A DEALER'S STASH OF GOLD KENNEDYS

I was just yanking your chain. I probably would have taken the money too. And no, I no longer have an employer. I guess you can't take a joke.

 

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All of this, to me, is missing the point.

Let's recap. The mint shows up to the ANA show with a bunch of new coins. THis is the first place you can physically receive them. The mint, knowing there will large demand for these, puts in place a one coin per customer policy. Jwitten stands in line, buys one, and then sells it. To me, good for him if he makes a profit. He bought it for himself personally, he followed every rule and intention the mint put in place.

Contrast this to some dealers. They know the mint put in place a one coin per person policy so that the most people, (collectors presumably), could buy the coin at the ANA show. Well, that is not good enough for them, since they do not want one profit but 100, so they INTENTIONALLY violate the spirit of the rules and hire 100 day laborers to stand in line. Is anyone really saying these two situations are the same????

I am a CFO, I am all about making profit. However, "pure capitalism" does not mean you are allowed to violate laws, rules, and regulations in order to do so. I am in the food industry, we work hard every day trying to earn our profit. One thing we would NEVER, EVER do, though, is to violate FDA rules and regulations concerning food. Nor would we violate EPA environmental guidelines, or any other applicable laws or regulations. "Pure capitalism" is not a license to do whatever you feel like, laws and rules be damned. It means, within the given regulatory structure, working your hardest to make your profit.

The dealers who did this do not care about all of the collectors at the ANA they screwed over, they do not care about the hobby or coin collectors, they do not care one dang thing about anything other than making a dollar for themselves. They are the type of people who would lie or cheat a customer to make a sale, they would break laws if it enabled them to make another $5, and they are the type that would rip off an old lady paying her thirty cents on the dollar or less for her husbands coin collection if she didn't know any better. Think about it, if they KNOWINGLY and INTENTIONALLY screwed over hundreds of coin collectors at the ANA convention this week, why would a conscientious collector wish to EVER buy anything from them, knowing this is how they abuse the hobby?

Now, is the mint somewhat to blame also? A little. They tried to do the right thing, but lacked proper followup. They should have made everyone swear and sign they are only buying it for themselves, and that no one paid them to stand in line. Short of something like that, the mint should have just stopped pretending they were trying to do the right thing and sold all 500 each day to the first dealer in line and be done with it. So yes, the mint once again completely screwed up distribution, but the main evil player here is those dealers who paid BUSLOADS of temps to come in and screw over coin collectors. I will be paying attention to dealer advertisements in the next few months and will have to assume dealers with large stockpiles of these ANA coins are the bad actors, and remember that and remind other collectors for decades what kind of snakes they are.

 

Chris, I don't disagree with anything you've said. But I find it ironic in the extreme, and hypocritical, that collectors of US coins should rail against dealers making a profit. The current aesthetic of collecting US coins seems to be primarily driven by profit motive. Look at the threads in the US forum. Most of them are about grades and worth. Is it a 66 or 67? Does it get a star or plus? Should it get re-slabbed? What's it worth? What's it worth? What's it worth? And the guys that cherry-pick something valuable or get a coin graded at a higher number, or manage to flip something for a profit in any way, get applauded for their business acumen. So why would we castigate dealers for doing the same?

None of this is directed at you personally. You and I are mostly in the group of ancients nerds that prefer out dirty little rocks, while the rest of the collecting community lusts after bright shiny objects that other collectors consider valuable. And I understand that you're calling the dealers and the mint to a higher level of business integrity. My only caution is, let's look at the log in our own eye as well.

 

They stoped selling them there

 

I wonder if any of the temps tryied walking out with the coin. It was so. Bad. That police were threating people with tasers and using bull horns. There was alot of fighting to

 

They should have been playing Beethoven's Rage Over a Lost Penny in the background.

 

No rules were violated. The rules said no person could buy more than one coin from the mint and none did. Did dealers and collectors evade this rule? Yes they did. Did they violate the rule? No they didn't.

Those FDA and EPA rules are written in a very strict manner. Why? Because in the past they were NOT written as strictly and people in the food industry DID find ways to avoid them. So they rewrote them to make them stricter. And when those were avoided they made them stricter still. And possibly your firm strives to follow those rules to the letter of the law, some still try to find ways around them. And eventually they will rewrite those laws again to make them even stricter still to stop those evasions. And the Mint will try to figure out another way to try and end the schemes that were used this time. That's why the mint changed their plans at least four times for this rollout. They were trying to find some way of ensuring the widest distribution, and the dealers and collectors were trying to find a way to acquire more of them.

