Worst coin experience.

What was your worst coin experiance?? Coins you accidentally damaged or destroyed, Spent or other people destroyed.I was young and had 2 1921 morgan dollars and I had liked the sound they made when I hit one with the others rim.After a while they had rim marks all over them.:headbang:They were in i'd say Xf-40.I never found them.I hate myself.

 

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Tough break. Knock on wood - so far I have not accidentally damaged one.

 

Letting a 1955 DD go back to the bank I didn't know about them unil I joined this forum.

John

 

I dropped a proof half down the sink drain once.

 

True story, about 2 years back I saw a commercial for Kaboom, and how it cleans pennies, so I took a bunch of wheats and world coins and, well you can take a guess. That's honestly the only one I can think of right now.

Phoenix

 

WOW Phoenix you did good! I mean bad.

When I got my "coin collecting" kit from the Sears catalogue in 1968 (Santa actually brought it to me), it came with a nice, abrasive cleaner so I polished up my 1851 large cent.

I still have that coin. Maybe I'll post pics if I can locate it.

 

When I was a kid I raided my dads coin collection and spent the silver quarters on video games,,,,

 

buying 2 harshly cleaned and overgraded 50 dolllar each coins from my dealer about 1 year ago

 

well i bought a bag of 500 wheats about 10 year ago, and i told a cuz of mine about it, she said she was starting a collection of wheats she had bought a folder for them so i gave her the doubles and like a week later she call and she wants me to see it so i drive to her house has she said are they beautiful or what. i see all the coin in the album bright red and so cleaned it was a nightmare she had put them in some jewelry cleaner i was terrified so i tell her that you should not clean them.
she said they were all brown and icky thy look better like this. after a minute of silence that was the last time i saw her collection

 

It was probably when I discovered around age 12 that my local dealer was selling overgraded and overpriced coins to me. The result was that I abandoned the hobby for a few decades. The dealer made a few extra bucks, but probably lost a great deal more by permanently losing me as a customer. I was very interested in coins and very trusting at the time, and this guy was the first adult I ran into in my life that deliberately deceived me. Lesson learned. I had other interests to take its place. It was first Ebay and next Coin Talk that brought me back.

 

This isnt the worst... but:
I remember always looking in change for coins older than 1960 (this is when I was a kid, in say... 1997).
I remember seeing quarters that were always 1965, but not earlier.
Then, one day I found a 1964 quarter, and thought "oh, I finally found one... but its not older than 1960, so I dont want it" and spent it. lol

 

Back in 1962, I had an aunt who worked at the Harolds club casino in Reno. She thought it would be a nice gesture and gave my 2 brothers and me and nice Morgan dollar during a visit to Indiana. I can't remember what my brothers did with theirs but I do know that I took mine, almost immediately, and spent it at the local grocery store on candy. Hey, a dollar got you a lot of candy back then!! I'm just glad I never knew what the date was.

 

Mine isn't so much something on which I made a mistake as a painful experience through which I had to live. A couple of friends of mine with 3 kids (then, now #5 is on the way) and no money got a 1776 Continental Curency "coin" from her grandfather. A jeweler told them how much it was worth - and, because he kept some nice and shiny (i.e. cleaned) 1921 Morgans in the back, he was an expert coin dealer. They got stars in their eyes about what they were going to do with all that money. I was forced to tell them it was a cast lead copy. How do you take 6 figures out of your best friends' pockets?

 

I once bought 80 buffalo nickels, thinking they were .90 silver!:headbang:

 

Back in the early 1980's me and my best friend would do the following steps for "fun" during the summer, mainly for entertainment ...

Step 1 - find as many cents as possible
Step 2 - clean them with jewelery cleaner (see how shiny mine is...)
Step 3 - drill a hole in the top (above Abe's head)
Step 4 - tie fishing line to them and hang them from a stick
Step 5 - Shoot them with a .22 rifle

Just to add insult to injury we would toss them in the creek once we were done with them.

