If you can tell me where I can buy Mint State 09-S VDBs for $1400, I'll buy them all day long... heck I'll even pay $2000!!! LOL... sorry, but that's an over $4000 coin, bad example.
Another rotten coin dealer. I would have left not buying anything at all. And I would have let the owner know the reason for me leaving without buying anything. To double the price of something at the cash register may not be illegal, but it is certainly ethically wrong. With a recession coming (some say it is already here) and discretionary incomes drying up, it's bad business practice to alienate potential customers. Especially ones who will likely spend thousands in your store over the course of a years time. In a couple of months, this guy won't be able to give coins away.
I know how you feel. A year or so ago I was at a coin show. I asked to see a nice Barber dime, I hadn't looked up the price yet. The dealer pulled it out, walked over to his greysheet. (It was marked, say, $300.) He looked it up and saw $425 bid Then he says, I am in right, and can give it to you for $350. I told him to keep it, walked away and never dealt with him again. [Actually, I thought many worse things, and have never spoken to him again. This is a guy that I had bought a bunch of stuff from in the previous months.]
Yes - recently I bought a proof set at a dealer. It was marked $62 and when it came time to figure out the price he says well these others from the same year are listed at X and my buddy who shares the shop with him has his listed at Y so I will charge you $68. The guy didn't even look at the coins to base his selling price and that was a little odd to me. That having been said - I would hope I picked the best set. I do understand that the price could have been on that set for years and years and that he had every right to adjust the price. I didn't know that was how he works and if I ever buy from him again - I will be prepared. The way he went about it though just made you feel like he was trying to figure out how high can he go. My question is why price your products if you know the price is going to change? Do buyers like to see outdated prices on products?
IMHO you know whats the best for you but if the prices were not updated for a while he possibly had the right to update the prices
This is true here in Illinois. If a price is marked and the store tries to raise that price, they are liable for a law suite. I've purchased items exactly like that for the marked or advertised price although possibly a mistake or oversight. Regardless here if it is written as xx and they attempt to raise that price it is a felony. For sure you should not buy anything from that place and tell eveyone you know about this.
In addition to my statement at many coin shows I've had dealers attempt to raise a marked price on me and I remind them if they do I've got a witness here that says what the price was marked. I always attempt to have someone I know around, go with me or meet me there. I remind them of the law here in Illinois against that. Of course they usually tell me I can have it for the marked price but I walk away anyway. My best deal like that was an add in a newpaper for Sears for some tools. A few were badly mismarked. I took that add to a Sears store and demanded those items for that price. A manager said he would give them to me free if I would just not show that to anyone else. I like our laws.
First, let me say there is a huge difference between a coin shop and a coin show. At a coin show, the dealer has hand picked what he puts on display. I have every expectation that any price put on something on display at a coin show is current. Now with a coin shop, things could have been sitting around for years. The better coinshops will continously update the prices on items in their main display cases as these are in your face, but there is an understanding that what they have in the back in boxes or bins may have old price tags, no price tags, other dealer's price tags, consumer's price estimates, etc..., but the better dealers will make an effort to make it clear which items they have "refreshed" the packaging and which items have not been evaluated by them yet. For example, the best method I've seen is anything in the coin shop's own standardized packaging (like a 2x2 flip with their logo) has a price that is honored as is without question regardless of how outdated it is. All coins on display contain the coin shops own standardized packaging. Anything without the coin shop's standardized packaging is kept out of sight and is available upon request. Such a system make it clear even to the novice which items have been priced by the coinshop and which items have erroneous price tags from previous owner's of the coin.
ok... my bad... I don't have a greysheet in front of me... if you al say that an MS 09-S VDB is a $1400 coin, I will take your word for it, and say I am wrong. I apologise for speaking without knowing for sure.
I like your choice of words! Again - why even put a price on them if you cannot keep up with the changing prices? What other type of business operates in this fashion? It felt like shopping at a flea market - I would think dealers would want to avoid that type of image.
that's exactly why we don't mark prices on coins in the shop I work at. Prices change over time. I will offer this bit of advice to the buyers of higher-end coins: I learned this in the car business. Check how long a dealer has had the coin. The longer he has had it, the more likely he will be to give you a better price. It is money tied up that he could be using to pursue other coins that would turn over quickly. Most people don't consider this when offering on a coin.
I never go by marked price but what the market is (greysheet bid ) and from there will pay less then bid. It makes a big difference if you know who your dealing with also
Another Point to Consider A point that hasn't been brought up yet, to think about for those of you who think the dealer (as originally described) acted within reason: does anyone think that if the greysheet bid had gone down, the dealer would have insisted on lowering the price?
If the price is not marked in a coin shop, then the answer to your question is, yes. In the example of the coin being marked, maybe not.
The better coin shops don't have alot of cluttered inventory in the display cases, but they do have items that are "On Sale", targetted towards window shoppers, novices, young numismatists, people looking for gifts, etc... Types of items I'll see in the display case are AGE's/ASE's, current proof sets, rolls of state quarters/presidential dollars, and a very small assortment of type coins at the lower priced end. I will also see other "one of a kind" type items that dealers inevitably receive with estate purchases. All the types of items I see with prices are items that don't change in value quickly and I'm sure the price applied already reflects a profit for the dealer. There are people (especially noobs, YN's, and window shoppers) that will never ask the price of something because they are too shy or are casually looking (especially true for coin shops located in malls/stripmalls). More often than not, people from this demographic will automatically assume it's too expensive if there's no price tag. Obviously it's too much to put a price tag on EVERYTHING, but at least put something out for those that won't ask.
