SLQ Raw on EBay

Discussion in 'US Coins Forum' started by cplradar, Jan 5, 2021.

  1. Lehigh96

    Lehigh96 Toning Enthusiast

    Go to the post office and send something via USPS First Class Registered Mail insured for $2500 and report back to us what the shipping price was.
     
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  3. TypeCoin971793

    TypeCoin971793 Just a random guy on the internet

    You have no idea what you are talking about
     
    Kentucky likes this.
  4. TypeCoin971793

    TypeCoin971793 Just a random guy on the internet

    I was thinking about this. He could be the son of a coin dealer who lets him use professional photography equipment. There is a huge difference in quality in the pics. The difference in quality makes little sense
     
    paddyman98 likes this.
  5. TypeCoin971793

    TypeCoin971793 Just a random guy on the internet

    It’s also possible that he pays to have his >$450 coins professionally photographed. @jtlee321 offers a similar service.
     
    jtlee321 likes this.
  6. Lehigh96

    Lehigh96 Toning Enthusiast

    Why would someone pay to have expensive coins professionally photographed but not professionally graded?
     
  7. -jeffB

    -jeffB Greshams LEO Supporter

    Please elaborate. Or are you just talking about the Managed Payments debacle?
     
  8. serdogthehound

    serdogthehound Well-Known Member

    Looking at PCGS recent auction (including a pictures) the price is a little high even for MS65FH even with the attractive toning . there is also a risk that it would grade lower (it could go higher as well ) so I would be a pass
     
  9. cplradar

    cplradar Talmud Chuchum

    Hello

    My father would just jump right into this thread, baring claws and teeth, and the tone of some of the replies just begs for a tart response, but I try to be measured (Loshen Harah) and more considerate about all communications, and especially within this media (That is the internet in general and not cointalk particularly).

    I would like to address the question laid before the thread as to what is a sellers responsibilities when buying and selling artifacts and pieces of art, which would include coins. Numismatists, as you are likely well aware, have a notoriously bad reputation among art connoisseurs and archeologist alike. This results in some laws that are considered draconic by the standards of the numismatics community, and I leave it for others to judge on the benefits. If one finds 20 gold coins from the 3rd century buried in your back yard in Canterbury, you betta call the government, If you try to keep them, you can go to jail.

    My point is that sellers of items in the fine arts have a moral responsibility to know that the items being sold have a valid pedigree. This is not just my opinion, but this is the moral standard which the entire art world holds by, And not just the art world. Selling hot goods, or counterfeit goods is, in theory, a real crime. So is aiding and abetting such sales. It is the sellers responsibility to prove that his goods are legally obtained, and the fact that auction houses and ebay in particular, continues to allow for the selling of items that are not proven to be from well researched sources, and to even sell them anonymously, continues to be a challenge. It churns the black market, encourages theft, and I won’t even discuss the implications for fraud and counterfeiting.

    So, while someone can get upset and righteous over this issue, this particular sale is factually problematic. He is not “innocent until proven guilty”. He has an ethical and legal responsibility to prove the goods are acquired legally “up front” (as they say in the ghetto). This has large consequences for how the entire coin collecting business is conducted. I am aware of that and our family has been victimized by this. Numerous coins that have been stolen from our home have been identified and floated back to the market, NO QUESTIONS asked. It is wrong. Graders, dealers, collectors, and government officials need to get their act together. Today, there are greater tools than ever in order to identify and track coins in the market. Despite all the pictures, slabs and grades, these tools, which are standard in all other markets of valuable artifacts, are not being used in the coin market, and several other collectors/hobby markets.

    This sale by ebay is a problem, and it should be pulled until the situation, including the age of the seller, is clarified. But the problem is just not ebay. Many people have tried and even succeeded in passing off on ebay lost stolen Jewish art and jewelery from the Nazis. I spent some time working on that particular problem.

    Now, I would like to turn my attention to another matter brought up in this thread, which is the grade and the strike. This coin has a weak strike. It is true that I am not an expert, but I know enough since we have owned these coins, and I’ve handled them since I was very young (since I was about 8 years old), to know with certainty that this coin is a very weak strike, especially for the 1917 Standing Liberty, which has many fine examples and strikes in the market. As it is in the in the first full year of the run, as it is with 1913 Indian Head Nickels and 1945 Mercury Dimes, etc, the dies were fresh and thre are lots of fine strike examples. Similarly, we know of varying strike qualities for Morgan O dollars and Morgan CC strikes, that the quality of the strike is well known for different dates and mints. One needs to identify the different strike qualities, according to the years and the market, and one needs to learn what is a strike issue and what is a wear issue, especially in the MS grades.

