Is E-Bay a good place to buy?

As I am still quite new to Coin Collecting, and as I have purchased quite a few coins off E Bay, I was just wondering if E Bay is really the place to aquire coins. One thing I have been noticing is that what seems like a good deal often times is not when shipping is figured in. I was looking at a Franklin Half to other day and the seller wanted $6.00 for shipping! Now, I find it hard to believe that it would cost $6.00 to ship a Franklin Half. By the way, Insurance was an extra charge....$1.30.....

Any Thoughts?

Chris Hawkins

 

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well is not THE place...but IMO is a good place to look/buy IF you know what you are looking about...study coins before buying there...you can find scammers as in many other places...for example I dont have many choices around here eBay or maybe some pawn shops around...so I mostly stick with eBay, is a little risky IMHO but can be a nice to buy if you find the correct/honest sellers there hope this helps.

 

Hi Chris, and welcome!

If you are new to coin collecting, I would advise you run (not walk) from that particular venue. Their practice of encouraging scams, makes it too risky for the beginner.

You might consider building your numismatic library first, then finding a few dealers you trust to do business with.
I've had sucsess with some in the popular coin magazines. You can often request a catalog or price list, and most will be happy to accomodate you.
If you like modern stuff, ordering from the various Mints (US and World) is a pretty safe bet.

Good luck, and happy collecting.

 

Shipping is a KILLER from some sellers on Ebay so read carefully and then use "ask seller a question" and complain about the unbelievalbe charge. I have done it repeatedly and hopefully some of them will wise up. NOW, when complaining about shipping charges one must keep in mind the U.S. Mint charges $4.95 reqardless of what you purchase! That helps take the sting out of some of the Ebay sellers charges!!! Anyway, just buy or bid from those you are comfortable with and that KEEPS you in CHARGE of what you pay! I ALWAYS give sellers with "FREE SHIPPING" a good look and that has gotten them a lot of extra bidders, I am sure!!!

 

Welcome to the forum, Chris!

I have not purchased anything from Ebay just yet, although I do peruse the coin auctions daily. My father-in-law, however, has made a number of very happy purchases there. If he gets a coin that doesn't look as good as he thought it would, he sends it back.

My opinions are:
1) Read EVERYTHING in the item description and shipping info... make certain you know exactly what you are buying and how much it is going to cost to send it.
2) Read the seller's feedback very carefully. Look for evidence of suspect activity.
3) If you are not sure about the validity of an item, post the link here, as you will receive many opinions and helpful information!

So, I wouldn't persuade you to run away, but tread very very carefully.

Good luck,
~neuron

 

Ebay + or -

This is one place you can REALLY get stung or should I say lighten your wallet.
I have found out after shopping on Ebay for sometime, that you need to research the seller over and over. Check feed backs, look to see what others buy, return policy, what holders are used on slabs, shipping prices, insurance, is it included or added and what rate, if negative feed back check real close, what is the ratio. I feel 100 to 1 is comfortable with good service. Can't please everbody . After you recieve a package check how much the shipping was to see if if it was exactly as stated. Check to see how well it is packaged, is the item exactly what was stated on their site. One thing that really gets me is when it takes soooooooooooo long to recieve the item purchased, that is a turn off.


To answer you question, yes if you do your homework and you your self fell good about the deal.
As many of the folks have stated on the forum RESEARCH and BOOKS and a lucky coin inyour pocket.

 

Chris, welcome to the forum.

For some of us, myself in particular, eBay is the ONLY means for selling and buying coins. I'm a fulltime RVer wintering in the middle of the Arizona desert, don't have any coin shops nearby but with a Post Office about 23 miles away, so can send and receive only by mail. However, even if location were not a consideration, I would still use eBay. I've been an eBayer for more than five years, so I've made my mistakes, learned my lessons (and am still learning).

I agree completely with neuron's advice above and will add a few of my own regarding buying:

1.) Learn how to grade coins. It's very difficult to grade a coin from a photo which may not show defects in a coin, but with practice, one may acquire an estimate of a coin from a photo if it's clear enough.
2.) Watch for the red flags in an auction: too many and too frequent negative feedbacks (a Positive Feedback score below 99.5 can be very bad); "private" auctions in which bidders' names are hidden; descriptions which are very short, vague, poorly written, or simply state ("see picture; you be the judge"); dissembling descriptions which give a long song and dance about collecting in general, the history of a listed series of coins, but pirouettes around the actual coin itself; fuzzy, poorly photographed, or too small pictures; lack of a stated return policy; pictures of only one side of a coin.
3.) With raw coins, feel free to ask the seller if the coin has been cleaned or might otherwise be a "problem" coin if this information is not included in the description. Often, an honest seller will respond with complete details about the coin. I email the seller of virtually all the auctions in which I am interested.
5.) If you're not sure how much you should bid for a coin, check completed auctions to get an idea of going prices.
6.) With raw coins, subtract at least one and preferably at least two grades from what the seller states, especially if the seller appears to sell a lot of coins but also has a lot of negative feedbacks. With a few exceptions, Power Sellers and other high-volume coin sellers tend to overgrade raw coins.
7.) Buy only slabbed coins in your early eBay career and buy only the top-tiered grading company slabs: PCGS, NGC, ICG, or ANACS. Any other third party grading (TPG) company is less than trustworthy. Later, you'll have enough grading experience to make your own assessments. BUY THE COIN, NOT THE SLAB!.
8.) Learn how to grade coins. This bears repeating.
9.) EBay offers numerous online learning courses and tips on how to buy safely. Read through them.

Undoubtedly there are many, many other guidelines for successful eBay use, particularly buying. These are just those which come to mind at the moment.I would hope that others would add to this list. One guarantee: you will get burned at some point early in your eBay experience; do not let this discourage you. EBay can be a lot of fun, productive, efficient, and profitable with a lot of choices and bargains available IF one learns how the game is played.

 

Here's a quick and easy piece of advice:

If the picture of the coin is bad, meaning out-of-focus areas, glare, or just a tiny image, IMHO it means the seller does not want you to see something.

 

Chris,

I too was in the same dilema about six months ago. I bought a few ungraded coins off of ebay with about 50% success ratio on quality and suggest you follow all the excellent suggestions listed in the previous post particuliarly those by MorganFred.

That said before you spend too much money.... go to a coin show.. the experience I just had, having attended my first show yesterday, was invaluable!! There is nothing like seeing what's available and having a choices in the different coins your searching for right in front of your own eyes.

 

Hawkeye, it really depends on what you are looking for. Common coins like Franklin halves are probably not a good item (Except for the super high end pieces.) becaus they are readily available at coin shops or shows. For other items eBay is about the only venue. I collect Conder tokens and even at a large show I am unlikely to find more than one to two dozen pieces (At a sixty dealer show last week end I found four.) On eBay at any given time there are ninety to a hundred pieces or more, and many of the tougher ones are often in the hands of British sellers that I would never run into here in the US. Other items I look for are also seldom found in dealers shops or shows (Notgeld coins, large cent die varieties, capped bust half dimes by variety) and eBay works well for me there as well. Yes you do ave to watch the shipping charges, but not everyone charges unreasonble rates. So if you are looking for relatively available coins just ignore the high shipping sellers. You WILL find the same coins with more reasonable shipping from others.

 

A Frankie eh.....
Tell you what, if your willing to pm me your addy, I will send you a Mint State Frankie as my gift to you.

Welcome to the wonderful world of collecting coins....

 

Bravo, Lucy!!

 

I am sure this has probably already been stated. But I always take the shipping into consideration as to what I want to pay in total. I think that higher shipping rates are sometimes used as a way to avoid some of the fees? I recently saw a proof set with shipping of 16.?? dollars. Needless to say the bid price was much lower than others. I could see how someone who did not review could find themselves over bidding for an item.

 

eBay has been getting a little crappy lately. I'm tired of the inflated prices and the outrageous shipping costs. It's much cheaper to buy from your local dealer. I may buy a coin from eBay if I really need it. I will still continue to post auctions though.

David

 

i don't have any bones about shopping on-line in general, but i don't do e-bay.

 

Some people cut their bids down to compensate for excess. I just don't do business with anyone who over charges shipping no matter what they're selling. I'm not going to waste my time trying to figure out what other games they might be playing.

Don't let it discourage you. Anyone who knows me from CoinWorld knows that I'm a certified cynic. But not when it comes to on-line auctions. In spite of the BS, the Internet and places like ebay also free you to pursue *what ever* theme, no matter how unusual it may be, interests you, rather than what dealers happen to have available.

 

You really have to be careful with vendors who have
Paypal as a form of payment.See these 2 links why;
www.paypalsucks.com & www.paypalwarning.com .

 

Feedback is important,look at the sellers track record and how long they have been ebaying.
I find alot of coins by just letting people know I'm into coins.
they even bring them to me at work.