Online Coin Dealer Website List - Ideas Wanted

Hello fellow CoinTalkers,

I am working on a master list of Online Coin Dealers for my personal use, and thought I would ask if other members would find it helpful if I posted it here. It is not currently finished, but wanted to updated you all on my progress and take any feedback you might have. I normally check around 50 websites weekly looking for my own purchases, but I know this is a just a small sampling of all possible hunting grounds.

I started with around 600 coin dealer websites that I culled from the following sources:

• ANA
• CAC
• PCGS
• NGC
• Google

I'm personally checking every site by hand and removing sites that are:​

• Dead Links (domain no longer active)
• Have no Inventory listed online
• Have no pictures of online inventory
• Have out-of-date inventory or site not being actively updated
• Are strictly ancient / world coins (sorry guys, that list will be in future)
• Are strictly currency (sorry guys)
• Are strictly bullion sites
• Are strictly precious metal IRA / 401(k) sites
• Are scammy looking
• Are illegible or hard to navigate or generally suck
• Are just shell sites that forward to or list items in eBay store
• Are infected with malware / viruses

Good Qualities that get a site included on my list:​

• Have Online Inventory
• Have good quality photos of all Online Inventory
• Have Prices listed online
• Actively updated
• Have basic contact info, email, phone, address, etc.

Stats
​

Around 10% of my original list have dead domains, or sites that are active but have a message that states "Gone Out of Business". Most all of these dead sites were found in the ANA directly, which is clearly extremely out-of-date.

Around 50% of original list are only "business card" type sites, listing only contact info and basic services offered, no online inventory, or inventory but no pictures, or simply forwarders to eBay.

One site I visited had an active exploit (infection) running which the dealer may or may not be aware of. My hardware firewall AND my endpoint antivirus freaked out the second I clicked the link and quarantined my machine from the LAN so nothing could get outside my machine.

Another 10% or so are legitimate sites, but cater to World Coins / Ancient Coins / Bullion / Coins as investments / Numismatic Books / etc.

So, at my current rate I am keeping around 30% of my original list of ~600.

Initial Observations​

• ANA dealer list is horribly out-of-date (this is embarrassing, as this is a primary function of the ANA IMHO)
• CAC dealer list is fairly accurate and useful
• Google is good resource if you are looking for specific types of dealers
• MANY dealers do not bother listing coins online
• There are a lot more sites pushing rare coin "investing" / gold IRA / gold 401(k) than I was expecting.
• Many sites lack basic navigation functions, such as built-in search!
• more to come...

How Far Have I Come?
​

I started with my personal list of ~50 dealers which I have used for the last few years and check constantly. These make the core of my un-finished master list. I am going through the new dealers alphabetically A...Z and so far have finished through "E", and have added around 30 new dealers. Some of these new finds are great, some are just so-so.

Next Steps​

Continue to purge dealers F...Z and cherry pick good dealers for my Master List.

Once I have cooked it down to around 180-200 dealers, I will publish here on CT for your review. As I am sure I missed removing some bad apples or including some good ones, I will take input from you all. For instance, one site I found seems nice, but the search function is completely broken, as is the filtering function. So there will be round 2 of the purge.

Please comment as you see fit, I will keep you all posted on my progress. I plan on being finished within the next 15 days (so around July 4th, 2014).

Thanks for looking,

Matt

***** Drum Roll Please *****

geekpryde's
Master Online US Coin Dealer List

A-L CLICK HERE
M-Z CLICK HERE
​

 

Nice systematic approach Matt. This should prove a useful tool for many who do not currently shop anywhere except at eBay simply because they do not know where to look.

By the way, were you at Nashua Sunday? I was hoping to meet you, but didn't. It took me longer than normal to depart for the show on Father's Day, so I arrived later than usual.

 

Sorry, @Mainebill and I decided not to go, we were both busy and I personally am broke. I promise you we will get to Nashua this year.

Thanks for your comments on my approach.

 

update: I just finished dealers F,G,H and only picked up 4 more dealers for my list. If anyone here works for the ANA, I would love to talk to someone about their online directory. It really should be trashed and started from scratch with dealers-members suppying all new info.

I am down to 405 dealers, 84 keepers, and 322 more to review by hand.

 

Thanks for the tip, I don't really hang out on other forums but CT. I checked their list, most were dupes with what I already had, but I added around 60 more sites to check. Of the first 25 or so I've done, 5+ were dead links. So they must not update it too often, but still a good source.

 

Update: 250 more coins sites to pick through. 121 keepers found, letters A...L DONE.

This first draft will have to be culled again, so when I post it, don't think it is definitive yet. Dealers will be removed, dealers will be added.

More thoughts:

Tons of coin dealers have gone out of business, but their sites are still found in many lists. I think I visited around another 20 dead / abandoned sites in last hour.

One more site found with active exploit infecting visitors to the site. (scary)

Many Coin Dealer sites are in need of a serious refresh, many look circa 1990. Yes, I know it costs time and money, but to me, it's the cost of doing business. There are a TON of totally free skins for sites, where 90% of the code is canned. They would possibly be a lot easier to maintain as well.

Some dealers have multiple domains that forward to a single primary site, so I may need to look carefully for duplicates sites under different names (already found a few)

 

Update: 134 Keepers found, letters A...R done, 112 more sites to review in my first round.

I'm keeping around 26% of sites looked at.

I guess I'll finish before July 4th, LOL.

 

Yeah, thats one more reason to do this master list. If I do all the hard work, all you guys need to do is use my list and get out your checkbook. You're going to be finding a ton of coins you want to buy.

 

Okay, final stats on the original 600 dealer websites.

145 Keepers! ~25% keepers

I need to go through this list again, as some of these sites meet most of my criteria, but are hard to use and probably should be removed. Not sure why some sites make it so darn difficult to find and buy coins.

I have a few more sources I need to merge into this list, but my rough draft will be posted shortly for your use and comments.

 

Things to Keep in Mind
​

If you don't see your favorite dealer listed, or you are a dealer yourself and wonder why you are not here, keep in mind my criteria: Online Inventory, Coin Pictures, Coin Prices, can't be mostly bullion / foreign / ancient, can't be just a shell for your eBay listings. PLEASE if you think a site should be added to my list keeping in mind my criteria, send me a PM or a reply in this thread, I will gladly check it out.

I hope someone finds this list helpful.

geekpryde's
Master Online US Coin Dealer List


A-L CLICK HERE
M-Z CLICK HERE
​

 

You are on my personal list, but I think you only link to your eBay items, so I cut you for this list, sorry! If I am wrong, I will add you right away. My reasoning for cutting all the eBay based dealer sites is because it's just way easier to find your coins directly on eBay, and everyone already knows about eBay, and HA, and the other major auctions sites. This list is to help people find dealer sites they don't already know about.

 

Update: 2 dealers removed so far on second review.

 

Update: 1 dealer removed

A CT member PM'd me to say that a site I had in my own list (the original 50) had gone defunct. I don't know how I missed that. I think perhaps it still appeared to be up and running (but not being updated) until very recently, but now when I click on it the domain is no longer active at all.

Thanks guys!