The "I don't buy Coins from coin dealers at shows and stick to online buying" thread

Couple of clarifications for you. I have only observed dealers being schmucky a few times, once or twice to me when I really was a newb, but mostly an observation of the collector crowd circling the shows I have attended.

I have learned a bit more on how to approach dealers so it's subtly obvious that I'm not an idiot. My stature also helps to put off an air of knowledge and confidence. So typically you will see a tall, athletic young man, I'll be wearing a polo shirt most likely with some sort of khaki bottoms and generally just look put together and hopefully pulling off the laid back businessman look that I typically go for. I also don't have that meathead look all that much, even though I am one, but most people look at me and can see that I am a deep thinker and conduct myself rather serious and to a high standard.

So no, I personally haven't had that feeling in awhile, but I have observed it recent enough.

Secondly I never complained about the deals, I'm discussing the topic, and my methods differ from Vic's. I ALWAYS leave a show with something in hand, same as my LCS. At the minimum I can add silver to my stack and build relationships with dealers. I also believe in supporting good dealers and love access to shows, so I don't know what you mean by your last statement. I believe a good deal can be found ANYWHERE, and why I believe knowledge is still important too.

There's still no denying that there is a generation of collector who can just open their phone and have AAA+++ coins delivered to their house at the best possible going price anywhere available.

 

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My whole point. Thank you. You link the bank account to pay pal and all it takes to buy a great coin at a great price is roughly 3 clicks. God bless the Information Age.

 

I resemble that remark!

 

As you may have noticed, I do this intentionally. I normally deal mostly with the dealers that I know, but I like to see who treats me like I don't have a clue when quoting me prices or ignores me or whatever. Let's me know who not to give my money to in the future and I think it's worked more than once.

 

Age is relative. I'm 50, recently started seriously building a collection and use all the tools you reference when buying coins.

I'm not sure "envy" is the right word for your example. I'm not sure what the right word is, maybe it's jealousy that it's much easier today.

Becoming a seasoned collector today is a lot easier than just 20 years ago. Being in the information age, the learning curve to become a discerning buyer is much shorter and different from the past. I for one am glad of it. Yes, I do have books on the series that I'm interested in and have read them, I do use the many sources available via electronic media to get instant answers to my questions, but there is also value in learning the nuances of a series from the long time collectors/dealers.

I have purchased the large majority of my coins via electronic means rather than at the local B&M and/or coin show. I'm going to a local show this weekend and will likely experience many of the same things that everyone has posted in the various threads, both good and bad. I hope to find a coin that speaks to me and am able to get it for the right price, but even if that doesn't happen, I'm looking forward to browsing the many tables looking at coins.

 

Just to clarify a bit more for everyone.

I use all the tools available to me to purchase coins and will explore almost any option in doing so.

I feel like I've already explained what I meant about age, but just in case anyone else misses it, it has nothing to do with what year you were born. I am referring to a mental attitude. Old school versus new school if you prefer.

There are old guys who act and use technology better than I, there are also young cats out there who only wish to continue how it was done in the old times. Those are most likely the extremes at either end, but of course they exist.

Majority however still seems to fall under my observations and what others are seeing as well.

Yes envy wasn't quite the right word, after re-reading it for the 5th time it didn't make as much sense in my sentence as I had hoped, but it seems you got the idea of folks being 'jealous'. Which is a synonym for envy, although as we both agree, it just wasn't quite the word I wanted to use, the idea still was conveyed properly enough.

Again, I love the hobby so much that I appreciate the good and the bad. I try my best to purchase quality coins. I listen to you guys. I work on relationships with dealers. I courteously buy at coin shops. I always leave a coin show with an item as well. I respect many of the old heads who try to lead me right. I try to engage 'gruff' dealers and soften them up some. I mean I literally do everything as respectful as I can.

