Featured Bad Coin Show Etiquette

What you fail to mention is the coin dealers need to recover his funds from a mistake he made in buying the coin in the first place. He originally bought the coin, thinking it genuine. The coin turned out to be a mistake of purchase, as it was a fake. Why should Hobo (or anyone for that matter) pay for someone else's mistake?

 

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No one asked OP to pay for anyone's mistake; if he thought the coin was overpriced he could have just passed and been done with it... but the fact that OP kept returning to make offers told the dealer he was interested in it, and he tried to come to a compromise number... and it was rejected. Sometimes people forget that "no" is a perfectly acceptable answer to a question. Just because someone wants the piece doesn't mean the seller's somehow obligated to sell it at what that person wants to pay... regardless of whether it's genuine or not.

 

that dealer should have known better than to show something to someone else while someone is looking at the coins. if a dealer did that to me i would never go back to his table.

 

maybe he knew the guy

 

Is Hobo still around? He was one of CT's best.

 

Too much time and energy spent on non numisimatical value. There are all kinds of melt value coins out there. But a dealer should not always expect to get back what they paid for a coin. Odd story. Both ends of errors. A dealer should work with one person but if that one is a tire kicker he will move to the other. Serious buyers, whether real estate, cars or coins are easy to detect- like a true 3 level split band Mercury dime.

 

They don't always EXPECT to, but they do TRY to and you can't blame them. If they aren't able to make money more often than they lose or break even they go out of business.

And there is nothing wrong with dealing with more than one person at a time, the only error the dealer made was he should have asked if he could show the coin to the other person before just picking it up and handing it to him, and once he got permission to do so he needs to tell the second person that the first guy has the first option on it. I've had several dealers do this with me, with me in both first or second customer position.

 

In the haberdashery business, we called them "strokers", -customers (if you can call them that) who were more interested in petting the merchandise than actually buying anything. As a rule, it made sense to be polite, -up until a point. But if a real spender walked in the door, the stroker got shoved out of the way if it came down to that, even if it meant being rude about it. Can't imagine why it would be any different in the coin business.

 

I would not describe the op as a stroker. I personally think any counteroffer of at least 70% the initial as serous with the exception of bullion or bullion like items. The last offers were $225 dealer at $235. This is a real customer literally with the cash in his pocket.

My interpretation of the op post was basically that someone thinking like you did "misassigned" the op as a stroker instead of the serious buyer he is. This is how and why less then perfect customer service gets you less money. It is also why all major companies insist their employees act the way they do. Bottom line bad customer service in any retail sales job costs you money even when you think it isn't.

 

Offer, counter offer, counter-counter offer, --what a waste of time. The proper approach is simply "what's the best deal you can swing me on the coin?" -and if the best offer doesn't line-up with what you think the coin is worth, time to move on. Since most of us are trading with the same dealers on a regular basis, the seller will fairly quickly adapt to "first, only, best offer please" with a genuinely attractive price if he knows you're walking away from the coin if his first shot fails to satisfy. Of course, for those who never accept an offer, no matter how reasonable the "best deal he can swing" might be, it is perfectly acceptable for the dealer to ignore you altogether rather than waste his time on offers that are never ever accepted.

 

1. The op is not talking to someone he usually deals with.

2. Offer, counter ect. I guess my experiences are very different then yours. I've been on both sides of the table in oregon, Washington state and Nevada. The offer counter offer happens frequently enough that I never noticed it was unusual. One of the respected dealers who posts here tried to buy a coin from me.
There was my offer, her counter, my best offer and her best counter counter offer. It felt like an every day transactions to me. All this happened via text through a second dealer who also posts here. When I buy and sell two or three rounds of negotiations feels pretty normal to me. I've never been to a major show with more then 100 tables so maybe this doesn't happen in the big leagues but it sure does seem to happen a lot exactly as the op posted. I've even used the "drop your cash on the table so the dealer know how serious you are " technique.

So maybe in the big boys arena it doesn't go down like the op posted but am my level of play it is an every day occurrence. And the op is buying a small item, right?

I don't think someone is a stroker when the final difference between buy and sell last offers is 4.3%

 

I do not try to haggle for a lower price with a dealer if it is something I want , not worth it to me at all. Do you do this at a grocery store ???
Ron W.

 

No but I do at a car dealership and I do with coins. Do you always pay the asking price at a car dealership if you decide you want a particular car without any haggling?

 

You must be a dealer lol

I don't see anything wrong with asking a dealer if he can do lower on price. However it's something I believe should only be asked once, maybe twice tops. Nagging the dealer over and over again is annoying and silly.

I also wouldn't berate the dealer and make a snarky comment like, "I have to pay for your mistake". Dealer has every right to ask whatever they want and for whatever reason. If the asking price is out of this world then the dealer will probably never sell the coin or eventually have to lower the price. That's their problem, not the buyers. Quite frankly, a snarky comment like the aforementioned one probably deserves a response from the dealer of asking you to leave.

 

I also do not haggle. I pick out the coins I want. Price does not determine if I like the coin. If I like the coin I pay. If not, I don't. Some dealers take some off the price when I select multiple coins. That is always appreciated but not the determing factor in the sale. I have built some good relationships with dealers this way.

I'm not saying the dealer was correct but I believe they saw no deal with you and wanted to move the coins to someone else.

 

I have always made it a practice to ask if a dealer can do my price offer. If not, I will ask for the best price he can do--and then take him at his word that that IS the best he can do--coins or cars. I then pay or move on.

One thing I won't do is the "Let me run back to my manager and see." thing. Supposedly, I already have the best he can do.

 

Aw, come on folks.

The haggling is 1/2 the fun.

 

Frank is the master folks.......I've seen him in action.

 

So you would sell your house and use the money to buy a pcgs 65 common Morgan because you just really really like the coin? Price always matters your statement is not realistic. I could probably find a frictionless pully with weightless rope next to your opinion.