 

I was mainly sad dealers had these contracted buyers, because it prevented me from buying extras from those buyers. I offered one kid $700 over if he bought for me instead of the dealer, but he wanted to be able to come back every day, so backed out. Now I bet he is wishing he bought for me instead, lol.

 

So far I have seen only one 70 slab bed in a dealers case at the show and one dealer had about 10 with PCGS first strike labels and no grade on them. They appear to be saving them for something else.

 

Unfortunately, over the past 30 years, that exactly what American Capitalism has become. In the name of "Freedom" capitalists are free to do whatever they want and the big ones have gotten away with it. The little guys are just following big brother's example.

 

I agree with this, and this is the distinction that the others were missing. There was a clear cap per person, and the rule was obviously meant to apply to any entity (person, business, etc.) and its agents, to include employees. So the flippers arguably violated the rule, and did so to flip the coins at an exorbitant price. Collectors were cheated out of an opportunity to purchase the coins at a fair price, and those that did buy the coins from the flippers will be screwed when the market on these tanks. I think people should refuse to purchase the ANA pedigreed coins at all, and allow the price on them to fall. Hopefully more of the flippers will be affected than coin collectors.

And to be clear, it isn't a case of sour grapes for me. I have no interest in the coins, even at the Mint's asking price of $1,240, which is still too much for a common bullion coin (minted to demand) with less than a $1,000 of precious metal in it.

 

I couldn't agree more with you.

Edited: Capitalism also allows sellers to place restrictions on their agreements through either express or implied contracts. So I don't see the limit or the criticisms espoused by those who are fed up with either direct violations or intentional evasion of the rule as being contrary to capitalism.

 

No, there was not a clear cap per business. It was per person. It was designed to give collectors a CHANCE, which it did. The big business had to work just as hard as you to get them. I am a collector, and got one. You could have too if you worked hard enough.

 

We didn't "miss" that, the point of their rule was obvious. but anytime you set up rules forr something like this there will always be those who try to figure ways around them. Maybe for gain, sometimes just to see if they can do it. That was one of the main reason for the emergence of computer hackers. They aren't all malicious, they are just rising to the challenge of a "crack proof secure system" Can they find holes or ways around the security.

Have you ever noticed in the rules for a lot of contests you will find language that says all entries have to be on an official order blank, not copies aor mechanically reproduced entries allowed? do you know why that is there? Because back in the early 70's a company, I think it was McDonalds had a contest offering a lot of prizes in a drawing and all you had to do to enter was submit a slip of paper with a certain phrase printed on it. Well a Fraternity at one of the major engineering schools programmed the university computer (computers were scarce back then) to produce the paper slips and submitted 1.2 million entries. They walked off with 90% of the prizes. The company turned it into a PR plus though by praising the ingenuity of the students and awarding duplicate prizes in a second drawing after removing the fraternities entries. But it lead to a change in the rules about how contests are run today.

In another McDonalds contest they had game pieces where every piece was a potential winner, you just had to uncover the right spot. I figured out a technique to "read" the spots through the card so every card I got was a winning card. All I got were food prizes, but I got one with every card I got.

 

I agree with you completely. What these dealers are doing is not right.

 

I'm not really seeing a "stack of Kennedy's". Looks like a plastic bag of coins which leads me to believe that they aren't Kennedy's.

But wait, it looks like they are in the original mint capsules.

That's a spensive submission there Lucy.

 

I don't understand, the mint said that it would produce enough to satisfy demand. If everybody is paying crazy money to have the coin in a particular holder they are nuts and need to learn a thing or two about collecting. I intend to get one, but will just wait until they are released by the mint on 9/15. I see no reason to care more about packaging than the coin.

 

No matter how the Mint sells the coins, there are going to be some people who complain that they didn't get them on the first day. It's just in their nature to complain.

 

"IF" you simply buy coins from the Mint and "IF" you do not belong to a Coin Forums or subscribe to any Internet Coin Blogs, it is conceivable that you might be concerned that you would not get one OR if your local dealer said that the mintage numbers were "unknown" leading you to believe that if you wanted one then you'd better get one now, then I could understand why folks might be paying premiums for the coin.

As Doug says, "Knowledge is Power".

Unfortunately that "power" can be used against those that do not have that "Power" which is where ethics and quick flips come into play.

I was able to order one online and am gonna kick myself for not ordering two. (Kinda like when I only ordered four 2008-W Silver Eagles instead of 100 like everybody else!)

Personally, I think the whole problem with this coin is in the US Mint making them available on Release day for "Over the Counter Sales".
In the past, "over the counter" sales were restricted until the household ordering limits had been lifted.