Horror Stories about Coins.........

When I was a kid, my father received a really nice 1917-S obv W-L 50c in change. Today, it would probably grade XF45. Anyway, I kept it for many years before I decided I would try to get rid of some tiny black specks on the eagle's breast. I made a solution of baking soda and water, got rid of the specks, and took a $750 coin down to one worth $250. Of course, having fooled with coins in one way or another for more than 60 years, that's just one horror story out of MANY!

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

Read this again: BooksB4Coins, post: "I know so-called "respected dealers", including second generation businesses, but wouldn't trust them to hit more than the general range when grading ['or authenticating'] even the most common of types..."Simply owning a business does not make one a knowledgeable professional."

"If a "dealer" cannot evaluate coins himself, he's not worth one's time, nor should he be viewed as a professional as far as I'm concerned. Perhaps if collectors stopped settling for or accepting that many so-called "dealers" are not as knowledgeable as they rightfully should be, it would force them to actually learn their own trade and would be an absolute win-win for this hobby." AMEN!

 

This is more funny than sad, fortunately.

Sometimes a dealer will toss in a little token of appreciation for a purchase. I have received a 1958 cent, some sports cards, and pens.

I got the mailer containing a cent I was waiting for. Confounded by plenty of sealing tape, I sliced off the end with a pair of scissors. A little piece of paper fluttered to the table.

I reached in, and found that I had sliced a Canadian banknote in two.

I don't collect currency, but I was still disappointed that I had ruined this nice gift. I was even more disappointed about an hour later when I got an email from the seller. He wanted to know if there was an extra banknote in my package - another buyer was missing it!

I could only send him the picture and my apologies.

He sent the other customer a better note and had a good laugh about the photo.

 

Glue on Lincoln cents.

That wouldn't be a bother to be a bit.

 

I subscribe to the Numismatic Crime Information Center emails. A few months ago they reported the theft of a nice XF 1795 dollar. That was a crime. The numismatic horror was that someone had crudely altered the date to 1794.

 

Unfortunately, it isn't only the dealers/buyers/sellers that don't have a grasp of grading uniformity, the same is generally true of the TPG.

For several years we have been doing an independent study of actual grading standards between high volume dealers who regularly submit expensive coins to the 2 "top tier" TPG, and the disparities of the grading between those TPG.

The dealers will always closely inspect the coins which have been removed from one TPGs slab for submission to the other, stating the expected grade, offering that the coin shouldn't be submitted as it is only an AU, or it has been cleaned.

I virtually never submit a coin less than MS unless it's a semi-key, and only submit a "cleaned" stated coin unless I believe it's acceptable to the 2nd TPG. The high-volume dealers are shipping $30K-60K of coins at a time and are fearful of a singular cleaned or AU coin, diminishing the grades for the entire lot, and reject any coin of believed condition.

The high-volume dealers appear to be correct about half the time, as the coins they reject are just submitted through a low volume dealer (e.g. 10 coins or less) to determine both their accuracy and that of the respective secondary TPG. The 2 TPG generally don't concur but ~30% of the time. Their grades have varied regularly 1-3 grades, dependent on the TPG, coin scarcity, and some predictable factors for a specific TPG.

The value difference disparity between dealers and TPG for a given coin can vary as much as several thousand dollars.

Based on past and current independent studies, I believe that they have shown there isn't adequate standards/uniformity for anyone to protect an investment in Numismatic items. It doesn't appear that anyone can accurately proclaim the value of a collection. I find that horrible!

I found the following article interesting:
http://www.coinweek.com/education/c...nterpret-certified-coin-grades-in-the-future/

JMHO

 

Does this count?

 

I especially liked the toothpaste method.

 

O.
M.
G.

"...using silver to make bullets and things like that for WWII..."

She should really stop doing this and go turn on the TV. They're rerunning that "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" documentary series again.

 

[quote uid=82941 name="jfscmedic" post=2565231]What's your biggest horror story that you have seen someone do with coins ?[/QUOTE]<br />Does this count?<br /><br />

WOW...just wow

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

 

I have heard or read several variations of this "old coin" story:

A man living in New York has just returned from a trip to Istanbul and throws a party at his apartment.

He pulls out a plastic bag of large dirty old copper coins and tells his guests that he walked by a construction site where the wives of some of the workers were selling bags of Byzantine coins found by workers and bought a bag for a few dollars.

At the party, he opens the bag and hands out the coins which still have dirt on them.

He then begins talking about the coins of Justinian and having determined the time the coins were buried to around 540 to 550 AD.

His guests are passing the coins around while the host explains that there was a plague or "black death" epidemic in the city at the time and that whoever dropped the coins was probably dying horribly of plague.

By now all of the guests are running to the bathroom or kitchen and scrubbing their hands with soap, detergent, cleaning powder.


Byzantine Justinian (AD 527-565) AE Follis
Obverse: Diademed, draped, and cuirassed bust right / D N IVSTINI-ANVS PP AVG
Reverse: Large letter "M", star left, cross top, cross right, Gamma under large "M", CON in exergue
Bronze, 30mm, 17.98gm, Catalog: Sear 158
Struck: AD 527-538 Constantinople
Grade: PF-30 (Plague Free)

 

Lol, yeah. Novelty silver ingots in the shape of bullets aside, people don't realize what a terrible material silver would be for bullets.

 

Tell that to The Lone Ranger.

 

By your logic and reasoning, professionals and true dealers are a very rare breed. Try going to a large regional or even a national coin show to sell a coin. You would be shocked by the number who merely glance at the TPG label and whip out their Greysheet or Bluesheet without even flipping the piece over.

 

This is a story which was told OFTEN on the CU Forums back when the 7070 Dansco was the big craze.

Buy an MS64, plunk it into a Dansco, decide to sell after regrading and it dropped a point or 2 if it graded at all.

 

Wow! The comment section on YouTube says all I need to say.

"Silver Bullets"?? Now that would be a very expensive war.

 

Dealer builds a collection of gold coins over about 30 years. Several hundred really nice coins. It's his pride and joy.

Trusted employee starts taking a few coins home each day.

Dealer finds several empty trays behind safe.

Employee sold the gold as scrap to buy drugs that he stuck up his nose.

Dealer is not sure who to trust from that point on.

 

Yes. True numismatists, both dealers and collectors, are a rare breed.

You are preaching to the choir. I attend many shows a year. If it were not for the Greysheet and TPGS that allow anyone to "play" coin dealer, the ignorant and the lazy who don't learn a few things about coins would be raped constantly until they went broke and had to find another profession. I have little regard for many full-time dealers; however, all they need to exist today is to be good at business.

 

Fix your typo @Insider. I have yet to see anyone being raped at a coin show let alone constantly

 

Thanks, I wanted to write "rapped."