    This coin in this example is weak for a coin that has many good strikes. I agree with Paul that this is likely a MS66 being sold at full retail. But that grade doesn’t factor in the strike quality. It is a full head, but the left leg and the reverse of the coin is weak. SLQ reverses are sometimes a problem and getting a good reverse strike makes the coin more desirable. You can say I don’t know what aI am talking about, and I bow my head to your better knowledge. But if I was purchasing this coin for full retail, it would have to have a much better strike. There are many such coins. With Standing Liberties, it is a little fun, because it seems the design is more sensitive to varying strike pressure and many other coins. Often there is weakness in the shield near the breast. There is weakness in the ridges on the blocks which she stands between. The lettering can be weak. The wings on the reverse are often weak. When you see enough of these, the variations become apparent. And each one can have a unique flavor.

    One final point. The Web Server which has the video that I posted is working. If the link doesn’t open for you, it is the problem of your phone/pad or computer. The video happens to have the identification number for the slab. None of our photographs of the stolen coin has those numbers. If you open it on firefox, or a browser, it needs to download in its entirety before playing, It is not that large, but when trying to do it over a 4G ceullar connection on an iphone, it can cause a delay. The browsers, for whatever reason, don’t like to stream the video, although they do better now on the desktop than a few years ago. You phone is a different challenge. It is designed by Apple and Google, to not to download files. They are afraid you will steal there files, and they want you to use their aps that they track and control. The easiest thing to do if you can’t view the video is to copy the URI and put it into the VLC media player that you can and should download because you will love it. Otherwise, download the video to your computer and then play in on a media player. If you have any questions about it, you can see http://www.mrbrklyn.com and contact my father. The website has no encryption. Since we are not selling anything it is not needed. If your computer says otherwise, oh well. I guess you can trust facebook but not our family webserver.

    Thank you for taking the time to read this. If anyone can help us track down our stolen coins, we are always grateful for any assistance. If you have any responses to any of my points, if you leave a message in the thread, I will probably monitor the forum for a few days before I fly out of the country.
     
    Last edited: Jan 5, 2021
    Dynoking, RonSanderson and Lehigh96 like this.
  10. Lehigh96

    Lehigh96 Toning Enthusiast

    Wait a minute, Ruben Safir is your father?
     
  11. cplradar

    cplradar Talmud Chuchum


    That is one of several reg flags.
     
  12. cplradar

    cplradar Talmud Chuchum


    Well, there are six of us

    [​IMG]
     
    micbraun, -jeffB and Lehigh96 like this.
  13. cplradar

    cplradar Talmud Chuchum


    I think I did now, twice.
     
  14. cplradar

    cplradar Talmud Chuchum


    Anyone can sue anyone for anything, but there is zero chance that a libel suit will get past discovery in the US, and he will need to pay the legal fees for his lawyer up front, because nobody will do it pro-bono. That is always the first thing that people in the industry need to deal with when attempting to what is right,
     
  15. TypeCoin971793

    TypeCoin971793 Just a random guy on the internet

    Tell me the pedigree of every single Morgan dollar on the market, and I will start lending credence to your responses. You cannot expect every market to be exactly like the fine art market. You do not realize this, so your argument has failed before it even began
     
    NSP, Dynoking and Kentucky like this.
  16. TypeCoin971793

    TypeCoin971793 Just a random guy on the internet

    You offered conjecture, nothing more. Show me a police report where this exact coin was reported missing/stolen, or show me where this exact coin is available in another seller’s inventory
     
  17. TypeCoin971793

    TypeCoin971793 Just a random guy on the internet

    What level of “proof” is adequate? Most coins, especially raw cheaper and modern ones, have no provenance chain prior to the current owner and maybe from the seller it was purchased from. You are demanding something that does not, and cannot, exist.

    Were they pictured? Were they certified? Did you publish that they were stolen so that dealers could look out for them?