I am not the enemy, but I am for 100% certain the future of this hobby, and some of the things that are starting to trend out from us techno-savvy folks should be paid attention to by the dealers if they want to remain relevant in the future

Simply don't act holier than thou (as a dealer) if we show you several of the same coins at much better prices. We WANT to buy from you guys, in person, at the right price. We just have options now and it's up to the dealer to meet those market prices or just not make a sell. It's their responsibility to price their wares accordingly and they are no longer competing with just the other dealers at the show, they are competing against everyone now.

 

Couple of things, because I like to clarify myself when possible.

Best price available, means what we actually see as available and compared to the coin at the show we are comparing against. Sure we could still overpay, and yes knowledge is king, and yes Joe Collector might have the same coin at half the value (although we dont see it in our searches). But between the coin at the show and all the ones available in an online search, well we are going to go with the best VALUE. (Not necessarily price, dont get hung up on that example too much).

Second part to your response can be summed up in one single, simple word. Returns.

Good dealers have return policies, heritage im not worried about, and ebay has Buyers Protection. We are covered for the most part with coins we may not be happy with, shoot even a credit card offers protection against a bad buy. Those B's and C's will either be quickly returned, or if profitable, sold to make some money.

See, so we still have the edge, even if we slip up. And no one here has said we dont make mistakes, we just said for the most part this technology evens the playing field abit if you utilize these new tools.

Oh and Doug, please inform me of what collectors had access to at the shows, say 15 years ago? Im talking technology in relation to shows and what COLLECTORS would have, not the dealers.

Ill give you a hint, they didnt have smart phones with instant access to millions of coins not at that show that they could see while they were simultaneously browsing the bourse floor.

 

I agree with you. I think we see things the same way. I didn't my earlier reply to sound like I was refuting your comments. Some times it's hard to clarify in writing what we mean without posting a nove.

In response to the part I bolded from your post: Amen to that!

 

I could tell we were largely in agreement, I just wanted to clarify any unclear points I might have made. It's difficult conveying thoughts via text sometimes, but I think the gist of this topic has been thoroughly discussed.

 

Vic I think it's great that you can get great coins at great prices . But you might be missing what I believe is half the fun of collecting and that's the reading and learning about the coins we collect . As for me and a lot of others it's not just the acquisition of nice coins but the history and thrill of the chase . Also I love your S-VDB and your pattern , 2 beautiful coins .

 

Vic, just to satisfy my own curiosity, are you by Chance Victor from Coin Treasures?

 

I love and read casually about coins. I read a couple mags a month and read a few articles on line a week. But I have no interest in delving into coins to the point that I'm a professional. I read about the history of the Isabella quarter in one of the mags and so i went out and bought one. I love the board of lady directors.

But my enjoyment of coins is as a hobby. I have enough technical data I have to follow on the job and to be honest just don't have enough left in me to try to cross the line from non professional to professional.

 

Nope. I'm not a professional coin guy. Just a guy who likes pretty coins.

 

Just curious, this gets a G-4 grade, not a G Details grade?

 

This seems to really hang people up. The larger the market the better the prices. People here have read this thread and said things about how most coins in ebay or whatever venue are overpriced. I agree with this statement just as much as I agree that most coins at a coin show are also overpriced. But just as the examples of great deals found at shows are displayed so are the online ones.

Some people reading this thread are acting like the online buyer is basically choosing at random coins off ebay or wherever. But that makes as much sense as buying coins at shows randomly. The key is the hunt. This is what makes coins fun. Hunting through example after example. Finding the one both priced right and also quality.

The difference is that at a show there are a few thousand coins. Online there are millions.

Now leverage this with the new collector. A hypothetical example. A guy goes to a show. Only one of the dealers has an item that got stuck in the guys head. A Norse. So the guy looks at the one dealer and there are six examples in the case. The market 20 years ago would have only allowed this hypothetical guy to buy at this show because he doesn't go to large coin shows out of state and he doesn't want to go strictly to a national coin show on vacation, he would rather spend the time with his family at Disneyland or wherever.

So if he wanted a Norse it was lcs or these smaller shows. Now the dealer wants $310 for his thick pcgs ms 63 coin. The guy picked it up and examines it. Nothing special. Not toned. But seems high.

