So I went to a local show today. I almost left without buying anything but the dealer near the door had a page of misc ancients. I sat down and looked them over. Nothing very good, but flipped the page and there was a page of denari and antinoninous. None were identified. I looked them over carefully, keeping Doug SMith's words of wisdom in mind, and picked out two REALLY NICE vf denari. Both clean, high end VF with full legends and well struck both sides. I asked the dealer why they weren't attributed and he said he didn't know a thing about them. I asked for a pen and attributed most, and listed the denomination on them for him. When I was done, I asked him how much for those two coins. He said since I did that work for him $55. I paid him, but felt bad. So, I walked back and told him that was too cheap, and gave him another $20. TBH, I am not sure if I could buy one of these coins on Ebay today even for the price I paid him for two. One is a MA, and the other I am not sure, but looks like a scowling Caracalla. Really high end, though, like something in a CNG fixed price list. Am I stupid for going back in just to give him more money? One benefit, though, is he then took my name and number down for when he ever gets more ancients.
I have been in the same situation recently. I am identifying about 100 greek and roman coins for a local dealer who only knows about US coins. I have bought a few from him and I will buy some more and it is tempting to tell him that the value is low, but....do unto others...
No, you did the right thing. Good deeds like yours aren't seen often enough, not only in our world of coin collecting but in life generally. Congratulations on your honesty. I think you've made a friend for life. I'm sure you'll hear from that dealer sometime down the road wanting to return the favor. Bruce
There is never any thing wrong being honest.....Good Karma Vs Bad....no brainer as now this dealer knows you're a good customer and may offer you items others wished they had first crack. :thumb:
Honesty IS the best policy. Karma! What goes around comes around. You did a good thing. I did something similar a couple of years ago. Local coin shop that does not deal in Ancients, but he had a couple thrown in a cup with some other "junk". One was a Trajan Decius Antoninianus in EF condition. I told him I would check on the value and come back to pay for it. I did check, I went back to the shop about two weeks later and offered him a solid price for the coin. He told me I could just pay half the value since I was honest enough to come back. Soooo, honesty pays.
Nice work. I see nothing wrong with what you did, its good to be honest. It would be nice though, if you posted pics of them two coins you picked up.
Nicely played, medoraman ... nicely played First of all, you feel good because you did what you thought was right (which showed a great deal of integrity) ... ... and secondly, by "paying it forward" and showing great integrity, you've set-up the possibility of future smooth-transactions!! => winner-winner, chicken dinner!! :high5:
Way to go , there's more honest people than crooks but few would do what you did . I definitely believe what goes around comes around , and paying it forward . Wish there were more like you sir .
Good call. Education can flow both ways. Funny though, that you asked if you had been stupid. As if, in our culture, nice and honest equate to being stupid.
My only concern here is how you know the value if you can't ID the coin. Certainly there is nothing wrong with paying the extra if you are sure it was warranted but the combination of uncertain ID and super high grade makes me worry about authenticity so we need to see photos. I'm also trying to understand which of my "words of wisdom" prevented you from buying the lot. I am sure that the seller would have been happier to sell the page for a fraction of retail than to sell two and wonder where to market 18 more.
Yep, but it was not much more than the dealer asked, BTW the dealer was a member of this forum and the coin was my 1900 Lafayette dollar.
Your words of wisdom i remembered was choosing well centered, all legends on the flan examples. I chose the only two denari that met that description that also had well struck reverses. He had antoninuous that did, but were gordian III or philip. Btw, i said they were really nice vf's, not fdc.
No, not at all. You got what you wanted for a more than fair price and you made a new dealer friend in the process. Doing something good for someone is always the right thing to do and you will be reimbursed 10 fold. I think one of the proverbs says something like that but I actually know it's true from experience. As they say in Australia, good on ya' mate!!
I think doing the right thing always apply's. I do 2 or 3 show's a year. Each coin i buy i hope to make a profit, so you have a mark up of each coin, so some coins you would need to mark up more than others to pay for you table and so on.( do this myself more for fun).. So if this dealer bought the Ancients, he probably paid one price of the whole lot.So you would have got a good deal and he would have made a few dollars. By paying more made you feel better, which is ok..
You, sir, are a very honest man! I work at a coin shop and the truth is that there is no way a dealer can do it all. The hobby of coin collecting is just too huge. No matter how hard we try, every once in a while we will miss something that we just don't know enough about. I can see why the dealer took your name and number down too. It's nice to have great clientele and collectors like you in the hobby.
If he didnt know a thing about them and was selling the on the cheap, imagine what he paid the poor sap who strolled into his store with them. Consider that possibility when deciding to give more money. To contribute to the thread, I dont know if this counts but the coin in my avatar was listed on ebay and I fell asleep with about 5 minutes left while waiting to snipe it last second, though there were no bids on it at the time. A dealer bought it and I was able to track him down a month later and Without asking him the price I offered 50% over the winning bid. Whether or not he was going to ask for less than that I dont know, though he claimed his max bid was 100% over what the winning bid as but he sold it to me anyway. For all I know he was going to dump it for a 50$ profit and I tripled him up.
