Opinions on SEGS seated quarters?

Yes, but which came first: the coins or the higher net worths? I don't dispute that they have made names for themselves in numismatics; it was the plenty of people making fortunes in numismatics comment I was disagreeing with.

 

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I think there are plenty, I dont know how you define plenty, but i see it as being able to easily pull a name out of your head for an example, and the thing is that there are people who are actively making their fortunes even right now. I would say Matt at Lost Ducthman will over the course of his career have made a name for himself and a fortune in the process (of course 'fortune' is a relative term anyway, and even i have made a fortune just by having the ability to put a coin away as an historical item versus a commerce tool), and thats not to pick on Matt in any way, BUT he is good at what he does (savvy) and sees trends enough to capitalize on them. Thats because he has armed himself with knowledge.

I would argue that folks like Rick Snow, Charmy Harker, Gerry Fortin, and many, many others are working very hard to build names for themselves also.

So yeah, plenty of people did it, can do it, and will continue to do it.

Oh I see what the problem is now. You think because someone had money to begin with, that them buying and selling coins for a profit is inconsequential. Gotcha.

Lets take any one them as an example.

Well use QDB with some made up numbers, although we know he started his journey as a young boy and I cant imagine him as a millionaire at 14, but anyway, lets just make up a story that fits your criteria.

QDB has a net worth of 10 million dollars and he decides he wants to invest/collect/deal in coins. But hes not ordinary (as we all already know), no he wants to be the best. So he studies, he asks questions, he travels, he researches, he is essentially dedicated and absorbing all information that he can in order to become the best. So the natural progression of things has been for him to become better and better at buying coins for himself with the potential to see nice returns (aka building his fortune from numismatics). His knowledge and aspiration to be the best also benefited him monetarily by folks wanting him to share his knowledge, and now he has published books to add to his numismatic related fortune. On top of that, due to his extensive immersion in the hobby and desire to attend as many numismatic related conventions as possible, it is recognized that his skills as acting as a broker are bar none, so he adds to his fortune yet again.

This is just a sample of how it can be done, like I said the formula isnt some hard to figure out secret to life. People make BILLIONS ever year on the coin market as a whole, the general gist of the hobby isnt that difficult. However to become one of the best you have to push yourself to learn and absorb as much as they did.

At any rate, the fact that these folks may or may not have had a large net worth before coins doesnt mean they still didnt add to their fortunes by being involved in this hobby.

Look at Gene Gardners recent sale, he realized some 19 million dollars, and I guarantee he didnt have that in it. In fact the optimistic projections were between 12-14 million. So even if just the extra $5 million was his profit, that is itself a fortune. Am i supposed to ignore the fact that he selected great coins and profited off it because he had money to begin with?

What is wrong with the logic in this thread?

http://www.coinworld.com/news/gardner-collection-tops-19-million-dollars-at-auction.html

 

Yep, I agree it's possible, but it takes more than knowledge and patience. I think it also takes connections and all those dudes have/had them.

 

Interesting question as to whether or not you could trust segs for a specific coin type. I don't have the knowledge base to give an opinion there. But I think I can still offer an outcome based opinion. your upside of the wager is around 10% or so on your example. But if that coin comes back details you now have a maybe $200 coin? So every win you collect 10% every error costs you 50% (rough numbers). Every loss needs many (5-8) wins to just break even. The only way that mathematically makes any sense is if you can grade on your own exceptionally well, far beyond my personal skills. I suspect this level of accuracy might exceed yours as well or you would have probably just relayed on your own grading skills and just considered them all raw.

 

I think the guys behind SEGS know their coins very well. But the real question is what's their business model? Is the idea to be as "good" as the top tier TPGs or do they want to make their customers happy by grading in a more lenient way? If they grade coins let's say with a light old cleaning while the competitors don't they found their market nieche, right?