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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;GeorgeM, post: 2139931, member: 28550&quot;]When I travel, I like to stop at local coin shops. Often, I find things (or different pricing for things) than I find at my local haunts. However, I recently ran into trouble getting my coins home.</p><p><br /></p><p>Last weekend I was in California visiting a friend. I made a side trip and picked up a 20 coin roll of mint state commemorative half dollars. I got a decent deal on coins that were mostly MS63 or better, including a ton of 1952 (p) Washington Carvers, but also including a choice BU 1893 Columbian Expo, a 1946 all-mint (P, D, &amp; S) set of Booker T Washington halfs, an EF+ 1925 Stone Mountain half, an EF+ 1923 Monroe Doctrine half, and even a choice 1925 Lexington &amp; Concord Sesquicentennial. </p><p><br /></p><p>When I got home and started unpacking, the first thing I saw was a dreaded &quot;Your bag was opened for inspection by the TSA&quot; flier. Then, I noticed that my coin tube (I used a hard plastic container to keep the coins protected in my bag) had been opened and coins were scattered everywhere. I set to unpacking with a little more fervor than usual and managed to find 15 of the 20 coins. 5 halfs are still missing, and the 15 I did recover all have fresh dings and &quot;bag wear&quot; that they didn&#039;t have when I bought them.</p><p><br /></p><p>I&#039;ve filed a compensation request with the TSA, but am unsure what the outcome will be. It seems unlikely that the TSA will understand the fine points in value difference between an MS65 and a MS61 coin, especially as I do not have &quot;before&quot; photos or slabs to prove the condition. I don&#039;t even have an itemized receipt, as I bought these from one of those &quot;We buy gold &amp; silver&quot; shops in a cash transaction. Also, the difference between the market price of the coins and what I paid for them is unlikely to be something that the TSA will compensate me for (which is another way of saying that the time and effort I spent finding and negotiating for the coins went to waste the moment they decided to open my bag). </p><p><br /></p><p>How likely do you think it is that the TSA will even find the 5 missing coins? For all I know, they could have fallen out of my suitcase entirely and be sitting on a tarmac (or inside the cargo bay of a plane) somewhere halfway around the world by now.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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