Lots of below-melt silver showing up on eBay

I just wasted an hour or so following the new BIN listings in Coins & Paper Money on eBay. All the usual RARE MINT ERRORS fresh from the parking lot, lots of circulated clad stuff listed for hundreds of bucks, but there are also some folks listing silver at 45-50x face value, well below current melt. Those lots go fast, but not instantly; I spent a good ten minutes deliberating with myself over one before it sold.

I almost pulled the trigger on three Walkers for $50 + $5 shipping, 36.7x FV, which is well below my ad-hoc threshold of "2/3 melt" - but I'm just not sure I'm ready to jump back into actually buying on eBay.

Also saw a lot of 80 Walkers that was apparently a collection dump; it looked like it contained a 1916-P and 1916-something (likely D), and a 1921-P and 1921-something (likely S). Lots of dates, but he didn't call out the mint marks, and the photos aren't quite good enough to read them. He's asking $2800-something, well above melt. I did the thing of buying large lots to get key dates when I was building out my Barber set, and decided it was a good way to talk myself into not-so-good deals.

Same guy has a set of 35 Barbers that includes a 1905-P that was uncirculated, before someone scrubbed the obverse to death. Currently at $940, melt would be $980. Same story; I'm passing.

Next question: can I pull myself away in time to do any of the other stuff I intended to do this afternoon?

 

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Yes, I believe you can multi-task or just take a nap.

 

Oh, multi-tasking is another big lie. That's how you find yourself mis-calculating and paying 3/2 melt instead of 2/3 melt.

 

Welp, I've cracked the seal - I found a listing with a bunch of those framed "Coins of the [random historic period]" displays, calculated that the BIN price was about 60% of melt, and made an offer 10% below that. eBay has changed the way "Make an Offer" works, for the better, I think; I had to do a PayPal authorization before it would even put the offer through, and then it auto-billed when the offer was accepted.

I'll have some framing to donate or repurpose, some cardboard to toss, and some cents to put into the jar - but I'll also have 12 war nickels, 4 silver dimes, 3 silver quarters, 4 silver halves, a Morgan, two Peace dollars, and a buck or two of clad change for right around $230 shipped. I figure I'm good as long as silver stays above $45, and even if it does fall back below that soon, I'm confident it'll bounce back above that level in my lifetime.

 

That seller apparently accepted an offer for $2026, a bit below melt. Someone got a very good deal; I only hope they fish out the keys before hauling it all off to be melted.

 

I mentioned before that the surge in silver prices might be the modern day Pittman Act by accident. I don't think many people understood my implication. If they coins hit the refineries to be melted, it's going to eventually cause more scarcity of even common dates. Whether one thinks that's a good thing or not, depends on your perspective.

 

I've wondered about that....if in the future there's a surge or a large entrance of NEW collectors....could the coins we knew traded for melt or a modest premium -- like an MS-65 1924 Saint-Gaudens -- trade for a much higher premium, like what an MS-66 would sell for ?

Could that MS-65 Morgan Silver Dollar that normally traded for an affordable $50...now sell for a still-affordable but much higher priced $200 ?

I believe I have posted in some thread at CT an article from The NY Times from 1985 that talked about this phenomenon and noted that the rapid fall from the Hunt Bros. Silver Spike 5 years earlier had prevented a worse disaster, but didn't totally prevent some of the effects. If anybody wants to see it, it should be here or I can re-post.

 

Remember the 3 types of buyers for coins which determines the demand which must be satisfied at each level. Here's a guide for Saints based on what experts in the field have guestimated:

1. Registry Collectors, including the Top ones who can pay any $$$. You are talking maybe 500 to 1,000 of largely price-insensitive buyers who pretty much want at least 1 of every available coin in a set like Saints
2. Type Collectors, who may just want 1 or 2 coins of a large series like Saints or maybe a few dozen in total. They may buy just 1 of each year/mint or a few. You might have 25,000 to 50,000 (more ?) here. Price matters, especially if they already have the coin: a Type Collector with an MS-65 1924 is unlikely to want to add an MS-66 unless he has plenty of $$$.
3. Investor Collectors, who are looking to buy gold or silver contained in a coin series like Saints. You could have hundreds of thousands here buying the coins from late-night infomercials like RCTV or Blanchard. My clients in the 1980's and 1990's were buying these coins, and I was asleep at the wheel when Gem Saints were under $1,000 !!

So since the Registry guys don't have enough of the Fab Five Saints (1929-32), the series will ALWAYS be expensive for the Type and Investor classes, who probably will never even sniff those coins.

You probably need 25,000 or more coins in a series to NOT sell at an exorbitant premium given the numbers above of demand. Or you have to accept a much lower grade, assuming there are enough coins.

Will be interesting to compare "common" coins in the upcoming 2nd Edition Double Eagle Red Book and how many Liberty Heads and Saints are considered common in a grade like MS-65 or maybe MS-63.

 

Well, hmm. It's been a year or so since I bought anything using eBay/PayPal. Last night's transaction went smoothly, and I got an update this morning that "the seller is packing my order".

However, I also got a separate email, with this:



I hope this seller isn't using a compromised machine that leaked my PayPal ID. I hope even more strongly that it isn't an eBay leak.

(Edit to add: the name on this request doesn't appear to have anything to do with the seller.)

 

That's really weird. I buy from eBay and have a credit card on file, I refuse to ever do business through Pay Pal. I know too many people who've been burned by them before. I've also NEVER seen a message like that. As a buyer, you not only have eBay protection, but also your card's fraud protection (if it really comes down to it), and I've prevailed before with the card protection, when eBay was given solid proof a coin was counterfeit and failed to act.

 

You'd best contact eBay about that message. They take a DIM view about sellers transacting outside the platform. Not because they are morally superior, but because they aren't going to lose their cut.

 

Wow, I just did my Taxes on Turbo Tax for the last 25 years or so. Tried to efile 3 or 4 tmes, each rejected. Oops, Iforgot that You had to go to ID Me . Gov to get an IPPin. (Have done this for the last few years). This was in order for the IRS to accept your efile. Right after I received the IPPin, no problem, efile was accepted by IRS. Taxes done.

However, Right after I filed, received a very official looking ID Me email that let me print off my IPPin for my files. Ok, cool, I just filed. USUALLY I check the email address. I did NOT since the email was sent just after I got the IPPin and a successful efile of my taxes.

Long story short, I got hacked. Took 3 days of learning about the hack program to stop it, remove it, and keep it off my system (successful, but some real learning.)

These hackers must be camping out by these sites and preying on you.

Maybe we should be using our Special Forces to track down, hunt them, and take out these Hacker Mills completely…

 

Pay up, Jeff...the guy's entire fiscal year depends on you not shortchanging him !!!

 

PayPal offers me those Pay Now and Decline buttons. I chose the third button, the one at the top of the screen labeled "Log out". If PayPal keeps bugging me about the request, I'll hit up their customer service; I'm thinking even hitting decline might potentially give the phisher more information.

Leaves a bad taste in the mouth, though, for sure.

 

I don't think eBay would see this as having anything to do with them. Like I said, this doesn't appear to be from the original seller, although it's possible that it is - eBay obfuscates identities of both parties on transactions now (partly to prevent people doing business outside their control), so I won't know the seller's name unless it appears on a return address label.