Have you ever seen a batch of coins come across your desk and thought, "Wait a minute...why exactly are THESE....HERE???" I had that happen this afternoon. Went into a LCS to check on some jewelry pieces I picked up today for sterling scrap. The good news is that all the gold was gold and all the potential diamonds were diamonds. The better news is that my mom gets a really cool (and inexpensive) early birthday present. So I'm a good son in that regard. While I was there, the shop owner pulls out a group of coins that they had someone bring in. They wanted to get my opinion on them. Almost immediate my jaw dropped. The group contained: Morocco 1953 100 Francs (silver) UNC Morocco 1953 100 Francs (silver) ESSAI (mintage of 1,100 pcs) UNC ++ Morocco 1947 20 Francs (Cu-Ni) Piefort ESSAI (mintage of 104 pcs) UNC Luxembourg 1946 20 Francs (silver) ESSAI (mintage of 50 pcs) UNC ++ Luxembourg 1946 50 Francs (silver) ESSAI (mintage of 50 pcs) UNC ++ Egypt 1911 5 Qirsh (silver) UNC UNC ++ Mexico (Revolutionary - Oaxaca) 1915 2 Pesos (silver/gold) XF/AU (potentially cleaned) Mexico (Revolutionary - Oaxaca) 1915 5 Pesos (silver/gold) AU/UNC ++ French Indochina 1908 1 Piastre (silver) solid AU There were also some ancients included (looked like some were gold) but as I really don't know much about them, I didn't do too much looking into them. LCS owner said they looked much nicer than normal and kept asking me what I thought they were worth - to which I had to repeatedly state I didn't feel comfortable even guessing. All the coins looked genuine to my eye (except I don't have a lot of experience with the Mexican Revolutionary coins) and were in crappy old plastic (non-PVC thankfully) 2x2 flips. I immediately asked the shop owner for new flips, because most of them were broken to the point where the coins could have easily fallen out. The official story is that a construction worker received them as a gift from someone for whom he previously did a job. So, my question is this: How did a group of really, really uncommon foreign coins end up in the possession of someone who said someone else gave them to him, and has no idea what they're worth? My first instinct is to question whether they are stolen. My second question is what are the odds of this particular group of coins ending up in some random coin shop on a Wednesday in November and I'm the only person who recognizes what they are (not the owner, not the previous owner, not the LCS owner?) Obviously, my third question was if I could buy them were they to become available. This is the kind of group where I feel like I'll develop an ulcer thinking about them - not only for the reasons I stated above but because I feel like this will just be another example of getting my knowledge "used" by someone else and the coins getting taken to someone else with more money, where if I'd kept my mouth shut the shop would probably have offered them $50 for the group (which is the number they floated to me before they showed me the coins) and then I'd have at least had a chance at buying one or more of them myself. I say this because this has happened to me before - I point out something cool, then someone else gets to benefit off my knowledge and nothing more is ever said about it. Am I making sense here, or just drastically overthinking the situation? What would you have done?
Totally making sense! Exactly what you did. I hope you get a chance to have those coins at a better than good price! May your honesty and fairness be rewarded. Amen!
You’re right on stl. I’d say next time (or this time) just play plausible dumb and try to get the coins for a cost effective price. I’m kind by over giving my uncompensated knowledgeable advice.
Like you, I would be terribly afraid that they were stolen and mention it to the authorities, and say the same thing to the shop owner. He would then know that you, too, are honest and may pave the way for some more "normal" bargains.
Similar thing happened to me. Couple weeks back I went to an LCS. I walked in and asked about ancients and worlds, so he figured I knew what I was talking about. He had in front of him probably 2-3k worth of Spanish reales, 1-8 reales denominations from various mints. He asked me if I knew anything about them. There were about 2 dozen spanish coins, he said he got them that morning from a "little old lady." I simply didn't know enough about them, but I said that they were sometimes called "cobs" and the 8 reales were "worth something." I doubled down and said that "worse case scenario you have silver melt" and ran to the atm to withdraw a few hundred bucks case for an offer. Unfortunately, he said "if I can't price them I can't sell them." A bummer though, he seemed like the type of guy who would have sold the lot for melt value.
and yes, nobody gets incredibly rare coins as a "gift" and if they did, they certainly would't immediately run them over to an LCS. Sketchy.
I think you'd be wise to pass that list along to Doug Davis at NCIC. It's possible those are on one of his stolen collection / inventory lists.
You have a lot of questions here, but I'll take a crack at one of them: The way I look at it as far as buying from a shop is it's their business and it's their job to know what to charge for their inventory. I would never feel good taking advantage of a regular person and buying for less than the value, but this happens with dealers all the time and it's just part of the game. And honestly they are selling them to you for more than they paid, so no one is losing out there. When you resell something your main goal is to sell for more than you paid for it, not necessarily get the highest price possible. Many dealers will sell for less than they know they're worth just because they have a willing buyer in front of them and they know it could take months to find the right buyer at the book price. As tempting as it is to show off your knowledge, when I'm in a position to buy I reveal as little as possible.
The possibility of being stolen is there, but that's a risk to take on your end. Honestly, this is an absurd statement. Can this dealer read? Presumably he can if he's running a business. It's really difficult for me to fathom this level of seemingly purposeful ignorance. Ok...benefit of the doubt...the guy doesn't 'have the time' to correctly attribute and price. Fine. Then sell the stuff to the willing buyer right in front of you for a decent percent over the acquisition cost and move the inventory. If I was in that position, I'd want to make my 20-50% profit and move the inventory right away. It's so baffling.
If he couldn’t price them, how did he buy them??? Seems like that maybe should cut both ways. seriously though, why you should do is find another guy in the STL area (me) and have him swoop in and scoop up the coins for just over melt.
So, an update: Apparently the story has been amended - this is secondhand information coming from the LCS owner - the guy who brought them in was bringing them in on behalf of the owner, who was testing out a few places and has "a lot" more to offer. (Hopefully that means I get to see some more cool stuff.) This guy supposedly took this batch in to one particular coin shop (where I don't ever visit because, frankly, the staff has usually been pretty indifferent to me as a customer and typically refuse to let me look at anything) and they basically blew him off. I did also send an email to Doug Davis at NCIC (as recommended by @ToughCOINS) and haven't heard back yet, so no idea if the collection is legit or spurious. So, no, haven't seen the coins again, don't know if they'll actually be available for sale, don't know if I'll be able to buy any of them. If I do end up adding any of them to my collection, I'll be sure to share them here.
I’m glad to know you’re running this by Doug. He’s tightly networked with law enforcement everywhere, and likely has a more comprehensive list of stolen coins than almost anyone else out there. I’m very concerned about the change in stories about ownership. The coins were first represented as a gift to a construction worker from someone he did work for, and now they are being shown by some intermediary for a guy with a bottomless pit chock full of tasty coins? This reeks to me. Why would someone with so many coins such as these not already know their value? Why would the owner not present them for sale himself? Is the owner too busy to be bothered, or is anonymity necessary to be insulated from prosecution if a dealer identifies the coins as stolen? In your situation I personally would tread very carefully.
I had to be really careful not to do too much with them because (and I'm being honest here) I really have no idea what I'm doing with them. And the LCS owner kept pestering me to give him some idea of what they were worth...so I basically had to refuse to look at them closely. If I can't be confident of what I'm saying/doing, I really don't want someone to press me into an opinion. That being said, I did shift them to the side so I could pull out the other coins, and I do remember at least one of them was gold. The LCS owner, when I came back a couple days later, said he thought they were "extremely nice specimens compared to what he usually saw." That, my friends, is all I know about that.
