Tonight's eBay WTH...

http://cgi.ebay.com/36-Various-US-S...Individual&hash=item483e318249#ht_10756wt_968

Check out rows 6 and 7 of the photos in the body of the auction.

This one raised some flags for me, but I figured it was worth bidding on -- it explicitly says that it included a 1798 silver dollar, so if it turned out to be a reproduction, I'd be covered under Buyer Protection (item substantially not as described). I was still nervous enough to put in a lowball bid (well below the $2K that that one coin would likely bring if it's as pictured).

So, I waited until the last few seconds, hit the button, saw a pause, and then...

"You've been signed out."

GAAAHHHH!!!

Well, as it turned out, my offer would've been too low anyhow. Given the psychology of the thing, I might've been willing to try a higher bid if given the chance -- one thing sniping does is help me control that urge. But if it had gone for less than my (attempted) bid, I would've been a VERY unhappy camper. (Actually, I'm still a pretty unhappy camper -- if it was convincing enough to bid on, it was convincing enough to bid higher than that.)

So, feel free to point out why placing a winning bid would've been a terrible idea. To me, it still looks like a treasure hiding in a pile of commonplace.

 

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1798 Dollar looks fake. many coins look cleaned, and most of his description is probably not true.

 

Why would you ever think about that lot? 1846 would be one of the better coins and there is no picture. Did you read it all?

 

1798 is a fake, I would have paid silver value for the rest...

 

That would have been a heck of a deal if the 1798 were real and there was something to go by with the 1849 Seated dollar, you saved youself some unwarranted agony by being logged out. karma

Happy Collecting

 

You guys ARE brutal! The seller has 100% feedback on 622 positives. So all of a sudden he's selling fakes?
Steve

 

Luck was with you when you missed out on that auction.

 

I do think we can be brutal at times but that coin is fake from that picture.

 

Drapped bust is a Definate fake! The stars are gapped too far apart and are not the right shape, and the hair or ribbon on the hair is too thin compared to a real drapped bust silver dollar...

I think you probably saved your money!

As far as the feedback goes, they have not sold anything in 6 months, many things could change between now and then. And the posting did say "i need the money for christmas". And desperate people do desperate things! JMHO

 

Not brutal... you are the only one who is in favor of the seller. I bought a coin and the seller had over 2000 100% feedback and I got it and the damage to the coin was completely not what the pictures showed.

 

It could mean that 622 fakes have been sent and people did not know it - pure speculation since I did not review any of the auctions. An example of this is look how many sales Vernon has for SGS and how many are positive. I do agree with the others that the 1798 does not look right - plus all the cleaned coins. You saved yourself a headache. To save myself some headaches I almost always skip all auctions where "no returns and all sales final". On occasion I do bid on one, but I always use a CC to have a fallback plan for stopping payment.

 

Buyer Protection. Remember, eBay policy is heavily slanted in favor of the buyer anyhow -- and I think a report of "coin was counterfeit" would get quick and decisive results in any case.

I think you're all probably right that missing out was my good luck. He's sold some CC dollars with good feedback -- but that in itself makes "I'm letting this 1798 go with a bunch of Morgans because I don't know any better" pretty hard to swallow. The bit about "my camera batteries died" is laughable.

But what's he trying to do? He's going to get at least a negative feedback out of this, unless his buyer is too gullible to get the coin authenticated -- it's quite possible he'll get his account suspended. I don't see him posting a flood of "I'm poor, I'm dumb, I'm selling ill-promoted treasures in random batches of coins for a fraction of their true value" auctions, trying to scam lots of people before the feedback hits the fan.

Maybe he had doubts about the coin, and figured selling it as part of a batch without calling attention to it was a way of "laundering" it. Not going to work out very well, though, I imagine.

It's a puzzle. Thanks for the feedback -- harsh is fine; I generally don't take forum discussions too personally...

 

Yes - buyer protection. I dealt with that once and lost. It was just a headache and time consuming - now if anything is in doubt I use a credit card for paypal on ebay. They got me once, it won't happen again. I know it is better than when I had the issue, but I don't trust paypal to automatically find in my favor. The best thing that happened out of the process, was when the seller responded with his rant - he finished it by saying, "As part of this case I expect positive feed back to be included". I told the seller accept the return and send me my money or nothing paypal does will prevent the negative. The same day they found in his favor - he got the negative. He tried complaining to ebay and to paypal. It still makes me smile to this day thinking about his rants and him still getting a negative. Also some people let buyers negotiate no feed back or positive feedback. I have seen it happen. And yes some people will automatically assume the coin is legitimate and give positive feedback. I have seen fake coins sold and positive feed back left - it makes me wonder how many other times they got away with it. Plus some people are too embarrassed to admit they got cheated. Sorry if I sounded harsh, but I always want to save people the headaches I have gone thru.

 

@ HULLSCOINS, So you returned it right? I'm not in favor of fakes, I am just amazed at the piling on.. and during the Holiday Season.... Shameful!!
Steve

 

Na, I'm sorry for the misunderstanding, all I am saying is that the seller there is passing that coin as genuine and I (and most of the CTers who saw this) agree. And that's why we were "brutal"

 

No worries! Hope that you have a GREAT Holiday Season and Happy 2011!
Steve

 

ebay is also a brutal place to be buying based on pics 95% of the time. theres a fake draped bust dollar and theres no pic of a key date seated dollar.

 

Right... because the Christmas spirit is about letting scammers pawn off their fakes on unsuspecting people without any questioning of their reputability...

(I'm assuming you were being sarcastic, so I'm throwing it back at you )

 

Hint:
1) the Bust is a fake

2) would you include an 1893 S in XF in a lot like this if it were genuine?

You saved a lot of $'s.

 

1 - Yes. It's a fake.

2 - No. An 1893-S would get slabbed first. Maybe CAC'd. Then, I'd solicit private offers, blah, blah, blah, etc, etc, etc. No eBay. I'd have to do my checking around first.