When inputing terms into your favorite search engine (for now, lets use Ebay) - how do you search for + and * designated coins? These special characters are reserved for searches, * being a wildcard and + being a Boolean. Some sellers spell out Star and Plus, but not nearly all of them - browsing, I have found many + and * coins that were not returned in any searches I could think up. So how do you do it? Any tricks, special phrases, etc? Any ways to fool the search engine into returning titles with those actual characters, instead of using it as a wildcard? And just because this thread needs pics - here is a gorgeous Seated Liberty half graded NGC MS-66 +* that I found while browsing:
I usually just search for NGC star, followed by the denomination I'm looking for, or by itself to bring up everything. If people are foolish enough to only use "*" in the title than I'm foolish enough to miss their auctions. BTW, what did I miss? I thought only PCGS was going to be using the "+" designation. I've never seen a NGC +*. High grade MS-66 with nice eye appeal?
I am not really interested in the star designation but routinely search for the star designation. Most E-Bay sellers understand that they must spell out the key word "star" and any search including that word will result in a bunch of NGC star coins. My main source of coin however is Heritage not E-Bay. There is no way to search for star coins in the signature sales. Every year when I fill out the customer survey, this is the focus of my comments. Their search system already includes a section for designations. Within that category, they cover the color designations, strike designations, and Cameo designations. I simply don't understand why they cant add the *, +, and CAC.
NGC had it in the works, too, but they chose to delay the start of their program for a month or so later. Chris
Paul, I have noticed the same issue with Heritage, and will definitely include that on my yearly survey next time. Bob, I'll repost my reply to your post on the NGC boards here for these guys:
That slab insert looks absolutely ridiculous. Does anybody else think that NGC's version of PCGS's version of CAC is a waste of time, and looks rather ugly on the slab. Next thing you know we'll have smiley faces on the slab, all sorts of different companies with their stickers, saying if the coin is good or not. NGC's STAR and CAC alone were enough, now we are getting into overkill.
T$, I personally thought CAC was unnecessary.... and then I thought the + was really unnecessary..... I'm sure whatever comes next I will think is unnecessary as well. I'm just waiting for a Franklin + * FBL CAC.
What I liked about CAC is that was a third party to TPG, and a lot of CAC coins I agree with their assessment, and it was another 'insurance' policy for the people buying the coins. CAC doesn't to a lot for me, I grade the coins and decide if they are good for the grade or not, but people take it way out of hand, and those people are normally the people who can't grade coins for themselves, or they drink new and improved green Kool-Aid. I think CAC was unnecessary, but was at least helpful, I think this "+" crap is really unnecessary, so I agree.
My experiences indicate that the eBay search engine ignores everything that isn't either letters or numbers. All special characters are treated as spaces. So unless a seller states "star" or "plus" you just have plug and chug through lots of items you're not interested in. BTW just FYI, if you are looking for a specific grade on eBay you have to specify it in two ways. For instance: (ms65,"ms 65") The entry with the quotes means 'treat this as a whole' AND since special characters are treated as blanks that will pick up MS-65. The other entry will find items without the hyphen. The parentheses mean the first entry OR the second entry which finds all 'normal' entries. And it's better to use lowercase letters. An 'm' will find an 'm' or an 'M'. BUT on some search engines an 'M' will only find 'M' and NOT 'm'.
