How NOT to Cherry Pick~

Had to share this one with you all. A few lessons to be learned/perhaps laughed at.

Today a guy walks into the shop. Might be "playing" stupid but I doubt it (hope I don't offend anyone).

Asks about those 2008 "Silver Dollar" coins. Yeah, we got em so the boss gets some out for him to look at. He's not getting a real good look so we give him a 5x. Hmmmm.... he's really looking at the U in UNITED.

Boss is starting to get irritated and I"m starting to get amused. Heck, we KNOW what he's looking for.

The boss finally walks away and comes back with an NGC MS69 2008 reverse of 2007 ASE and tells the guy "here's one - you can have it for $600". Then proceeds to tell the guy that we originally had 200 coins and found 2. I can attest as I went through them.

Needless to say he did NOT buy the $600 coin (which of course would have been offered to a regular customer much cheaper). He wanted to "cherry pick" us.

Now the kicker. Where did he learn about this coin? On a TV show of course!

I ended up selling the guy three small size currency holder for $1 because he had some star notes.

Now this may seem cruel but IF you're going to even ATTEMPT to cherry pick a dealer information garnered from HSN etc. just won't cut it.
IF you know more than a dealer about a certain variety etc., on the other hand, more power to you.

I can only imagine how many times my boss has seen stuff like this.

clembo

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

I wouldn't have been so obvious about it. I might have asked to see some Morgans and then some Buffaloes and then casually asked to see some early ASEs. Then I might have said, "Do you have any of these from 2008?"

 

I'm a habitual cherry picker but I did faced situations like this a couple of times but those were early days....
Now I've mastered the art..:mouth:

 

yup, gotta have do sense of being subtle.

That said, can I see your 1864 two cent pieces?

 

The only stuff I'll try to cherry is the junk silver.

 

I buy all my coins these days from a discount dealer everybody I know simply refers to as, "Guido." I think that's his first name. Anyway, if you also might be interested in deals on electronics, jewelry or furs, you're in luck, as he apparently has a very large inventory of those, too. Find him at Augostino's, Elmwood Park, Harlem at Grand, back table, most nights...

 

Eddie! I know who you're talking about - isn't he also the guy who came up with the idea of the Spouse series?

 

LOL--that's the thug!

 

I actually read about this on another forum very early on before many people read it on NGC's website -- I think when they announced they were grading a new variety is when everyone found out.

Anyways I did exactly this, but no one knew what I was doing at the time. Since I usually sell to this dealer, and don't normally buy I just went ahead and told him the deal, and that he should set three of them aside until a higher price develops. He kind of looked at me, and then I showed him what I was talking about.... A few weeks later when the mint released their statistics he was really happy considering the only other coin in the series with that low of a mintage is somewhere around $4,500.

I never bothered to ask him when or if he sold them, and how much he got for them. I know they are going for 500-600 last time I checked. hmmmmm.... wonder if what I did was the right thing? haha

Anyways, this really ended up being a good thing for me to do.... They guy is now always asking me what I have got, and talks to me like one of the regulars.

 

And it's cool when this works out for you -- true cherrypicking!

 

now THAT is funny !

 

I can kinda commiserate with the unskilled cherrypicker.

Last summer I started collecting US-Philippine coins by variety, and would cherry pick at shows. Now, when I look at a coin, I generally don't look at the writing on the flip, so that I can form an unbiased opinion. The first coin I pulled out was a 20 centavo - a good overmintmark variety. I put it aside. The second coin was a 50 centavo - another good variety. So on and so forth. I thought I'd hit the jackpot! Then I noticed the prices on the flips, these coins were expensive! I thought "what the heck? These things should be cheap." Then I realized they were already attributed by variety. I ended up telling the dealer what I just did; we ended up having a good conversation.

 

oh its stories like that, they make me laugh

 

2007 reverse?? Why no, I'm looking for the... ah, ultra rare upside-down U variety... gotta go, bye!

 

Love the stories you've shared guys. I have NO problem with cherry picking but it is an art at times.

I "anti" cherry picked myself yesterday.

We got a real nice 1877CC Seated Liberty Dime in on Friday. Think it took an old cleaning but awesome album retoning. Heavy on the blue tones so I'm interested.

Took a glance at Coin Prices and see it has two listed varieties. Get to work on Saturday and look it up in Breen. Yup, scarcer variety and an easy AU coin. Looks like I priced myself out of that one

Oh well. I can buy more gas.

 

Yeah....that was alittle odd
I always try to look at alot of stuff and pull out things I'm not even interested in. If I'm at a show and have my books with me I try to go somewhere else and check it out in my books just to double check before I buy.

Speedy

 

At least he was smart enough not to shell out the $600 wanted for a coin who's mintage may very well be a third of the total for 2008 ASE's. I'd wait a year or so when they're selling for 2 dollars over the normal pieces.
Guy~

 

The Mint believes they total around 47,000 I believe. They were over the 250,000 mark in May.. so I think the general consensus is it will be much less than a third unless the original 47,000 proves to be untrue.

 

You should only look down on someone if you are trying to help them up. He did not know what he is doing. But I guess he got a lesson on where not to look for gems.

 

Ahh... LIke us all trying to get a good deal.. Win some lose some.. He just picked the wrong person to try and cherry pick on.. Ya gotta laugh..