practice of the time.

These Silver Center Cent coins range in condition from Very Fine to Uncirculated and price between $250,000 and an expected One MIllion Dollars for this Uncirculated (PCGS 61) example. This coin weighs about 70 grains and contains about 2.48 grains of silver. It is bullion by Minnesota law and to be sold, the seller has to inform of the buyer of the precious metal content and the market value of the precious metal content. At today's price of silver ($22 high), that is about 11 cents of silver.

Realize that this law was passed to protect Minnesotans from "scams" run by "bullion investment" firms. So, if you are from Minnesota, and have a million dollars, do not buy this coin. It is only "worth" 11 cents, not a million dollars.



Heritage Auctions

 

Its the government wanting to protect us, what happened to buyer beware. I guess they figure we the people cant properly educate ourselves before we buy something. I wish I could remember the other state where you cant buy gold, silver or coins with cash; you have to use a credit card (for their records), sorry I need another cup of coffee.

 

This is an old thread. Minnesota just did away with this pm law I believe

 

Right, the last post here was from almost two years ago. A more current topic about this is here: https://www.cointalk.com/threads/mn-bullion-law-amended.280089/

 

The law still leaves out of state dealers on the hook. I don't sell many coins unless they're coming out of my personal set - but I do have disclaimers for Minnesota.

Nanny states are not good to do business with. Allows stupidity to propagate with the assumption that the government will fix everything.