So I decided to do a little coin hunting. There are at least a dozen different coin shops within half an hour of my home, and I thought I'd visit one which I had never been to before. It was a fairly small shop with only 5 cases of coins while most of the rest was devoted to stamps. I immediately noticed that nearly every coin was low grade, harshly cleaned, or both. He had tons of XF/AU Morgans that had been dipped to death sitting in 2x2's marked BU or Prooflike. I thought this was shady to say the least, but then I went over to his final case and saw something far worse. In it were sitting 4 Trade Dollars, all of which were obvious fakes. One was dated 1799! I remarked to the dealer that I had never seen a Trade Dollar from 1799 before, and he spent the next 5 minutes telling me what a rare issue it was and that it was a bargain at $450.00! After that I bid him good day and left. It's people like that who give dealers a bad name.
I've been in places like that before. Its the shady dealers that you run into that prevents more people from becoming collectors, in my opinion
It could also be that he doesn't have a clue as to whether the 1799 Trade dollar is real or not - he may well believe it is real. Just because someone is a coin dealer doesn't make them knowledgeable about the subject. Over the years I've run across more than one dealer who didn't know diddley squat about coins - but they sold them anyway. And there are plenty of dealers out there who are badly misinformed when it comes to certain facts about coins. Of course it could also be he was a scam artist as suggested.
i remember a couple of guys like that when I was a kid, luckily I never had the money to buy their "deals"
Maybe an article on fakes and coin cleaning slipped under his door? Its a tough one, I confronted a Young man, (kid) 20ish at a flea market a few years back about the condition of his coins, Real low grade common stuff, all cleaned with a wire brush I think. His responce was.. " The people that buy here are stupid enough to pay for them, I am stupid enough to take their money" I told him to sleep well and moved along.
This has been my experience as well. Sometimes it works both ways. There are people who claim to be "dealers" who grossly overprice, and some who underprice material because they just don't understand what they are selling. This mostly seems to occur with "dealers" who sell other items in addition to coins. They aren't really numismatic specialists because coins are just another sideline for them.
My favorite coin store at the moment doesn't exclusively sell coins; they also sell sports cards and comics as well, but still are quite knowledgeable about the coins. Their prices seem reasonable and have a decent selection of both common and rarer stuff. However they seem to underpay when buying stuff, even allowing for a generous markup for profit, so I don't ever sell anything there. Only offered $40 for a 1875 S 20 cent piece graded EF40 by ANACS... claimed they didn't agree with the grade... but even going 10 points below that grade and allowing for markup they should have offered more. They do pay just under spot for common gold and silver though, and that's all I'd ever sell them. Have no problem buying from them though. Found a lot of interesting coins including some slightly damaged ones that make good fillers for type sets. Got a great selection of Franklins especially, including a beautiful 1951 Franklin that practically borders on prooflike. My favorite aspect on the store is that everything is displayed in plain sight. I've seen some stores that don't even dispay the coins until you ask to look at them.
Hearing a story like this makes me thankful for my coin dealer. They have a good inventory, and fair prices. Most important, they know me and my family members by name, and never hesitate to let me look at valuable coins and bank notes without standing over me. Poorest excuse of a coin dealer I ever visited was a store in Florida where you had to ring a bell to be allowed in. Once inside, the dealer showed no interest in even talking with me. Two extremes. As mentioned, I'm fortunate to have a good dealer.
I have a great relationship with one of the local dealers here. I go to his shop every Saturday, and we are on a first name basis. Unfortunately however, recently he hasn't gotten much in that appeals to me. I have been working on sets MS Walkers and Franklins, and he just doesn't get that many of them in his shop. That's the reason that I decided to check out some of the other dealers in the area.
That's not gonna be cheap!! But it will be a beautiful set in the end. Please post pics once you get the 21S and the 19D!
One store that I used to go to... mainly because I just happened to know where it was, it is close to my parents' house, you had to ring the bell to be let in... seems to be a bad signed. Place seemed more like a jewelry store than a coin store. Very little of the merchandise was actually displayed, most of it slabbed. The people working there were friendly enough, but the store format left much to be desired. The layout did not seem to encourage looking around, it seemed like if you didn't already know precisely what you wanted to buy before going in there you may as well not bother. I really don't care for stores like that. I like being able to look around, browse the merchandise, then make up my mind if there's anything there I want or not.
Believe me, I'm well aware of the fact that it's going to be a challenge to complete a set of MS Walkers. I have already completed the short set in MS-65. I have decided to do the rest of the dates in MS-63 or 64. It will most likely take years to complete as I'm still a starving college student, but I do enjoy the challenge.
Oh how true this all is. With coin dealers and so called coin dealers it is just a guess as to what they know. I too constantly run into dealers that try to tell me all kind of stupid things about a coin they are trying to sell. I think that most of the dealers I've ever met are just a recent addition to the field based on they heard what a great buisness this is. One dealer has all his coins in boxes, no separations, just piled together. Has signs all xxx are $1 and he is always telling people they are worth 10 times taht because they are Silver. REAL SILVER that is. Then there are the true scam artist. I won't say the name but just saw on TV a interview with the owner of probably the biggest coin store in the Mid West. He was buying a collection from someone for $750 and I'll bet the seller got riped off right in front of the TV camera crew. Seller admitted he just inherited the collection. Ouch. I've been to that store and am amazed at how many coins have been cleaned and even state cleaned.
