Baldwin's St.James - shambolic, unprofessional bunch

from the VCoins code of ethics:

6. I will not intentionally misrepresent the value of any item, and I will not take unfair advantage of non-professional customers, be they buyers or sellers.

13. I will not intentionally misrepresent items I sell, including the use of misleading images, historical conjecture, unsubstantiated provenance or pedigree, or other tactics that may artificially inflate the perceived value of an item.

So does a vcoins dealer who buys from an auction and then the next month sells at 2x-3x of what he paid without mentioning the provenance break the rules or not?

 

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I've known Frank for at least 30 years. He's a nice guy and honest dealer. But I think even Frank will admit he's a bit of a bottom feeder. Back in the days of mail in bidding he'd bid on 600 lots out of 1000, with a good percentage of the bids below the minimum bid level. Going through his bid sheets was a nightmare and in the end he'd win maybe 5 lots, only ones where he was the only bidder and he happened to bid 60% of the estimate. So if he mailed in his bids to Baldwins and he hasn't changed his bidding tactics, I can understand their reluctance to deal with him. I would certainly direct him to the online bidding portal to enter his bids. He can enter all the bids he wants online, although he will be limited to bidding he current minimum... no bidding 20% of estimate. In Baldwin's defense, if his bids were all lowball bids on the sheet he mailed in, I can understand them not wanting to deal with him at all and blocking him from registering. They are free to block anyone they so desire.

this is a weird thread, one of the weirdest I can ever recall on CT.

Government control of prices. Not allowing dealers to buy at auction. Only bidding in auctions that dealers don’t participate in. Only 20% is a fair margin, any more is price gouging. House and car prices controlled by the government (what????). Somehow the pinko comment makes sense 50 years after the last time someone used that word.

Barry Murphy

 

McCarthy is crawling out of his grave looking to make a list.

 

LOL

 

When I saw the word "pinko", my mind went immediately to Archie Bunker, so thanks for that trip down Memory Lane, anyway

 

This misconstrues my earlier comment. I said that before the internet, dealers were the primary buyers at auctions (because many/most collectors could not afford to attend in person). I never said collectors were not allowed to attend!! I was merely pointing-out that Internet has changed the auction dynamic by making all auctions accessible in real time to collectors.

 

Thank you, understood. And, Edited.

 

Here’s how I’ve summarized this situation for myself

It seems that a person consistently behaves in a way that a seller finds unprofitable to the point of not wanting to do business. Presumably the seller made the conscious decision whether the potential return was worth the cost. There is no question of illegality on either side.

Since the seller has decided that a certain type of behaviour is unacceptable, the buyer has the choice of changing his behaviour or not doing business with the seller.

In this case the buyer’s behaviour seems to be part of his business model. Also he has publicized the disagreement. So it is unlikely that he will change his behaviour.

I’m sure that there are as many views on this matter as there are readers of CT … but viewed as regular commerce it seems that both buyer and seller have made decisions with which they are satisfied.

 

Well spoken.

In my career, we called that "Firing our Customer". We did this in cases where the cost of doing business with a customer was more than the profit potential of their business. It is purely a business decision for the sustainability of the business. It had nothing to do with the person or customer's business themselves.

 

Actually, I remember Alan Walker writing in one of his newsletters that early in the 20th century the dealers were actively trying to dissuade the collectors from personally bidding in auctions by bidding them into oblivion on any lots they dared to bid on in an actual auction.

 

Lool no wonder Chinese communism is winning the world , if this is capitalism then its doomed!

 

2-3x mark up is for pinko neeks. Shout out my 20-50x coin cleaning hustlers.

 

Even checking the coins prices, sometimes a small subtle difference can change prices substantially , so checking prices won't be much help. Dealers can get their coin from hoard finders they don't have to bid in auctions as the only way of getting the coins

 

Vest Pocket Dealer: A part-time coin merchant. The term originated with those individuals who roamed the bourse floor ready to whip out of their vests a small plastic coin binder containing coins in two-by-two cardboard holders. Today, not one-in-a-thousand individuals wears a vest, but the moniker stuck. (from Mimi).

 

The govt opens a coin auction platform that only allows collectors not dealers. In order to make sure only real hardcore collectors are bidding, the govt needs proof. The bureaucracy needed to gain acceptance lasts for two weeks. Before each auction. Three months in and the state auction platform only has crappy overcleaned and destroyed FTRs because nobody wants to consign with them. With no consignments and no customers, the platform needs public funding to keep paying the bureaucrats even tho they have nothing to do all day.

 

A brief recent history of "Baldwin's": the family-owned firm was sold in 2005. The new owners sold AH Baldwin & Sons Ltd and Baldwin's Auctions Ltd to stamp dealer Stanley Gibbons in 2013. In 2017 Baldwin's Auctions was hived off to St James's Auctions Ltd and the new entity of "Baldwin's of St James's" was created, an entirely separate entity to "A H Baldwin & Sons Ltd" which is in effect the coin-trading arm of Stanley Gibbons. If anyone's seen "The Life of Brian" it's a bit like the Judean People's Front and the People's Front of Judea...

 

We're going way off-topic, but China's economical system is quite capitalistic (in some respects even more so than in the US), but it's tightly connected to and controlled by China's political system.

 

BTW, if anyone is interested, Baldwin's of St. James is looking for a full-time numismatist to join the firm.

 

I think I’ve answered most of these in my previous replies so I won’t rehash here. I’ll just address, on this specific coin, the estimate from CNG was $500. My max I was willing to pay was $2,000. I don’t think anyone could say that is an unreasonably low max bid. Were I a wealthier person I would have happily paid $3,000 but alas, my wealth is not infinite. Though for being only 30 years old I am quite happy with what I have been able to successfully acquire so far, and hopefully it won’t be many more years until I can bid $3,000!

 

Very good. Looking forward to your cool coin posts in the future.