DOES ANYONE KNOW THE SYSTEM THAT COIN DEALERS use TO PRICE THEIR COINS? I always notice at coin shows when I ask the dealer the price of a coin they look at the back and there is a sticker with some letters and numbers that I can't make out any sense to, but they know exactly what the price is and know how much wiggle room they have, is there some kind of code and why won't they just write the price instead??
The code on the back of our coins is our "cost code" - what we paid for it. So even though all my coins have prices on the front, sometimes I have "wiggle" room based on how much I have into the coin - that's why we look at the funny numbers/letters on the back - but they're our secret!
Spit frankob S=1 p=2 i=3 t=4 f=5 a=6 n=7 c=8 o=9 b=0 So, pitbo would be $234.09. This is just an example. Spit frankob can be anything, that the particular dealer uses. You'll never be able to decide what the price is. Of course, the pitbo isn't what the coin cost.....it's usually what he bought it for...this way he knows he's making a profit. There might be other "real" codes to.....like a Franklin half might have FBL on it....that means full bell lines.
SilverSufer's "spitfrankob" system has been around for a long time. My father had a chain of pawn shops in the late '30s-early '40s, and everything for sale was marked with its cost in a code based on the letters of his name. With that system a seller can evaluate the potential buyer and name a price s/he thinks the traffic will bear.
Learned about this working for a local Jewelers as a young man. Was told the code and was told 50% over the value listed on the back would be mine as commission. Let's the dealer know how low they can go and still make a profit. Hey, next time you ask the price of the coin, and the dealer looks at the back, it means he is gauging what he can get out of you. When this happens, you should haggle the price down immediately.
I've noticed lots of dealers use codes like that. Surprises me too since once a person sells a coin or two to a dealer, such codes are relatively easy to decode, especially when those dealers post their coins on the web with the cost code stickers in their photos. Of course, most dealers don't post all of their cost codes on their web photos probably for that reason. But a few definitely do
