eBay/Internet purchases with pictures, sight seen or unseen?

I am wondering if a seller has a picture of a coin in a slab for you to review for purchase if this qualifies as sight seen or un seen as far as pricing goes. I have yet to get burned, but you never know.

 

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I bought my 1909-S VDB Lincoln cent sight unseen from L & C Coins and I surely wasnt disappointed. I have bought alot of coins with just a picture to go by. If its a good clear close up picture then I would catagorize it as "sight seen".

 

"Sight-seen", unless the photos are poor quality.

 

I would still consider it sight unseen since you never really know if the photo is an accurate representation of the actual coin. Additionally, most photos do not allow you to see problems with a coin that are not visible to the naked eye. Lastly, luster is almost impossible to appreciate from a photo no matter how good the quality.

I have not bought a coin sight seen in at least two years. I purchase almost all of my coins via internet auction, mostly Heritage.

 

If it's slabbed by one of the biggies, then sight-seen.
Otherwise sight-unseen.

Even good images of raw coins can cause you to miss things.
If the image is not good enough to show metal flow, then it also can't show light whizzing.

 

Untill the coin is in your hand, I would consider it unseen.

As a seller, I know that if I try, I can hide marks, change colors, tilt slabs, etc etc etc

A coin is not seen until you look at the coin, not the picture

 

Agreed gentlemen....

 

If it is sight unseen, then the price should be at Bluesheet and not Greysheet levels?

 

What ever the market will bear....most folks (present company included) are willing to buy sight unseen.

 

It's kind of whatever someone is willing to pay for it I would say

 

Contrare, a return policy of no questions asked is the equalizer. Not happy? Send it back for a full 100% refund, shipping included. Period. That at least is MY policy when selling, and that of a cpl others that frequient this forum.

 

My local coinshop does not have the greatest material on display, I think he sells most of his nice stuff to other dealers...

Anyways this forces me to buy most stuff off of the interent.

I have spent many thousands of dollars buying coins from online auctions, and I have yet to buy a coin on the interent that looked the same in the picture as it did in my hand. In my opinion it is nice to at least have a picture, but you have not truly seen the coin until you have it in front of you.

I will say that photos and scans usually tend to hide attributes of a coin for obvious reasons, but they can also take so much away.

I would much rather have a nice place to purchase coins that I could actually view. For now I would rather pay "greysheet" for graded coins on the internet, than raw, over graded coins and over priced coins from a grumpy old man.

Whatever you do don't pay PCGS Price Guide prices for anything that you have only seen a picture of. Most of the people I deal with look right through the holder, and focus their attention on the "PECUNIARIUS" within.

 

Good stuff and it seems this is still a "grey" area. :')