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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;clembo, post: 950204, member: 8033&quot;]I&#039;ve only read a few pages of this thread and it appears I have happened upon somewhat of a &quot;whine fest&quot;.</p><p><br /></p><p>I work in a shop. My co worker has been there for 30 years and the owner has run a shop since 1966. Point is, between the three of us we have a few years experience.</p><p><br /></p><p>Want to know how we do it? We put coins in 2x2s and put the date on them for the most part. We don&#039;t grade them and rarely price them because prices change. Most end up in the vault (our store is an old bank).</p><p><br /></p><p>If you see a coin in a display case and are interested we get it out so YOU can get a good look and form an opinion. I generally take a better look myself first to form my own opinion.</p><p>Then I&#039;ll get a price from the boss in most cases. If he&#039;s in a good mood it may be cheaper.</p><p>If you ask my OPINION I will gladly give it to you. If I think it was cleaned I&#039;ll tell you. I&#039;ll also note scratches and dings. If you ask me to grade it I&#039;ll most likely grab an ANA book and go over the coin with you.</p><p><br /></p><p>If you don&#039;t agree that&#039;s fine. Doesn&#039;t hurt my feelings at all. Doesn&#039;t hurt my feelings if you decide NOT to buy it either. </p><p>Believe it or not on the dealing side of the counter we can tell who is knowledgeable and who is just looking to &quot;pick&quot; coins. We respect those with knowledge. Pickers not so much.</p><p><br /></p><p>Now if I give an opinion that a coin grades XF40 and you agree and purchase same and it comes back a VF35 from NGC is it MY fault. Resounding NO!</p><p>Conversely if it comes back an AU50 would you even bother to tell me? Would you offer more money on your next visit because you felt bad? I&#039;m thinking probably not.</p><p><br /></p><p>Selling coins DOES involve a lot of trust. If you have done YOUR work we want you as a customer because you understand.</p><p>We are not a museum. I understand this more every day. Time is money and we are not in business to show you everything we have so you can look at it and buy nothing. We have other customers.</p><p><br /></p><p>Believe it or not I buy coins at work. Nice little fringe benefit but my boss makes money when I buy as I expect him too. At times I&#039;ll inquire about a coin and feel he has overgraded it but it&#039;s his coin. At these times I&#039;ll decline just as any customer can. No hard feelings. Most times though I will buy the coin because of MY opinion not his.</p><p><br /></p><p>We send coins to NGC constantly. Thousands per year. A lot of it is garbage IMHO. That being modern bullion.</p><p>I am the one he asks to screen them for possible MS70 or PR70. I HATE this part of my job because I sure can&#039;t tell the difference and furthermore I don&#039;t care. Still, we get &quot;lucky&quot; at times and make stupid money on a piece of metal in plastic. Ebay specials as it were.</p><p><br /></p><p>As for &quot;real&quot; coins sent in we are no different than most people. Sometimes we are disappointed and other times we feel we have received a &quot;gift&quot; grade.</p><p>If I send something in I consult with my co worker. He has a great, but certainly not infallible, eye.</p><p>The last two coins I sent in I was disappointed. It happens. The previous four I sent in two of them I consider &quot;gifts&quot;.</p><p><br /></p><p>My boss consults my co worker as well. Unfortunately he doesn&#039;t listen that well and sends them in anyway. Then he&#039;s upset when a coin comes back as cleaned or damaged. Well, who&#039;s fault is that? Still, we sell those coins and most often on ebay.</p><p><br /></p><p>It all balances out in the long run basically. We send coins in for a reason and that is to sell them. Key dates ALWAYS get slabbed for authentification if nothing else.</p><p><br /></p><p>We are NOT professional graders nor do we always agree with professional graders. We don&#039;t whine about it we just move on.</p><p><br /></p><p>We are in business to make money as are the TPGs. I think they have become quite silly myself at times but as long as people are going to pay for &quot;silly&quot; services more power to them.</p><p><br /></p><p>In closing I know every shop is different. I have worked where I am now for just over 2 years. In that time I have seen hundreds of thousands of coins. U.S. and World as well as quite a lot of paper money both U.S. and World.</p><p><br /></p><p>We have three &quot;coin people&quot; at the shop (we do jewelry and stamps as well). I&#039;d love to see anyone here with 2 good friends try and catalogue and grade the volume I&#039;ve seen WHILE they are running a shop. </p><p>It&#039;s job security for me folks. I&#039;ll NEVER be caught up.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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