I was looking around at a small coin show yesterday and got into a conversation with one of the regular dealers there. He was showing me paperweight with a "Anniversary of WWII" clad commen. coin in it. The paperweight was made by the US Mint, and here is one just like it. http://www.ebay.com/itm/1991-1995-U...D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557 Anyway, he said he showed it to another dealer by the name of "John Ferm". He was told that there was only a few of these known, and it was a "unlisted product" put out by the US Mint, also said person told him to "ask no less than $125". Now, I know this man somewhat personally, and know he would not lie to me. I am also not blaming this "John Ferm", as he could of been told this by someone else and quoted inaccurate info. So being the curious person I am, I looked it up on eBay, and found a few that sold for $10-$20, so they are not rare, and by no means worth $125. When I showed him this, he thanked me, and lowered the price of it significantly. He said he has been trying to sell it for quite some time. He explained he did not own a computer. While this man was not old, he said he never liked computers. So, the moral of this story...if you know any coin collectors that don't own a computer, recommend them getting them one, or if you like them well enough, get one for them. Of course, anyone who reads this post has a computer and knows what a wealth of information is on the internet, but to those who don't own a computer, they are "in the dark" as far as information. Also, as noted above, word of mouth my not always be true, and you can sometimes find more accurate information on the internet.
Oh, WOW!! Wasn't he just talking about looking things up for accurate information? It pays to own a computer, but it pays even more to use it..
The website wasn't posted to show anything wrong. It was posted in response (I'm fairly certain) to your comments that you know nothing about who John Ferm is/was. The respondent was merely pointing out the irony of you essentially calling a dealer a luddite for not liking/trusting computers, then mucking things up by not knowing how to do a simple Google search.
I know fully well who he is, but I did not want to draw attention to him, for I did not wish to cast him in a negative light.
I thought the moral of the story was before you even look at a dealers inventory ask if they own a computer. Then you will know if they over price their items and you will know better not to waste your time. Or was the lesson that you can ask whatever price you want, but you will only get what people are willing to pay? Or was it to buy a PC or Mac? I don't know... I am confused now.
I'm on Detecto's side on this one. Not that his point was particularly insightful or anything. But in his story he named someone who presumably gave bad information. He said nothing else about this person as it wasn't very relevant to the story. Then he gets jumped on for not researching the person. Now if he had said "I know nothing about this guy or if he even exists" or even if a basic google search revealed the guy was a crook, or B&B or something, then yeah you guys would have a point. But he didn't. He just said "so and so said this", and then gets jumped on. Usually, imo, he deserves it but this time he really didn't do anything inappropriate.
some people prefer to not sign on or stay off of the network and they get family or friends to look it up or do the transactions ( if there is any )
