Are coin shop owners hurting the numismatic community?

FYI:
This is a topic that drives me nuts.

When gold dropped like a stone, the sealer said that he needed to get $X because he paid that much.

So, I said 'oh, well, I have some that I got ay $1800 an ounce, will you pay me that. He said of course not.
So, (I said) oh, it's okay for us to lose money but not you guys?
Bull...

 

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You paint with an exceptionally broad brush.

 

Coin shops are in business to make money. If they are in a small town with little traffic, it would probably make sense to widen their margins, to make a profit and stay in business.

 

In almost every case I have ever run across where people are complaining about how a business runs, they have never owned a business themselves. I know going to work everyday that my employees and customers are always smarter than me. The thing I can't figure out, is why they work or buy from me still when they could do it better???
People seem to have brilliant ideas of business when talking about other people's money.

 

This reminds me of gas prices in relation to daily oil commodity prices.

 

I think the topic is about the ethics of the dealer. It just happens that the spot price is the basis for the discussion.

FWIW, there are two dealers in my area who have B&M's, and I quit doing business with them many years ago because I can't trust them any more.

Chris

 

Man you hit it right on the nail. I should have labeled my topic about the ethics of coin dealers. Lesson learned. And oh by the way...you don't have to own a business to know more than those that don't. I have owned 3 of my own business's and NEVER have I used it as a comparison of myself and others. ROFL.

 

In my 15 years as a bartender, I've worked for a few bar owners who had more money than brains. One fellow who bought one of the bars where I worked said he had always wanted to own a bar so he wouldn't have to pay for drinks.

Chris

 

Sorry, tech difficulties on my end called stupidity. Just don't know how to pick a sentence out of a post to reply to.
If you are borrowing money from the seller to pay for items bought until payday then you shouldn't be buying.
Good seller or bad seller no one should be going from paycheck to paycheck in order to buy bullion or coins.

 

The OP most likely can't go someplace else. What online dealer is going to lend him money & then let him pay it back when he gets his paycheck. LMAO

 

Coin shops are no better than pawn shops and are often the same. You can find deals at coin shops if you know what you're doing, if you don't, you will get screwed. For that matter, that's pretty much a fact of life for all matters.

 

It has nothing to do with coin dealer ethics. You should have labeled the thread, "My no good coin dealer/bullion dealer/loan officer/payday lender is trying to charge more than I think he should but since he floats me till payday, he has me Edit by rules.and that's not fair" I at least would have given you a like for honesty.

 

I think that's a large part of it.

I used to help a friend of mine run his game store. We'd get people in there all the time selling stuff and wondering why we'd only give them 1/2 or 1/3 what their stuff was 'worth.' It's just like you see on those pawn shop reality shows where people come in wanting to sell their beat up stuff at the full retail price of a perfect condition item.

No business can make money buying at retail and selling at retail, by definition! We had to account for the fact that the stuff might not sell (and for stuff that we knew would sell quickly, we'd pay at the higher end of what we normally offer), and, because we sold Magic cards, we had to account for the possibility that in a few months they might end up being worthless.

To bring it back to coins, when I go to a coin store or show, and I find a coin I want, I don't try to beat up the dealer to get gigantic discounts, either. Sure, I haggle; I might offer $650 or 700 on a coin tagged $750, but I won't offer $400. I'll walk away before I deliberately insult someone like that. In the end, if I like your coin and don't like your "best" price, I'll walk, and you'll sell that coin to someone else.

 

Why? Because you've only mentioned "silver" in the bullion sense of the word. Not in the coin collecting sense of the word.

As such, it has nothing to do with "Coin Collecting" as much as it has to do with "bullion investing" using a Local Coin Store as the middleman.

 

Not for much longer.

The guy is talking about "coin ethics" and gave an example. Seems right on topic to me.

Many will.

My personal thoughts are that your question is irrelevant. Not because you pose an uninteresting idea but because technology is obviating the need for the coin dealer in the first place.

The whole purpose of the coin dealer is to facilate a transaction between two different coin collectors who don't know each other. They rely on the coin dealer to make the transaction as smooth as possible. Thing is in today's world I think it is like dating. Everyone used to have to figure out some location to meet other people in. Now something like one out of every three romantic relationships starts online. I personally think coins are the same. Now many transactions that were handled by dealers are happening online. eBay is a great example of this. Instead of paying a dealer many collectors are reaching out to other collectors online. Ebay or great collections or whoever else is replacing the b&m coin dealer who used to own the whole coin market. Have online transactions replaced coin dealers totally today? No. but what was a "captive" market has been liberated online. Maybe we are around only one in three transactions online now, but the graph of online transactions over time makes a clear and unmistakable statement that the traditional dealer is being replaced by online services. Services which take much less of a transaction fee compared to the traditional dealer.

Are many of the sellers of coins online dealers? Sure. But again the number and percentage of collector to collector transactions is climbing quite clearly over time. Does this mean all dealers will go extinct? Unlikely but a serious consolidation is probably going to happen where only a few dealers survive and the others are squeezed out of the market. Personally I think that the survivors will be bigger name companies but I'm sure here and there some small dealers will survive. I predict that the vast majority of future coin transactions will be done online collector to collector, which makes the whole concept of your question no longer relevant.

 

His original post and the title to the thread make no mention of ethics. I now understand that he was just using the bullion experiences as examples of the ethics issue he wants to discuss. At the time I commented it wasn't clear. Carry on.

 

Are coin shop owners hurting the numismatic community?
Discussion in 'Coin Chat' started by Jason Hoffpauir, Today at 8:54 AM.

Op below

Seems like he thinks the coin dealers are taking advantage of collectors

Seems like a question about "fairness". Could be related to ethics of buying and selling yes?

So at this point it is pretty clear the guy thinks coin dealers are making too much of a margin and he thinks it is wrong.


I don't think you read the op close enough to share an informed opinion. I also have nothing better to do with my time then to point this out.

 

Vic if I ever need a lawyer or any kind of legal representation than you're definitely the man for the job! Business ethics have been questioned for centuries, nothing has changed, nothing will change. Profits are a necessary evil which help stimulate businesses both large and small and keep the economy from resembling the dirty 30's... As a student of economics and history I feel the need to direct the OP and anyone else questioning the ethics of business and profit margins to this link of famous US economist Milton Friedman discussing such important topics as "Greed", "Morality and Capitalism" and "Is Capitalism Humane?" Enjoy.

 

I'm thinking this could be a joke.