 

My worst coin experience did not occur to me personally.

One of my neighbors is an elderly widow (eightyish). She is a very nice woman. She keeps an eye on my house and picks up my mail for me when I am out of town. I have mentioned my interest in coins to her a few times through the years - mostly telling her about coin courses I am taking at ANA Summer Seminars.

A few months ago I noticed two cop cars at her house. It turns out she had been buying coins from a boiler room - Atlantic Coin Galleries in NYC. They called her on the phone out of the blue and told her they had an investment-quality coin for sale that she couldn't pass up. It was worth $6,000 but she could buy it for only $2,200 (or some such figures). She said she didn't know anything about coins and didn't really want to buy it but they persisted and she relented and bought it. A few days later the coin arrived by FedEx.

Later they contacted her again. They used information gathered in their first conversation to personalize their future coversations, e.g., asking about relatives, neighbors, aches and pains, etc. My neighbor was raised back when you were supposed to be nice to strangers and not call bu11$hit on anyone and these scumbags take advantage of this. They gained her trust and sold her more coins - all great bargains - that she didn't want.

This started in June. Thinking back I remember seeing FedEx trucks delivering packages to her on a fairly regular basis. I remember thinking she got more deliveries than me but I dismissed it as it is none of my business. A female driver also noticed she was getting an unusually large number of deliveries and asked her one day what she was getting. When my neighbor said she was buying coins the driver said she felt like it could be a scam.

The next time that driver had a coin delivery for my neighbor she brought along the cops. Another neighbor stepped in to help and took all the coins to a local coin dealer and the ANA to get their opinions. The dealer said the coins were worth 1/3 or less of what she paid. The ANA gave her some advice on what she could do to get the thieves shut down. My neighbor now has a lawyer working to try to recover some of her money. (I keep thinking about the phrase, "Good money after bad".)

I took a look through the coins and they were primarily common date gold (Liberty and Indian $2 1/2 & $5) and Franklin & Kennedy halves (unc. & proof). None of the coins were graded; they were all in Capital 2X2 holder with self-grading lables and rolls (halves). All the coins appeared to be genuine but grossly overgraded. MS-65 gold coins had obvious wear. MS-67 Franklins had scratches and spots.

Bottom line, my neighbor spent over $32,000 on coins that may be worth $10,000 at the most. I think her money is long gone. I did notice a couple of envelopes where coins were delivered by USPS so I told her she should contact the Postal Inspector about mail fraud.

I asked my neighbor why she didn't ask me my opinion about these coins she was buying but she said she had forgotten I knew anything about coins. What a shame. I could have stopped her after the first coin and prevented future losses. Oh, well. I asked her what she learned from this experience and she said, "Don't buy coins!" I told her that buying coins is perfectly OK IF she buys from a reputable dealer and/or the coins are graded by a reputable grading service. But she has been burned and will never buy another coin.

I have no use for these scum that prey on the elderly like this. When I get some time I hope to put together a PowerPoint presentation about buying/investing in coins, where to buy coins, graded coins, what makes a coin valuable, etc. geared to elderly people. Nothing super detailed; just the basics so others don't make the same mistake as my neighbor. I thought nursing homes, assisted living facilities, etc. may be a good place to start.

 

I recently bought a half roll of 1909 VDB cents on ebay. i looked through them, and they are all VF to XF. I paid about 43.00 for them. Does anyone know where they went/ Can't seem to find them...
Also, I bought a ring made from a 1946 walker, and was trying to get it off in a friend's car, to show it, and it flew towards my feet. we looked for an hour and can't find it either. The coin gremlins are getting the best of me.

 

Have you checked your coat pocket?

 

Maybe posting here is lucky. My friend just called and he found my ring, now maybe I will look for the VDB's.

 

Before I bought a heavy duty 'coin' stapler I scratched the obverse of several MS Morgans in 2x2's ~~ they seem expensive at first but once you've shuddered viewing that gash they are worth every penny (i.e., instantly devalued Morgan in the box).