Buying coins with the market in a downward Spiral

Oh, ok. My bad. So as long as one never click and purchase a BIN listing on eBay, it's ok to say you never use the internet to buy coins. Glad that was straightened out, 'cuz I was under the impression that actually logging on to eBay, bidding and (sometimes) winning coin(s), (and paying for it/them, receiving said coin(s), and leaving feedback) actually constituted 'using the internet' to buy coins.

 

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I usually buy at auction (or from the Mint, for new issues) EXCLUSIVELY. I don't have the patience, or the will, to "negotiate" or "dicker" from an asking price. There is an exception. I buy from shows for really odd esoteric stuff, exonumia mostly, that helps tell a story, for exhibits. I use Cunningham for a lot of that, and I don't dicker even at shows. I put in front of the dealer what I want, and he usually offers me a discount from the marked price. But if I pull out a coin from the box, I'm prepared to pay the ask, if need be.

 

'Buy It Now' listings are tricky.
Really good deals are up only a few moments.

I saw 3 Peace Dollar Lot sell as 'Buy It Now' for $19.00.
That is about half of spot for the three of them.
I was a little quicker on another 'Buy It Now' and got 3 for $14.33 each, delivered.

Search 'Buy It Now', newest listed first, and refresh every here and again - any 'Buy It Now' items that last more than a couple of days are probably overpriced.

 

I have bought a few BIN that seemed to me either under-priced or priced just right. I prefer the BIN that have the option for an offer, though many have the item over-priced some to a lot or basically don't take lower offers. But most I prefer auctions. The ones at or near max value for the item, I don't normally bid on unless I am shopping for that item and it can't wait or I don't see it offered that much.

 

I wish my Large cents would go into a downward trend.

 

They haven't???? I'm getting "sick" deals on Large Cents. Most of the bidders at local auctions are silver-obsessed pickup truck drivers, wearing camo clothing and caps. There's a coin auction tomorrow in Maryland near the PA border and it's the last day of buck season in PA. I may have reduced competition at the auction.

 

Ssshhhh!

 

Sometimes there will be an option to make an offer.

 

Not going to waste my time with that.

 

Okay, which is it? Is it a "vibrant market", or is it one where you can get "sick deals" on whole classes of coins because it's isolated and information-deprived, a textbook example of "inefficiency", and a person with superior information -- even if they cheat and peek on the Internet! -- can routinely expect to make a killing? (Or, to put it another way, sellers of those coins can routinely expect to take a drubbing?)

(And to make it clear, I'm not claiming that the participants are lacking numismatic knowledge -- except on the topic of what they could expect to pay or get for coins in the broader market.)

 

Here's what you have to understand here, Jeff. We're LARGELY talking about guys who have NEVER had a computer, and don't want one. If they do have one, they don't trust it to do anything involving money on it, and they just use it to get pictures of the grandkids. Probably still using their AOL accounts.

The BIGGEST coin club I belong to (100 typical attendees) WON'T ALLOW the newsletter to be emailed, because they're afraid someone in the club will forward it to a non-member who will see their name in it and come rob them. LITERAL TRUTH!

In huge swaths of these areas (eastern slopes of the Appalachian chain) there IS NO Internet service at all. Certainly nothing other than dial-up. (By the way, ask any cross-country cyclist - the Rockies are the LONNNNG climbs, but the Pennsylvania climbs are the steepest, and the valleys the most isolated.)

As for MY view of what you call "the broader market", I'm petrified it'll suddenly wake up one day and realize they're overpaying. When I go to a national or regional show, and look at asking prices on nice coins, I KNOW I can pick them up at auction for 50-60% less, IF I remain strong and don't panic. It still only takes two guys to screw up any particular auction lot.

When I talk of a vibrant market, I'm referring to expansive opportunities to transact on really nice coins, not anything about prices, per se.

 

My eBay sales report page says my sales are up 647% over this same 30 day period a year ago. And 34.1% over last month.
Let the good times roll.

 

I don't know why "Make an offer" would be a waste of time, since I have had my offers accepted and paid the price I wanted.

 

Yup, sure am, but Potter County benefits from being in close proximity with New York State and its more "active" promotion of broadband infrastructure. Pennsylvania generally is as backwards as it gets regarding having providers build out infrastructure.

Until October 13, I lived less than 55 miles from Philly and less than a 2 hour drive from Times Square, New York, and there was NO broadband (as defined in statute) whatsoever. It DID exist less than 1,000 yards away, as the crow flies, but not where I lived.

Pennsylvania is being told by Verizon that we either have to let them co-locate on existing poles and towers with their "pizza box 5G" service, or they're done building anything. And cable, phone, and power providers (poles owned by electric supplier) are saying "no". (Not Verizon phone areas.)

An old fashioned standoff. It is the small independent phone carrier areas that lack broadband for the most part. Verizon's areas are pretty good.

 

Doesn't Amish country play a big role in that?

 

In terms of households per mile of road for wired, yes. But their land tends to be flatish, which gives wireless some range.

 

For what it's worth, I have to agree with the idea that there are more places to buy coins and the number of places has continued to grow over the last ten years. The Internet has opened up coin collecting to people who didn't have a coin shop within a reasonable driving distance to their home. With modern HD pictures, you can get a pretty good idea of what a coin is actually going to look like if you by it from an online auction. My coin club had it semi-annual coin show last month and I picked up some good bargains there. As I looked around the bourse, I could see people taking out their cell phones to check to see how the price the Dealer standing in front of them compared to what they found on line and in my experience, the dealer matched or even beat the price that I found on their phone. We put in an extra effort to attract children to our show, free admission, free coins, a coin search that the vast majority of dealers participated in, and other incentives. The kids loved it and hopefully it may have lit a light in them to start collecting.

I am seeing more and more members bring their children or grandchildren to club meetings and shows. I did that with my grandson and for now, he's into collecting. The key to our hobby surviving is to bring in children and to educate people. There are a lot of people who think coin collecting is the coin TV shows, we need to help change that. Lastly, we need people who are pleasant and treat coin collectors in a pleasant way. The days of the grouchy old dealer is over, people need to take time to talk to new or beginning collectors and share their knowledge in a pleasant way. I belong to a forum on Facebook called "Old School Italians" (yes I'm Italian, another victum of Ellis Island changing our family name) and I put up a picture of the 5 oz. Ellis Island Coin and why the mint made it. I got an incredible reaction, people wanted to know how much and where they could get it.

 

Markets are cyclical. They go up, they go down.

A market like the coin industry goes up, goes down, does what it wants. That's the nature of a market. In 1999-2001, it was red hot. Things were going up. They cooled off. Things were hot again in 2007. Now, things are going down. Boom and bust. Rinse and repeat. Nothing to worry about at all. Nothing is going to steadily go up for an extended period of time.

In fact, when the markets are going down is exactly the time to buy!

 

Then you're really missing out, because sometimes you find sellers that will take up to 60% off what their BIN price is.