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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;dougsmit, post: 1685893, member: 19463&quot;]...and that is the problem.&nbsp; A dealer today might very well have their own site, a store on VCoins and another on Numismall.&nbsp; They also might sell some coins through eBay and attend local coin shows.&nbsp; A dealer who chooses to spread himself around like that needs to be very careful to keep up with the maintenance of lists of what is available and what has been sold.&nbsp; I have seen listings on VCoins clearly marked &quot;This coin has been listed on eBay.&quot;&nbsp; In my opinion offering a coin on eBay as an auction item (or consigning it to CNG for that matter) is a contract to sell that exact coin for whatever the final bid might be.&nbsp; That could be half what it is worth or twice but the coin should be off the market until the auction closes.&nbsp; Auction terms rarely include a line &quot;unless the seller gets a better offer on another venue.&quot;&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>It is worse now that software will allow us to buy and pay for (PayPal or Credit Card) a coin without the dealer knowing we did so.&nbsp; In the &#039;old days&#039; we sent a check and did not know if we would be first or not until the mail brought the coin or our returned check.&nbsp; Soon after that we started calling the dealer on the phone and reserving a coin after which we had a specified number of days to send payment or the seller would cancel the reservation.&nbsp; Credit Cards over the phone eliminated that waiting period but still all sales were processed &#039;hands on&#039; by the seller.&nbsp; Even then there could be a problem when a dealer took stock to a show and sold things while their staff back at the office was taking orders over the phone.&nbsp; We knew when ordering that an order not confirmed with the dealer was provisional.&nbsp; eBay changed all that with the concept of a contract where a buyer agrees to pay a bid he offered and a seller agreed in advance to sell the coin for the closing price.&nbsp; Because some sellers had problems with that concept, eBay introduced things like Reserves and Buy it Now lots but, still was expected to sell a lot if the reserve was met or the Buy it Now was clicked.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>As buyers we each will decide whether we expect sellers to follow the rules they agreed to when they offered the coin in a specific marketplace.&nbsp; We can decide whether we reward poor business practices or not.&nbsp; We vote with our patronage.&nbsp; I&#039;m not saying a seller will not err on occasion but I do most certainly believe that each should be expected to make every effort to follow the rules they agreed to when they offered the coin and keep up with which items are sold and which are not.&nbsp; If that is too hard, perhaps they need to cut back on the number of online shops they maintain.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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