    It only takes one or two transactions to erase all prior knowledge of ownership. Yet you expect all ownership info to be known for every coin so that it can be “proven” to be legitimately on the market. Again, you are merely wishing for something that cannot exist.

    Again you have no idea what you are talking about. The lighting and interference from the luster reflections have softened the contrast between the devices and the fields.

    This is obviously clear.

    See above about not knowing what you are talking about
     
  18. cplradar

    cplradar Talmud Chuchum


    I appreciate your thoughts on this, but I would like to make a correction. I did not offer conjecture. I don't need a police report and the burden is on the seller. The point you are making about Morgan dollars is valid, but it underlines the problem and offers no solution. The way this is handled in legitimate auction houses and markets is that the sales are recorded and the receipts are registered. David Kahn, for example, can tell you when he has gotten raw coins back of the same he has sold. He specializes in Bust Halfs. You start with today with the next coin that enters the shop from an unknown source. As a vendor, you ask, where does this coin come from. How did you acquire it. And you proceed from that point forward.

    Regardless, the preponderance of evidence in this case is that the vendor is not legit and the coins source is questionable. This is not really debatable. Ebay, as a a fact, and the vendor and the seller can all be on the hook, and YES, I have seen this play out in court many many times. It was part of my job. A coin of that value and rarity must be authenticated and researched. No amount of emotionalism changes that.

    Thank you for expressing your opinion. It allowed me to clarify what might not have been clear.
     
  19. cplradar

    cplradar Talmud Chuchum

    Not in this case and I would strongly urge you, if everything was on the up and up, not to pay full price for that strike. It is always a risk to buy on the photograph, but there is an imperfect art to reading photgraphs, and that is a very good picture, actually. And all those locations are COMMON weaknesses in 1917 strikes. You look for these.

    Thank you for stimulating discussion.
     
  20. TypeCoin971793

    TypeCoin971793 Just a random guy on the internet

    Okay, let’s use some examples:

    I bought this from a well-established dealer who is on the up-and-up. He probably bought it from the submitter (It had just been graded when I bought it). This coin came from the Randall Hoard discovered in the 1800’s. There is no provenance chain between its discovery and the submitter. Could it have been stolen from a collection in the 1920’s? Sure, but good luck proving so.

    ABD6C272-D48F-49A5-BAD3-C966CADD057C.jpeg

    I bought this coin from a precious metals dealer in Atlanta. It was a part of an intact hoard that was sitting in a paper bag for decades. How the coins were acquired was unknown. They could have been legitimately found in a piece of furniture or illegally pilfered from a construction job. There was no way to know. I sent it in and shared what I knew with the buyer.

    43852F7C-C0C9-43D4-B744-7D50473AA73C.jpeg

    I sent this coin in after buying it from a legitimate dealer. He probably cracked from a roll or bought it from someone who cracked it from a roll. There wasn’t anything suspicious about the coin that warranted asking. Could the roll have been stolen from a table 20 years ago? Maybe, but how would one know?

    9BF4E4D5-B044-43EE-B8A0-61CE07FAD4FB.jpeg

    I bought this in a small lot at a coin club. I believe it was in a small dealer’s old unsold inventory. This coin was originally found in a bag in 1982 and never removed from its holder. Was it a victim of a burglary in 1983? Who knows, but probably not.

    26F30F5C-1C7E-421F-B2F1-03C927CE51CB.jpeg

    I bought this raw at a major show. It has never been to market (at least not in the past 30 years), and is not included in any censuses for the variety. That suggests it was in a longtime collection before being sold to the dealer. Was it stolen from a collector in the 1950’s before being sold to the collector who kept it for decades? No way to know at all.

    FDA0947E-F9A9-4B80-8CFE-F353190BE77B.jpeg
     
    Last edited: Jan 5, 2021
    Dynoking likes this.
  21. TypeCoin971793

    TypeCoin971793 Just a random guy on the internet

    Yet not PROOF that the coin was stolen.

    Weak strike?

    3611C0DD-24A2-4E7E-B505-F082DAC48B96.jpeg

    Nope. Just the lighting (same coin, different pic setups).

    69168947-8093-4C60-A9C3-5CF7F76F2BF1.jpeg DC04E586-52C8-48C2-B51A-DB767C9625A4.jpeg
     
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