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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;cplradar, post: 5378153, member: 108985&quot;]Hello</p><p><br /></p><p>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).</p><p><br /></p><p>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.&nbsp; Numismatists, as you are likely well aware, have a notoriously bad reputation among art connoisseurs and archeologist alike.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp;&nbsp; If one finds 20 gold coins from the 3rd century buried in your back yard in Canterbury,&nbsp; you betta call the government,&nbsp; If you try to keep them, you can go to jail.</p><p><br /></p><p>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.&nbsp;&nbsp; This is not just my opinion, but this is the moral standard which the entire art world holds by,&nbsp; And not just the art world.&nbsp; Selling hot goods, or counterfeit goods is, in theory, a real crime.&nbsp; So is aiding and abetting such sales.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; It churns the black market, encourages theft, and I won’t even discuss the implications for fraud and counterfeiting.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>So, while someone can get upset and righteous over this issue, this particular sale is factually problematic.&nbsp; He is not “innocent until proven guilty”.&nbsp; He has an ethical and legal responsibility to prove the goods are acquired legally “up front” (as they say in the ghetto).&nbsp; This has large consequences for how the entire coin collecting business is conducted.&nbsp; I am aware of that and our family has been victimized by this.&nbsp; Numerous coins that have been stolen from our home have been identified and floated back to the market, NO QUESTIONS asked.&nbsp; It is wrong.&nbsp; Graders, dealers, collectors, and government officials need to get their act together.&nbsp; Today, there are greater tools than ever in order to identify and track coins in the market.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>This sale by ebay is a problem, and it should be pulled until the situation, including the age of the seller, is clarified.&nbsp; But the problem is just not ebay.&nbsp; Many people have tried and even succeeded in passing off on ebay lost stolen Jewish art and jewelery from the Nazis.&nbsp; I spent some time working on that particular problem. </p><p><br /></p><p>Now, I would like to turn my attention to another matter brought up in this thread, which is the grade and the strike.&nbsp; This coin has a weak strike.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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.</p><p><br /></p><p>This coin in this example is weak for a coin that has many good strikes.&nbsp; I agree with Paul that this is likely a MS66 being sold at full retail.&nbsp; But that grade doesn’t factor in the strike quality.&nbsp; It is a full head, but the left leg and the reverse of the coin is weak.&nbsp; SLQ reverses are sometimes a problem and getting a good reverse strike makes the coin more desirable.&nbsp; You can say I don’t know what aI am talking about, and I bow my head to your better knowledge.&nbsp;&nbsp; But if I was purchasing this coin for full retail, it would have to have a much better strike.&nbsp; There are many such coins.&nbsp; With Standing Liberties, it is a little fun, because it seems the design is more sensitive to varying strike pressure and many other coins.&nbsp; Often there is weakness in the shield near the breast.&nbsp; There is weakness in the ridges on the blocks which she stands between.&nbsp; The lettering can be weak.&nbsp; The wings on the reverse are often weak.&nbsp; When you see enough of these, the variations become apparent.&nbsp; And each one can have a unique flavor.</p><p><br /></p><p>One final point.&nbsp; The Web Server which has the video that I posted is working.&nbsp; If the link doesn’t open for you, it is the problem of your phone/pad or computer.&nbsp; The video happens to have the identification number for the slab.&nbsp; None of our photographs of the stolen coin has those numbers.&nbsp; If you open it on firefox, or a browser, it needs to download in its entirety before playing,&nbsp; It is not that large, but when trying to do it over a 4G ceullar connection on an iphone, it can cause a delay.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; You phone is a different challenge.&nbsp; It is designed by Apple and Google, to not to download files.&nbsp; They are afraid you will steal there files, and they want you to use their aps that they track and control.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; Otherwise, download the video to your computer and then play in on a media player.&nbsp; If you have any questions about it, you can see <a href="http://www.mrbrklyn.com" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.mrbrklyn.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.mrbrklyn.com</a> and contact my father.&nbsp; The website has no encryption.&nbsp; Since we are not selling anything it is not needed.&nbsp; If your computer says otherwise, oh well.&nbsp; I guess you can trust facebook but not our family webserver.</p><p><br /></p><p>Thank you for taking the time to read this.&nbsp; If anyone can help us track down our stolen coins, we are always grateful for any assistance.&nbsp; &nbsp; 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.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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