The current Numismatic News has an add on the back page for "NGC/PCGS Certified MS 65/67 Superb Coin(s) of the Month Club". For a fixed amount a month (starts at $100 and goes up to $50,000) you can get what they claim are special prices off the retail price of coins. Seems like most of the prices are around 60% of retail, with some only 50%. You take what they send but have a two week return privilege. There are 6 different plans, all US coins except for the World Gold Coins plan. This holds absolutely no interest for me but I was wondering what others thought about it. Has anyone ever done this? Given that you don't choose the coins yourself and don't see them in advance it sounds dubious to me.
have you ever seen a coin sold at a fraction of it's true market price? ever??? If the coin is worth $X, how would they get it for cheaper? are they manufacturing them? If they can get them for less than $X, then their market value is less than $X.
@mikenoodle already nailed it. You are not getting a special price. The discount they say you are getting is imaginary. I advise to stay away from this "club".
Nobody, and I do mean NOBODY, pays for advertising in a national publication to give you something for nothing! So, let's assume that 1,000 idiots fall for this scheme and pay $100 per month for the chance to get a valuable coin that they will probably never see. Sure! They can send it back, but in the meantime, the company is collecting $1.2 million dollars annually that they will never have to repay. The idiots never think of it in this manner. Chris
Isn't it GFR Galleries or something like that? It's similar to getting coins on approval like Littleton and Pallisades does. Usually and almost always over priced. There's no such thing as a free ride anymore unless you stick your thumb out.
It is G&F Galleries in Philadelphia. No street adress, just a PO Box. I've never heard of them. One of the reasons I raised this issue is that it reflects badly on NN if they are not reputable, so one would hope they are.
Geez! And to think that people complain about the legit grading services that take a customer's money for a specialty insert. Chris
Quite correct, G&F Galleries. They are a long time advertiser in NN. I've never heard about anything bad about them but I've never done any business with them. NN does have a policy about advertizer's that get reported too often and have the right to shut them off. Weather they follow through on that policy is another question.
I forget the name of the company, but I had a $250 a month subscription going for a while on raw coins. I'd have to say that value wise I did very well, but I also ended up with a bunch of coins that I wouldn't have normally gone after. They were all good old collector coins, but not necessarily what I was collecting. My main focus at the time was standing liberty quarters and once I got past the commons, the selection became pretty thin, or the quality went way down. At first I was getting 64 and 65 (my grades), but it went down to sliders and lower being passed off as MS. I was like, aw hell naw and canceled my subscription.
There have been companies offering plans like this for decades (Even some of the larger more respected firms did so.) There was nothing wrong with such programs, and with the reputable firms you got what was described in terms of quality. But what you typically received were commons that they were overstocked with that were slow movers.
I suspect you'll get common, generic, high-pop coins, as mentioned. Stuff sold through these programs is likely, like the stuff sold on TV, pretty good quality (in this case, the plastic helps confirm that) - but overpriced. As @cpm9ball pointed out, nobody is gonna spend big advertising bucks just to sell scarcer, premium coins at a discount. "Ain't no Santa Claus in numismatics", as the old folk wisdom goes, and @mikenoodle paraphrased. And since Santa ain't out there lookin' out for me, I'd much rather select my own coins individually, thank you very much. With only one or two small exceptions, the last time I "bought a pig in a poke" (i.e., purchased via sight-unseen mail-order) was in 1998.
Perhaps the reason the add was on the back page was to attract the casual reader who picks it up from the racks at B&N
Back covers of magazines command a premium price for a reason. The advertiser knew what they were doing by buying that space.
