Ever worry about a dealer stealing your coin?

But not a very rational one, and

 

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While I don't think the situation presented by BNB would ever happen at any major coin show and I've never heard of it happening before, I think it's really unfair to call such concerns "dumb" or "paranoid."

Sure, for those of us who are used to the coin show experience and who have been doing this for years, BNB's concerns may seem somewhat paranoid. However, for anyone relatively new to the hobby this may be a real concern. In the world we live in it's not that common for people to hand over $1000+ items of their property that can fit in your hand to a complete stranger and not at least feel some concern.

 

How about this for scary. A few years ago, I consigned about $10,000 in coins to a well known dealer. I was instructed to send the coins express mail and then he would draft the consignment agreement which I would sign before the start of the auction. Nothing out of the ordinary at this point.

A few days after mailing my coins, I was cruising the NGC forum and found a thread exclaiming that the dealer I just sent my coins to was retiring, selling his business, and leaving the country. I thought they were kidding around until I went to Heritage and found much of their inventory consigned to the upcoming signature sale. Included in the Heritage sale were some of my coins. At this point, it dawned on me that I did not have a signed consignment agreement that listed all the coins I sent. PANIC!

In the end, all of my coins were returned with the exception of the coins in the Heritage sale for which I was sent a check. Do I worry about a dealer stealing my coins? Unfortunately, yes I do.

 

The worst story I heard was a novice who gave a coin to a dealer for submission to a tpg and the dealer submitted a lesser coin and kept the good one for himself.

 

Go ahead and lather up...

 

Did you take the issue up with Heritage or directly through the dealer? In my experience when we have been presented with evidence that a consigned piece does not belong to the person who consigned it (which is a direct violation of our consignment agreement) we will withdraw the item(s) while the truth is sought.

P.S. If any of you have an issue anything like this in the future (or any other legitimate problem at Heritage) please send me a PM and I will do my best to assist you.

 

Hmm, I guess I never really thought about it. But no I don't fear any of the dealers I know stealing my coins. The point it I know them and trust them, and thereby trust a lot of their networks.

 

I did not report the items to Heritage because the dealer in question had promised to return the rest of my coins an pay me in cash for the coins accidentally consigned to the Heritage auction. As I recall, the value of the coins in the Heritage auction was less than $1,000 which was a small percentage of my total consignment.

Trust me, if I didn't get my coins back in two days time, I was going to call Heritage and let them know the situation. The situation was difficult because the employee who handled the day to day operation of the coin company was not the owner and was caught in the middle. But he promised to make things right and he did.

 

Locally ,in Feb. we had a dealer that was arrested in St Pete for stealing from other dealers at a coin show. If he was stealing from other dealers I'm sure he was capable of stealing from a customer. Here's 2 links.......................................John

http://www.pcsoweb.com/news%20releases/ReleaseItem.aspx?id=1959


http://blogs.tampabay.com/breakingnews/2009/02/coin-collector.html

 

I agree this is rather dumb. At every coin show I go to most dealers have many thousands of dollars worth of coins on thier tables. You would really have to have something big for anyone to try that. And such a dispute in front of many, many potential customers is really not what a dealer would want. Then too such a move may end up getting that dealer thrown out regardless of who said what.

 

Never worried about that for one minute. Every dealer I deal with has much more to lose then gain with some lame move like that..

 

Brandon is a good guy, I am not surprised that he did the best he could immediately.

 

So you understand my hesitation in notifying Heritage. I had full faith that the right thing would be done.

 

I remember this story and sure he could have stolen from customers but that would really draw attention to him now wouldn't it?

Stealing from other dealers then selling the coins as "yours" would be safer.

Either way the scumbag got nailed for it.

 

I would only worry after the dealer said something was wrong.

I have not heard of many dealers flat out stealing coins from people in all my years of collecting. I can think of one or two stories, but far fewer than the house break ins and thefts at coin shows by real thieves rather than dealers -- so I'd be far more concerned with that rather than leaving a coin with a dealer.

As an aside, I once thought a dealer was pulling a fast one on me by claiming a coin I gave to him got lost before it was sent to NGC. He ended up replacing the coin, a raw gold dollar, with a PCGS MS 64 coin of my choosing. A few months later, he called me to tell me he found the coin along with a few other coins that had somehow fallen into a stamp book in the safe. I returned to the store and traded the slabbed coin for my original coin. The coin that was once lost eventually was sent to PCGS and came back MS 65. So all in all, it eventually worked out, but believe me it was worrisome at the time.