LOL. Think I just found a gold coin in this bag

From a cash for gold shop.

 

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A cash for gold shop selling bags of unsorted foreign (if this is from the same bag as your other post)? And leaving gold coins in the mix? They're Doing It Wrong. And You're Doing It Right. Now, where was this shop again?

 

I'm going to guess it's one of the later restrikes. To pretty and lustrous to be 75 years old

 

That's a really good score. Somebody screwed up there.

 

Oh, there's plenty of lustrous gold older than that. But just by the numbers, it looks like the odds are 30-1 or so that it's a restrike. I don't know if there's a way to distinguish restrikes from originals.

In a bag of mixed foreign, presumably sold by the pound, I'll take either.

 

Hello Riff,
Well done, depending on what was paid.
When I was active in a local metal detecting club these 2 & 2-1/2 peso
gold pieces were a popular prize at staged hunts.
These were minted as bullion pieces used for gifts and for jewelry similarly
to the larger 1947 50 peso pieces.
H.N.Y.,
J.T.

 

Dang! Some people have all the luck! Good for you Riff!

 

Do NOT tell them you found this coin. If you do, you'll be sure to NEVER find one like this again. Pretend you found a couple okay things and that it was just enough to make you want to search again, but not enough for them to get excited.

 

What gold coin?

 

How much did you pay for the bag??? That coin has a melt value of around $70.

 

YOU DID GOOD.

 

I pay 35 US for 5lbs, and sell it back at 17.50 per 5 lbs.

 

Wow man you really made out with this one then! Congrats.

 

OK... I will be the moral slug here. I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night if I didn’t come clean with the dealer. But yeah, that’s just me....

 

That is JUST YOU

 

That’s right. Same guy that sent a $1400.00 check yesterday for work a man forgot to bill me for in April. I discovered the error. He didn’t. No, I do not nor will I ever live to profit from another mans honest error.

 

Speaking as the guy who picked a 1913-P Barber half (semi-key) from the near-melt bin, and handed it to the dealer, saying "I think you didn't mean to put this in there"... I don't think my morals would compel me to return the coin to this dealer.

If they're choosing to sell foreign coins by the pound, they've decided the foreigns aren't worth their attention -- and whoever brought it into the store has already been sent away with whatever pittance allows the shop to profit at $35/lb ($17.50 per pound, sounds like).

I'm all about cherry-picking, though, and cherry-picking relies on taking advantage of a difference in knowledge or attention. I guess there are some who would consider any form of cherry-picking to be unethical. I'm not sure how to draw the line between cherry-picking and ripping off.

Randy, I greatly respect your opinion on matters of ethics, and I'm interested to hear your response on this. I do still change my mind when presented with new information that doesn't fit my assumptions...

 

Well, Jeff.... I honestly do not know the particulars of the deal. Not long ago I was filling holes in a two cent book at my dealers place. I purchased a batch of hole fillers. When I got home I found one coin in the dealers flip hidden inside my Dansco that I carried into his shop. I knew that coin wasn’t paid for. It was twenty bucks, no big deal really. But it was a big deal to me. I felt terrible that I had walked out of his place with that flip hidden in my Dansco. And the heck of it was... He put it in there. I drove right back and made it right.

If I put a bag of trash by the road that you picked up and found something of value in, no harm-no foul. And that may very well be the situation here. But a gold coin in an inexpensive bag of cull foreign coins screams mistake to me. And profiting from another mans mistake is simply unconscionable to me.

 

Riff has been pretty clear that a lot of his recent picks have come from bulk sales of unsorted world coins. The dealer literally doesn't have the time, effort, or interest in sorting it himself. That's the allure for buyers like @riff , and the potential payoff. It's a gamble on both ends. In this case, riff won. Most of the time, I'd wager riff gets 5 pounds of mostly junk change. The dealer sells this knowing full well that there is potentially something of value in the bag, the buyer buys it knowing full well that there is probably nothing of value in the bag. If I bought a lot like this and hit the lottery, I'd sleep perfectly well knowing that both of us bought and sold exactly what we wanted, played the odds, and I won.

 

Right there with you, on this example and the guy-who-forgot-to-bill-you example.

I suspect we just have differing notions of what happened inside the cash-for-gold shop.