Replying to Chris Fuccione Jess started a discussion on rip-offs. Rip-offs are like Art (or pornography). You cannot define it, but you know it when you see it. WVC and HSN are not rip-offs to me. They sell in the open and deliver what they promise. You might say that people pay "too much" for coins. Basically, everyone does. The seller always makes a profit. The last buyer (even a professional dealer) is always stuck with their coin until they can find someone to unload the goods on. Some collectors think they are smart to walk a coin show with Greysheet tucked under their arm to show the dealers that they are knowledgable collectors who will not pay Red Book or Trends or maybe they are trying to look like vestpocket dealers. Dealers use those Greysheets as a way to spot easy marks. Serious dealers belong to the CCE (certified coin exchange). Since the days of teletype in the 1960s, there have been backroom circles of dealers to whom "wholesale" is a way to unload stuff no one wants. At ANA conventions (and NYINC), very few collectors go to the auctions. Dealers go to auctions. If you go to such an auction you can buy Saints or whatever way below so-called "wholesale." Heritage in Dallas has Garage Sale days where dealers pull up with vans and cart away tons of coins Heritage cannot sell and they buy them at prices that let them make a profit at Greysheet Bid plus Shipping and Handling and Gas to and from Dallas and Meals on the Road and the Motel and and and and and.... When you go to a coin store and spend an hour looking at Walkers to buy a $15 coin, you do not count the value of the time you invested in your "bargain." You are "enjoying" yourself. People who shop at coin stores, or QVC or whereever, pay also for the convenience, the friendship, or whatever other intangibles they perceive. It is true that some media sellers claim (har har har) that these coins are "heirlooms" that your family will treasure for generations, when in reality these coins are junk that no one will want. THAT IS TRUE OF ALL COINS. Only the collector values them. There have been huge collections of high grade rarities of US and other Numismatics dumped on the market via auction because the heirs wanted to get a quick 100,000 dollars for a million dollar collection. They had no interest in the coins. Old coins are junk to most people. Also, there are levels of knowledge. The old person who buys a VG Morgan for $25 and does not know about the Red Book is disadvantaged. So is the person who buys an MS-63 Red 1946 S over D Lincoln for $200 without a Population Report. Price alone does not define whether the deal is honest or not.
You are right in the respect that you can't buy honesty. You either are or not. I was on;y referring to the treasure chests segment of QVC and HSN. If you listen to this guys sells pitch, he makes it sound if you are really getting a grea deal and you ar getting a great deal of junk. About a buck 85 in silver for 29.95 and 6.95 shipping and handling. No matter what is said that is a rip off and targeted toward the noncollector making it sound like a great investment with tremendous potential and it gives honest dealers trying to make a living a bad name. I am not a dealer and know full well what most go thru to make a decent living. Shipping coins at melt to make their rent. Occasionally they even sell a coin or two. Rent and utilities is a tough nut to crack. Here is a peron on TV going to give you the world in a wooden treasure chest and guess what they sell out each time they offer them. Ten years down the road someone is going to remember the treasure chest and sell it for 12 bucks if lucky. Enough I am beating a dead horse.
