I am amazed at the prices bid for coins with any amount of tarnish on them on ebay - regardless of whether it is legit or not. Ebay - where the greedy fleece the uninformed.
But I think Paul understands it all too well. The part about using them to turn a quick buck, that is.
Kurt, anybody who knows coins often uses their knowledge to turn a quick buck. I used to do it myself on a regular basis. I would cherry pick coins I didn't even want to own every chance I got. Then I would sell them at substantial profits, often generating 300-400% profit and use that money to buy coins I did want to own. And I am far from being alone in this practice. A huge number of knowledgeable collectors do the very same thing. In point of fact, even though I no longer collect coins myself, I still today help quite a few other collectors do the same thing, on just about a daily basis. Coin dealers, virtually every single one of them, makes money on coins in much the same way. My point, there is nothing wrong, immoral, or unethical with any of this. Nor is there is anything wrong with anyone who does the same thing with toned coins.
I guess i’m the oddball, then. I’ve never done it, in 55 years. Every purchase I’ve ever made, aside from those cases when I HAVE TO BUY more than I WANT TO BUY, has been with the INTENT of owning it until I die. It hasn’t always worked out that way, but that was always the intent.
And that's fine too. But, just because you yourself have never done it, that does not mean that anyone who has is doing anything wrong. To think otherwise would be akin to saying that anyone getting paid to do their jobs is doing wrong. When you do a job, whatever the job is, you are using your knowledge to make money. How can that in any way be considered wrong, immoral, or unethical ?
Of course. Some days it seems that EVERYONE on here has a “side hustle” working. That needs to be transparently understood by all.
Perhaps. And I would even say that most days there those who just seem to love standing in judgement of everyone else - regardless of what it is they do. Now if they actually are doing something wrong, I can understand that, hell I even agree with it ! The problem I have is what some consider wrong.
Now lemme ask you a pointed question Kurt. The help I give others, picking out coins that they can sell for a substantial profit - do you find anything wrong with that ? You should also understand, that what I do, I do for free. I do it purely to help people and for no other reason. So, is that wrong or not ?
Absolutely NOTHING wrong there, not EVEN if you asked for expenses, if any. In fact, I find it quite noble of you. Do they bring prospective choices to you, or vice versa?
Here’s the rub - before I stumbled into this particular abyss, every Internet site I had dealt with about coins had strict prohibitions against even IMPLIED commercialism. Such as www.money.org. Frankly, I greatly prefer that model. Jason couldn’t link to Amazon to sell his books, and Paul couldn’t link to his EBay store. What’s wrong with that model? I’m not being contrary for its own sake, I’d really like to know, Doug.
We do too - in the regular forum sections. Offers to buy, sell, or trade are only permitted in the sections dedicated to that purpose. And even then restrictions are in place. The point is Kurt there is nothing wrong with the buying and selling of coins - it is the very nature of the hobby. It's the grease on the wheels, it's what makes it work. So we allow a special place for that to occur. But, we don't want it just anywhere because that is not the primary purpose of this forum. And we don't want the main sections of the forum clogged up with ads all over the place. We want discussion to be discussion - the sharing of knowledge.
It’s in EVERY STINKING .sig, Doug! I don’t visit the specific sections and I still see hot links at the bottom of many members’ posts! Every stinking time. Seems to me Peter is being way too cute by half. If you’re going to allow hot links in sigs, any other pretense to non-commercialism is a cruel hoax.