Today's coin dealer experience..Warning..long winded!!

Greetings to all members! Often you will see in a post on general collecting advice, the necessity of selling one of your coins, as a major part of the collecting experience. I'm not referring to the forced liquidation of your collection due to an emergency financial expense, merely that it helps you in gaining knowledge as a collector. perhaps upgrade a coin or sell one just to see how wise of a purchase you made. I decided to do that today.

We have a local dealer here in town. He does not run a typical brick and mortar shop, but runs his business out of his home along with 2 large morton buildng type garages, depending all on what you are buying. He is more of a wholesaler but still buys and sells to the public. This man started in the banking business, and and as being an officer there, could go thru all the change , ect.. He also had cashiers advise him of any unusual coins or bills which come in. Needless to say, in the late 50's,early 60's and 70's, you could find many opportunities then. He has many years in and knows his coins apparently. This was my first transaction w/ him in 20 plus yrs and perhaps my second or third overall.

I called him up and made an appointment to see him. When i spoke w/ him on the phone, i offered him a 1911-D saint in a new anacs slab ms62. He quoted me 950-1000 if it were an PCGS or NGC, but since it was anacs, he couldn't tell me. When i arrived, he met me and led me to a storage building. Pallets of coins from mint everywhere. Lots of full mint boxes of change varieties. When i came, i also brought my morgans w/ me in their storage album, as well as my want list consisting of 1902S in vg-f, and a1904-s in vf (morgans). I pull the saint out and open my morgan book. He picks up the anacs ms62 saint and says "this isn't even uncirculated" as he is looking at it then pulling his loupe out. Before either of us say anything, the phone rings........he spends the next 10 minutes talking to someone about a part for a billiard table, while twirling the anacs slab around. I just kind of hang out in my chair, looking around. Finally, he says," well , i have a customer <probably me>,i have to go". Now, back to insulting my coin, then starting on my morgans. He states how much better pcgs and ngc are, and if its sight unseen, you can buy those, and my anacs slabbed stuff...well.......(glad i wasn't there to sell my morgans). He picks up one coin and says "I can't believe they called this ms65pl" that was an interesting statement when all of a sudden, he looked closer at the slab and sees it is pcgs....it became quiet as he puts it under a light and pulls out the loop again. weird...the prooflike quality had returned!!!

It is no wonder why so many new collectors leave the hobby. It is not just the home shopping network and a lot of other glitzy organizations which advertise in the back of magazines, sell you a tenth oz. coin for $50 then want 300 for the quarter oz one that you should buy from them. Then there are the local shops that try to make the fast buck buy lowballing and downgrading others ' coins, while trying to convince you how great their coins are.

This hobby could be helped so much by getting newbies to forums like this as well as local clubs. Get them mentors and educations BEFORE they ever buy a coin. Forums like this can save newbies so much money and heartache, as well as helping them get in and truly enjoy and have fun at a hobby you can do your entire life (its not health dependent).

Oh well, I guess my rant is over. I just wanted to relate a story of an all too typical hobby transaction. From a business standpoint, rather than stepping on people's coins, maybe compliment them on the ones you like. I would like my customer's to come back and be happy to see me! The end came out well simply due to lucky market circumstances...i purchased the coin less than 2 yrs ago. Even with him dropping it to au status from ms 62 i pd$690 sold for $900

Sorry for the long post !...steve

 

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you cna say that again

 

Sounds like he was trying get them for nothing. If he was selling I'm sure Anacs would be a wonderful company

 

what it all comes down to is you buy the coin, not the slab, it doesn't matter if it is pci, ngc, anacs or pcgs. I have had a lot of coins from pci holders crossover into ngc at the same grade. Of course when a dealer is buying, they are gonna knock the coin down, i have had it even in ngc holders dealers knock the grade down.

 

Steve,

I know way too many of the Coin Dealers that you described! They are too quick to trash what you have for sale or any coins that you show them for that matter and constantly boast about the beautiful, high grade coins that they have, to try to justify the high prices that they have on them. I have also had quite a few Coin Dealers turn their attention away from me to someone else or to a phone call and I won't tolerate it very long! In fact, I have left Shops as well as tables at Coin Shows because I felt that my business was not important enough to the Coin Dealer to put the other people on hold or ask for their' phone number so that he could call them back. After putting up with this type of treatment, the only thing that I would sell such a Coin Dealer, is the horse crap from my Horse Barn, if I had one!


Frank

 

srkjkd,

I know exactly how you feel. Despite having collected for decades now, I only first sold a coin to a dealer this past year. Actually I sold quite a few to almost every dealer in my area (I found about 300 of the washing dollars with the missing edge inscription).

I found out pretty quick who the honest dealers are and I'm pretty glad for it now. It used to be that when someone asked me for advice about where to sell something, I always told them to goto a coin show and ask every table what they would give for the coin, then sell to the highest (logic being that there had to be at least one honest dealer at the show).