Knowing the ins and outs of coins in order to keep from getting ripped off is a given for those in the hobby. We have lots of books and periodicals as well as other resources for those who take the time to look and study. It's the poor guy watching QVC or one of the other shopathome shows that has probably never been exposed to the hobby except for the cigar box full of slick wheats, buffalos and such in grandpa's closet that really needs a little education. In the Dallas Morning News, they run a stamp column every week, but no coin column (or any other collectible for that matter). I think that if more time and resources were devoted to educating the general public about numismatics, there would be less confusion such as 'wow, them new dollars really got gold in 'em?" 8O
He's a friend of a friend The other side of the coin is Regulation. So far, there are (gratefully) only the usual laws against fraud, conversion, misrepresentation, etc. However, the federal government has in the past taken an interest in the numismatic market. Not Congress but the Federal Trade Commission has put coin dealers under a microscope. About 15 or 20 years ago, Heritage, Tulving, PCGS, and a few other firms were brought to court and made to sign statements that grading is subjective and that coins are not investments. Most of the regulation is internal to the hobby. I was at a local coin show and I was introduced to the town's largest coin dealer but when I asked him if he was an ANA member, he said he could not remember. Then, he said that they charge $45 or $50 a year (actually, it's $35) when they should just keep the Numismatist and only charge $10. I walked away. I will never step foot in his shop. I prefer shopping at shows (usually) because being on the bourse floor at a show indicates to me some kind of endorsement of ethics. At least, that was true in Michigan with MSNS, and with Central States and of course with the PNG at the NYINC and ANA shows. Apparently, it is not true here in Albuquerque. But now I know. And it might keep me from joining the local club if this is how they run their shows. I believe that agoric (market) regulation is best.
Re: He's a friend of a friend I believe that agoric (market) regulation is best.[/quote] I agree, but, us as hobbyists we can do a great deal to shut down unethical and unscrupulous dealers, mainly by not shopping at their stores or forums. How do you protect the public as they are the future of our hobby? This question probably has been asked since collecting began.
Certainly there must be, among the many experts in our hobby, someone willing to write a syndicated column about coins. The column could be a weekly describing the general aspects of the hobby, identifying pit-falls, schemes and rip-offs, book reviews related to our hobby, giving news of upcoming mint releases, point people in the right direction by giving contact information for the A.N.A., etc. I know that this is a long shot, but isn't a little eductional blurb toward the general public better than none at all?
What news on the Rialto? One of the values of chats and newgroups and such is that we do talk. New collectors who come to these discussions can ask about reputation and reliability. The only risk is that sometimes you get a lynch mob. I recomend McClosky's essay on "Bourgeois Virtue" www.virtualschool.edu/mon/Economics/ McCloskyBourgeoisVirtue.html - Adam Smith knew that a capitalist society such as eighteenth-century Edinburgh could not flourish without the virtues of trustworthiness or bourgeois pride, supported by talk. A potent source of bourgeois virtue and a check on bourgeois vice is the premium that a bourgeois society puts on discourse. The bourgeois must talk. ---------------------
Coin publications typically have columnists, but many are very reluctant to publish pro-consumer articles or columns for fear of angering advertisers and for fear of getting sued by Accugrade and companies like it. For some years now Accugrade has been the biggest ethical problem in all of numismatics, and it doesn't even get mentioned in coin publications. It doesn't get mentioned in books either, not even in books that are openly pro-consumer, such as The Coin Collector's Survival Manual, written by "consumer advocate" Scott Travers. The only place to get complete information about consumer issues regarding numismatics is the Internet. There are too many messages and too many people posting these messages. The bad guys can't shut them all up. though Accugrade has shut down at least two Web sites with legal threats.
I may need to clarify my original post in that I didn't want a column written in any hobby paper (even though badly needed) to bash accu-grundge but rather have someone write a column that would appear in the main-stream media..somewhere the general public would readily see it. The column would be more of a gateway to the hobby and would give information concerning up-coming shows, new coin releases and relate scams such as those that appear in the ads in the papers (colorized silver rounds selling for 39.95; three old indian cents for 10.00; etc). If no names were actually mentioned, an article could be written that tells the reader to look closely at grading services and recommend those that are superior. An educated reader would then be able to identify the low ball by process of elimination.
Well, I wasn't talking just about ACG but about pro-consumer issues in general. There's very little of this in coin publications. It's mostly industry boosterism and neutral historical background and so on. Regarding newspapers, my local paper, the Philadelphia Inquirer, has a coin column, but it's just about new coins that are released and upcoming coin shows and coin club meetings. Ed Reiter, who's now with COINage, used to be the New York Times coin columnist. I don't know what the Times does now. For most smaller local newspapers, I don't know if there would be enough readership interest to justify a column about coins.
