Those home shopping dudes.

In the case of Paul Hollis, he's a member of the ANA. He even ran for a position on the ANA board of governors last year. Didn't make it.....

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

Isn't the whole country built on the fundamentals of freedom and free trade? I've seen very few good salespeople who point out the issues with their products. The good ones will understand the marketplace and know how their product fits into the needs of the consumer. If the coin guys are good, they will sell product to the marketplace. If they are bad, they probably won't be on the air too long.

 

It's not the fact if they are good salesmen or not. It's the fact that they skew (at best) the perception of "rarity". They take coins with little or no rarity and then spend an hour convincing little old ladies that they are rare and in 10 years your investment is going to have a tremendous return.

 

If you have to see their (many older men and women) faces one time you soon know forever this is not free trade - there is a cost, and it's a cost not comparable to the damage. It's a cost not born out of any fundamentals or freedoms but of trickory and decete and lies.
Sure the used car salesman fudges the truth and does not tell the truth but most cars sold, most, are usable for the intended purpose and give some value for price made.
On these shows not only are they getting no value they are being taken by hope and that's where it croses the line.
These products sold to older folks never fit the needs of the customer except for one brief moment, the moment they place their order. It's downhill from there.
With the used car example even if the salesman does not tell me the tranmission is about out and I have to replace it I still have a car to get around in after. These older folks buying this junk never will have that chance to make their product usable or valued.

Free trade can be America at it's best, this type is America at it's worst.
When a hope or value is perverted and then sold it it ruined, tainted and all that touch it from there on will be likewise effected - it can be no other way!
There is no way anyone can effectively argue these HSN shows and hosts can be defended, no way, just try me on that one!

 

Even if I did disagree with you, (wich I do not at all by the wat disagree with what you are saying) there is no way I would take the task to try and debate anything with you. I have read numerous posts by you and I wouldnt wrestle that gator ever.:bow:

 

If I post what I really think of the TV talking heads,I would be banned.
Used car sale have more class than the coin vault & the other TV talking heads

 

Selling tat for an outrageous price isn't in and of itself fraud. Although I admit that the marketing guy who sells those overpriced painted plates or dolls you often see advertised in magazines, and describes them using words like 'delightful' may well be lying through his teeth because he doesn't believe it himself, but he is still expressing a subjective opinion, because some people may indeed find those ridiculous knick-knacks to be 'delightful' in their own opinion, and customers aren't going to buy them unless they hold that opinion, so what the ad writers are doing could simply be described as marketing.
However, its when they use misleading terms like 'investment' that they cross the line to commit what is, IMHO fraud (morally speaking, if not legally). If the premium is so high that there is no chance in Hell that they will ever appreciate in value enough to make a profit from reselling, then that person is being dishonest and deceptive, because describing something as a 'good investment' and implying that it will appreciate in value is not simply marketing, it is ripping people off...

 

I'm sure the mark-up is to pay for the show, and their salaries of course. Ever go to a coin shop in a major mall? There's huge mark-ups there, too. All that junk on HSN is expensive. The difference is I would be glad to pay more for a coin that I wanted, than a gold plated set of state quarters in a frame ("The frame alone is 39.99!!!"). If those guys sold the good stuff, even at a mark-up, they might get more respect from true collectors. They wouldn't make as much money if they did, though.

Sad but true, we're laughing at them, but they're laughing too...all the way to the bank.

 

As sure as wind blows and grass grows their laughing will be at a great cost to them as humans beings, either now or later - it always rolls back around. I would not want to be waiting for that tab to be paid would you?

 

We're coin people, so we see the coin fraud on HSN, but it's those shopping channels as a whole. I'm watching it right now. There's two guys trying to sell a cheap GE digital camera for only $179.95. You can buy a Canon at Walmart for less than a hundred bucks. It could be cameras, coins, collectable plates, or Suzanne Sommer's exercise contraptions. It is the nature of the beast. HSN sells. If you watch Shark Tank on TV, they talk about the importance HSN is to making a product successful.
I bet you all those big name coin dealers that run full page ads in the magazines wish they would have thought of it first.

 

I've watched the coin guys on TV and they do tend to overstate a few things. I've watched commercials for almost every other product and they tend to overstate things. Have you watched many soda or beer commercials lately? It is up to the buyer to weed through the crap and decide for himself/herself whether the deal is good enough or not. If the buyer can't make rationale decisions, is it the seller's fault? I don't think so. On the other hand, a seller who is deliberately cheating the buyer, she/he should go to jail. I don't put the coin guys in the same boat as criminals like Bernie Madoff. I put them into the salesperson category with all the other legitimate business people.

 

We have a difference of opinion. You believe that it is the seller's fault if a buyer purchases a product that she/he doesn't understand the value. I believe that the buyer has the responsibility for making a rationale decision. As long as the coin guys are not selling fakes, I blame the buyer. I've made poor buying decisions in the past and I'm sure that I'll make them in the future. I never blame the seller but blame myself for not understanding the marketplace or not estimating the future value. I try to learn from my poor judgement.

 

I listen to the show quite a bit as it is the only show that I can hear on coins. It's actually my back ground music. As far as those idiots that are on the show go, my guess is they know what they are paid to know. I don't have any idea if they are real coin collectors but my guess is neither one of them have good standing in the coin collector world.

 

Hey, I LOVE these guys because it makes me think coin collecting is still a hobby!

Seriously, wasn't it Hollis or someone else that took a Morgan dollar to a Museum seomwehere (New Orleans)??? I know it happened and it was one of the TV guys - so you can ignore it all day long, but he was THE GUY and it was a TV GUY!!! - get used to it..

 

I think you might be thinking of this......

http://www.coinlink.com/News/us-coins/paul-hollis-brings-25-million-1844-o-proof-10-home/