Littleton Coins

Discussion in 'Coin Chat' started by Shortgapbob, May 31, 2007.

  1. Shortgapbob

    Shortgapbob Emerging Numismatist

    I know that Littleton has been discussed in other threads, but I clicked on the link to their website on the advertiser banner here at CoinTalk. Most know how high their prices are for common coins, or widgets. I'm not saying that this is good or bad, as that has been argued before.

    What I was a little surprised to see was how high their prices seemed on higher-end coins. I know that they generally cater to a different group of collectors, often causual collectors and newbies. However, I figured their prices on better coins would be more reasonable, as I would think that more experienced collectors would be the ones making the high dollar purchases of rare coins. The prices I saw for the better quality coins seemed to be somewhat high.

    Just curious, has anyone here ever dealt with Littleton for any better date or rare US coins. Thanks for your input.
     
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  3. samjimmy

    samjimmy New Member

    I have a buddy who always tells me when he buys something from Littleton or the coin shows. Every thing he has bought (and has thought was a good deal) can be found elsewhere for less. Those are my toughts.
     
  4. bqcoins

    bqcoins Olympic Figure Skating Scoring System Expert

    I once emailed them to get a price list on some mercs, when the price list arrived I nearly fainted as their quoted price list on average was 3x current retail
     
  5. TIM1966

    TIM1966 Junior Member

    I wouldnt recommend Littleton to anyone.
     
  6. Cloudsweeper99

    Cloudsweeper99 Treasure Hunter

    The folks running Littleton should try running a couple of programs with more competitive pricing. They might find that the increase in the volume of business they do outweighs the smaller markup.
     
  7. gatzdon

    gatzdon Numismatist

    Littleton is good for buying small quantities of American Silver Eagles at cost with Free Shipping every year.

    Sometimes, they do have other decent loss leaders, but they can be hard to find the ads with the promo code (i think they call it dept. #).

    Of course, the coins on demand that they send with the ASE's are about 2-3 times overpriced, but they do send a postage paid mailer to send them back and cancel them.
     
  8. Victor

    Victor Coin Collector

    The only product from them I ever liked is my Peace dollar album. It is a green hardcover 3 ring notebook type of album and you can see both sides of the coin. It seems like a high quality piece. But I didn't buy it from them. I got it for ten dollars from a private sale.
     
  9. Peter T Davis

    Peter T Davis Hammer at the Ready Moderator

    I actually think it's great that Littleton is in the industry. No, not for charging too much, lol. But, I think they are responsible for bringing in more new collectors than anyone, even the ANA. Their ads are everywhere. And, yes, obviously that's why they need to charge more. And, fine for them to do it.

    I grew up in a small town. Very small. No hobby shop at all, let alone a coin shop. All we had was a counter at the local five and dime, because the owner collected coins and was selling off some of his duplicates. I had that, and I had the Littleton catalog. It took me a few years to figure out that there were other sources where your dollar could buy more, but I doubt I would have gotten that far without Littleton.

    And, we didn't have the web back in those days (horrors!). :)

    So, I'm happy to have Littleton in the industry. And, I've not heard people taking about them overgrading, which is a way that some coin dealers overcharge.
     
  10. Shortgapbob

    Shortgapbob Emerging Numismatist

    I agree with this actually. Littleton is the way many people get started into the coin hobby. My understanding is that they also are responsible for many new ANA members. There are a good number of noncollectors who actually know what Littleton is due to their advertising presence. Actually, most of their introductory deals are pretty good, as long as you are willing to work to get youself off the shipping list for approval coins. Like I said, they cater to a different group of more casual collectors, which definitely has positive elements.

    By the way, the coins I have seen in the Littleton packaging usually seem to be graded fairly accurately, or even conservatively.
     
  11. Cloudsweeper99

    Cloudsweeper99 Treasure Hunter

    Peter, you are correct, of course. I've purchased a few coins from them over the years too, and I wish they could find a way to adjust their business model a bit to lower the prices because I was always happy with the coin, if not the price.
     
  12. rotobeast

    rotobeast Old Newbie

    I bought from Littleton WAAAAYY back a long time ago.
    It started with some really good deals on silver eagles and then I got a few morgans & peace dollars.
    The prices were high, after I started checking out others prices in magazines and ect, but the grading was dead on.

    It was just as others had said, Littleton helps get new blood into the hobby.
    You have to give them some credit.
    :)
     
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