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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;NPCoin, post: 302016, member: 5629&quot;]It&#039;s not just a problem with eBay.&nbsp; There are groups of people that simply feel that there shouldn&#039;t be any form of &quot;retail&quot; side to numismatics.&nbsp; And not only with numismatics, but with a number of &quot;collectible&quot; items.&nbsp; The internet has created more of a peer-to-peer social interaction that previously was not available, nor possible, prior to the internet of today.&nbsp; As such, many in the online communities feel that everybody should be treated as a &quot;peer&quot;, and thus, the collector has a certain &quot;right&quot; to receive the same bargains, discounts, and treatment of established relationships between &quot;professionals&quot;.</p><p><br /></p><p>When perusing many of the wholesale bid/ask listings, many people do not understand that these are prices that professional dealers are willing to buy and sell to other professional dealers that they have an already established relationship to.&nbsp; True, there are dealers that will refer to the bid/ask listings and offer established customers a comparable deal when buying and selling.&nbsp; However, the mentality that I have noticed says that everyone on the internet is a peer and thus should receive the same treatment and deals regardless of relational status (ie. whether you are a dealer or not).&nbsp; The same mentality says that you should have a right to receive the same deals as a fly-by buyer as the established customer who has bought thousands of dollars worth of business and years of faithfulness.</p><p><br /></p><p>It used to be the day when &quot;your dealer&quot; was the one you trusted to give you good advice and a great deal, and relationships were established.&nbsp; Back then, you would trade between peers on your bid boards, or at the worst, sell directly to your dealer for a price that allowed him/her to resell the coin and have a profit left over to pay the light bill.</p><p><br /></p><p>Today, however, everybody&#039;s a dealer and everybody&#039;s a peer.&nbsp; Everybody has a right to wholesale dealer pricing, and the good, trustworthy, legitimate dealers are becoming a thing of the past, replaced with the fly-by night buyer-seller, many of which are unscrupulous, with no need to establish relationships, as the whole world is in their reach.</p><p><br /></p><p>This, in my opinion, is the biggest problem.&nbsp; And eBay is simply a symptom of this disease.&nbsp; Realistically, eBay should be seen more as the local bid board, where you should take great care and deal with those that you can verify a scrupulous reputation.&nbsp; And forums like this are the trustworthy advice side of your local dealer, giving you opinions on items up on the bid board, answering your questions to the best of his/her knowledge, and establishing a relationship.</p><p><br /></p><p>Personally, I would rather pay a bit more money for the coins I want at a brick and mortar establishment and gain a relationship with the one I buy coins from than to take the chance with possible fly-by night (mostly) anonymous entities.&nbsp; But, unfortunately, the closest dealer to me is over a two hour drive and out-of-state.&nbsp; So, some of us have no real choice. <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie1" alt=":)" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" />[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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