In Yesterday's would it would be either buy the coin there or never. Maybe it would be offered at a show our hypothetical guy goes to in the future. But he had heard of them he had rarely seen them. In yesterday's world the story ends with the guy either spending $315 or nothing.

In today's world our hypothetical guy busts out his iphone and first checks coinfacts. At the time he looks $210 was the least amount of money and pcgs ms 63's sold for in the recent referenced auction files.

In today's world after a few minutes our guy has found a very similar coin white ms 63 and found it for $210. Yes Doug same coin. Exact same coin.

Was this the very best price ever? Probably not. But it was the best price over the internet at the time. Please keep your "not the same" comments to your self. It is a low grade relatively common coin with not a huge spread to 64.

Our hypothetical guy goes home and a few days later a coin comes in the mail. Same coin but for much less. It was probably sold by one of those "dealers". But to be honest our guy doesn't care. All he cares about is having the same coin at the better price.

Given that the very lowest recent sale was at $210 and his price was $210, the exposure seems limited. Further the hypothetical guy gets to return the coin if it is a dud, which it wasn't.

Maybe somewhere in the universe there is a dealer who would have given him a better price had they had a relationship. But our guy seems to have done well. Certainly better then buying the Norse at the show.

None of what happened above was available to a coin show customer 20 years ago. The information was simply not available as it is today. But in today's world not only did the guy find out the recent trading range was in the low 200's for the 63 but he was able to find one cheap. At least cheaper then anyone else at the show was selling for. Now as luck would have it our hypothetical guy also buys a pattern for full retail because it is a gorgeous pattern and it is a coinfacts example coin. Something our hypothetical guy can't resist. Just a thing of beauty. Our guy buys both a generic coin online and also a r7 pattern from this hypothetical chick dealer at a coin show who posts on her blog and some websites.

This is the point that the younger guys are trying to get across. In today's world every dealer has to compete with every other dealer in the world all at the same time and just to kick it up a notch the dealer also has to compete with direct customer to customer transactions. One show dealer lost. Another show dealer did sell a coin to mr. Hypothetical. The larger the free market the more it favors the buyer.

 

It's a matter of functioning brain cells at any given point in time. If there is more going on up there, people get feisty, if less, they're more loveable and cuddly. The level of impairment determines the mild manner. Just so I can get on your list "temporarily", I just cracked open a bottle of Hennessy. Yes, I spent more on that than I did on my last 3 coins. Cheers to mild manners and politeness, but, only temporarily.

 

I greatly prefer shows, over online auctions (including Heritage, Stacks, eBay, etc...). I like to meet and chat with the dealers. Dealers get to know you, and save stuff for you... Other dealers bring stuff to me, like errors they are scratching their head over, and usually give me the first chance to buy them, if I determine they are genuine and explain it to them. You build a rapport with various dealers. There was another thread, recently (Charmy's etiquette thread maybe), which I bit my lip and said nothing, because it was true that dealers can be biased, and they treat their best customers, well, the best... Sometimes, a dealer will see things you don't in a coin, and a good dealer will be receptive to what you see (Doug's point about knowing what you collect). Dealers learn and know what you are looking for - and that is sometimes worth a premium price, because someone else has spent the time hunting for me - my case, time is the most valuable commodity I have. I do buy lots through online auctions, but they are never as satisfying as a coin show purchase.

Lastly, a coin show is where I meet old friends, pass around the PCGS boxes in the pub for a show-and-tell over a few pints... as someone put it, it is like Christmas for me (but not the presents, think of the big turkey dinner with family).

Ultimately, this is a hobby for me, so it has to be enjoyable, to remain so... there is little joy in clicking "buy it now" (unless you are picking a cherry).

 

My coin, my grade.

[j/k of course.]



Heck as scarce as it is, name any grade, it is still a VERY tough piece.

 

Yes, your coin, yes, scarce, a lovely G-4 strongly pulling toward G-6.