anyone buying the state quearter P,D gold stae queater set from the Home shopping network for $169.95
kneil3, those quarters are just gold plated. My advice to you is not to buy any thing from the home shopping network. Lou
Unlike many others, I think HSN does a great service to the hobby. They provide newcomers with a significant amount of information, and most of their products are packaged nicely. They overprice, but many new people wouldn't know where to go to buy the stuff if not for HSN. Anyway, I suspect there are more people than those who will admit it that watch it. I do.
I watch them for the entertainment. But I must say, I have talked to several major coin dealer who all have said that the TV sellers are helping the hobby by taking stagnant material, like generic Morgans, off of the market. They sell it to people who are not serious collectors and the material often stays off the market for years, hoarded away by noncollectors. Now, are the TV people good for the long-term health of the coin market.....thats a different story.
Then HSN is a better entry point than say... Shop At Home? I think both overstate things in order to give an aura of value to what they sell (most of which is about double what you can buy the same stuff from ed's coin shop down the street for). They IMHO tend to inflate the investment potential of ordinary things in order to sell them. Strictly as a source of information, if you can get through all of the hyperbole, you could potentially learn something.
I think it's much like any other 'thing' on TV ~ whether it's HSN or CC or any other 'infomercial'. People who buy things from a televised show expecting a full value for their purchase somehow manage to put their logic on hold and forget how very expensive it is to advertise on television. This astounds me the same way people buying coins on Ebay refuse to factor the shipping fee as part of their full purchase cost (you know, those coins that sell for $X but shipping is fixed at $XXY). It's impulse shopping for some; the only available method of purchase for others.
As far as those shows being accurately informative, I'm not sure if I'd trust all of that. Alot of the coins they sell are hyped to the fullest extent to pull in the most uneducated buyers. Most of which have no idea how much the coins they are buying are really worth. People that buy coins, or anything for that matter, on these shop at home programs are buying the items as gifts for someone and dont know that there are other places to purchase these items for much less money. I'll watch it occasionally for a little humor, but after about 10-15 minutes it starts to irritate me knowing how many people are wasting their money.
If you want to see something wild, watch those TV guys 'buy' at coin shows... They come in with bottomless checkbooks and suck every available coin out of the room - it's like watching a car wreck.. you just can't turn away.
The TV coin shows do disseminate information about collecting but just the stuff that helps their sales pitch and most of the time it's misleading. Manipulated to give the impression of rarity to common date coins. They also repeat the same things over and over like "the government doesn’t make these anymore" or "Contains almost a full Oz of silver" when trying to pitch circulated silver $1s,which most of us know only contain about 3/4 oz. All said and done they may be good for the hobby; I just think their tactics are sleazy.
My biggest problem with these guys is the number of potential collectors that they will turn off to our hobby by selling them over priced coins. Lou
Another useful function of HSN... Where else could I have found out so quickly that I shouldn't buy the first spouse coins because the people on them looked like cartoon characters?
I was doped up on sleeping pills one night and ended up ordering the state quarters sets off of one of those types of channels. Oh well, it wasn't too bad. At least I'll have all of them. AND the two special Sacci's.....LOL
OMG roto... you bought from CSN??? (Consumer Shopping Network) The one that runs the same taped program over and over again???
HSN et al Howdy, If I'm channel surfing, I'll see what they're hyping - this and ShopatHome are the primary TV vendors. Is there some interesting history shared? Sure. They might even introduce/recruit some new collectors. However, net/net this is bad stuff for the hobby. It's not so much the overhype, but the huge overcharging they do on everything they sell. Cripes, it's all 50-100% over retail and with that sort of 'front load', you won't get your money back in a lifetime or two. Is that the sort of introduction to the hobby you want someone to have? That they got royally screwed by overpaying? And perhaps the greatest damage is done when the unsuspecting TV coin buyer takes their prized coins into the local dealer and trys to sell them. Dealer gives them an accurate Grey Sheet prices and they go ballastic and accuse the coin dealer of trying to rip them off. They leave in a huff and thereafter think THE DEALER is a crook. Alas, it was the TV show. Never, ever, ever, buy a coin from TV. peace, rono
LOL I think that could be the name of the thing. That's what insomnia + a triple dose of prescription sleep medication can do to you. It was a mistake, but not an overly costly one. It could have been much worse, considering some of the "bargains" I've seen on those programs. That and the outrageous offers they keep sending me in the mail. I imagine the quarters are just bait to get people into their database. Needless to say, I have not bought anything other than the quarters.
Shop At Home is sacrificing NGC PR 70 President Proofs for $1399.95. I better hurry before they are all sold out! Adieus.