Well, now I know of 2 dealers I would recommend (this is out of some 20+ dealers I dealt with) if someone can't wait for a coin show. I formed my opinion based both on how they treated me, and how much they marked up the coins after I sold to them (I had my wife call around to the various dealers after I sold them the coins).

I'm glad you got a decent price for your coin and gained a data point about one more dealer in your area.

 

i had no problem w/ price as i bought close to bullion price. it was more than i anticipated and i made a good profit. it is the experience of going thru the same old my coins are better than yours...all the collectors coins were overgraded, the dealers are always graded right, ect,ect.. yes you do buy the coin and not the slab. if a dealer acts like this to a first timer, it drives them out of the hobby. they think everyone is crooked and they can never enjoy the hobby for fear of getting ripped off. i have just seen this and worse types of behavior too often from dealers. coin dealing should be more than a retail venture.. it should have service, be honest, help the customer, and fair price transactions as well as a trust relationship. each time a dealer has a customer in his shop, it could develop into a customer for life relationship. i just think if we can educate and keep newbies informed and know what to expect, as well as grading skills, they will stay in the hobby and that benefits us all in the long run....only my own opinion. also, i just brought the morgans so i could show him the type of circulated ones which i prefer (darker, steel gray toning and even smooth wear) i had no intention of selling. i was using them to help buy from him!!!

 

I don't know if bad businessmen are attracted to becomming coin dealers, or if becomming a coin dealer turns people into bad businessmen. There probably isn't a worse run business anywhere. I used to think about 2/3 of coin dealers were outright crooks. Now I think it's about 3/4 based on personal experience. There is only one professionally run coin shop near me. Maybe these guys feel they have to act this way to establish their dominance over the customer, or maybe the industry just attracts diseased egos. Who knows. But they sure take a lot of the fun out of the hobby. The one truly professional near me is very respectful, examines merchandise brought in for sale very carefully, explains the good and bad points as he sees it, and explains how he develops his offer price. Not many seem to do that.

 

You never know. Actually, I do most of my buying now from a few internet dealers that I've had decent experiences with. I don't mind the haggling, and I realize this is a business where people have to make money. But other businesses, jewelry stores for example, have similar characteristics -- yet somehow treat their customers with respect and make it a good experience for both parties.

 

Teaching is good

Trying to teach coin collecting I think is a very good thing. Specially when you get that 1 persons attention and see their face expression change after you talk to them for a little bit about the coin you are showing them. I collect, sell and try to teach who ever gets the interest in coins.
I'm new here and want to teach the little I know.
_____________________

 

toned,

You have a nice website. My gut feeling is that you are one of the good guys.

 

Sorry to hear about your experience man, but I think you learned a few things with it. "Buy the coin, not the holder" Amazing how that PCGS slabbed coin changed from overgraded, to PL when he saw it was graded by PCGS.

Phoenix

 

Have you ever tried to sell a piece of jewelry back to a retail store? They generally work on a 200% or more mark up meaning when you try to sell back to them they will pay less than 35 cents on the dollar. If coin dealers could get away with that the business would be easier, but we can't we work on a 5-20% markup. Coin dealers would likely act differently if they tripled up on every coin they sold instead of dealing with buyers who want to chisel every last cent from them until there is no profit in the transaction.

Your comparison is faulty.


edited to add:

I am annoyed by dealers and collectors who insist on arguing about grade. If I offer a coin for sale make me an offer (or accept my price) but don't tell me a story. The same is true if someone offers me a coin. Just tell me what you want for it and I will either accept it or counter (if the asking price is anywhere near reasonable), but don't tell me a story about why I should pay more, I don't care to hear it.

 

newbie

Being new to all of this it seems to be one of the scarier hobies that I have picked up and I raced cars for 13 years. There I rarely got the bad treatment from so called profesionals that I have in the coin business. I am so glad that I literally stumbled upon this website. The info is so great. I just wish that I could find one good honest dealer in my area.

 

You should try Jack Beymer. He is the consummate professional, with a spotless reputation. Even though he is a competitor of mine I give him my highest recommendation.

 

On Sunday I will be at a monthly coinshow thathas about 50 tables.
Almost one third are like the guy you are talking about. The next third are just not real personable and the last third who I deal with are good guys and women who treat me good wheather I'm buying or just shooting the bull.
They are the ones who give you the best prices also. Sunday I will be hunting for more 2000 and 2003 silver proof sets as many as I can get at around 20.00 each. I only was able to land 4 sets last month. Also been buying at the show BU S cents from the 40.s. Got two rolls last month of 1946-S for 19.00 a roll

 

whats wrong with you? dont you consider your self honest ? all the noise from FUN is getting to you. Try the troll before you try anyone else he is a great chap especially when he has the loupe and he can be in another country and still get you the stuff you need