I do watch them from time to time, but you don't have an option in your poll for me. "Yes, I do watch them occasionally, but the lies they tell makes me want to puke." Chris
Out of necessity, they don't have the kinds of coins I'm looking for on those shows. It's always stuff that's ultra-common, and 4 times the price it should be. That's basically the opposite of what I want. Now, I do enjoy getting to see the occasional coin on Pawn Stars and such, but the shows that are just trying to sell coins directly to the public never resonate with me at all.
In fact I was watching today just because. I also asked myself who pays these prices for these coins? Sure they were nice common coins but the prices were way high. There was even one that was selling silver by the pound for twice melt or close to it. Surely this is for people who have never heard of eBay or the LCS.
I agree, he is very knowledgeable and I own a few of his books, but buying anything off of any tv coin show is just a really bad idea.
You can laugh at him if you want, but he has sold more coins in the last decade than every other dealer in the world and is laughing himself all the way to the bank. Most of these guys have made a fortune doing this. I can't say that I agree with their tactics, but they have brought many new collectors to the hobby.
I bought a set of Gold Quarters for a lot cheaper, some said I paid too much but at 0.32 cents a piece I am happy.
Not even close. You do realize that he owns a coin shop as well. The show is a pure money making venture, and you overestimate the amount of sales he makes. Many dealers have sold more coins. Q. David Bowers, for example, has sold hundreds of thousands of rare coins with a total gross sales of over $1Billion. There are countless others as well. Don't think that just because it's on tv, that it means that they're successful.
Are you saying that Q. David Bowers has sold more of this tv junk than this guy? I'm quite certain that you are not saying that, but my earlier post wasn't very clear either. I wasn't trying to say that I respect the way that they work at all, but many of them have sold millions of these sets and have made quite a pile of money doing this for better or worse.
What they do not know is that the value of the display case is included in the value of the coins itself.
I think that you over-estimate the number of coins Meszack has sold, (I don't think they number in the millions) and that you underestimate the number of coins that Bowers has sold over the course of a career that spans almost 6 decades. Mike Meszack is nothing more than a carnival barker and much of what he says is exaggerated and often even dead wrong. I would never trust any accounting of what he's sold, especially if he's the one telling you the numbers. Of course from a quality standpoint, the stuff that Bowers has sold kicks the crap out of HSN's stuff, but I never said that they both sold coins of equal quality. Dave Bowers has run Bowers and Merena, Stack's-Bowers, and American Numismatic Rarities to name just 3 of his auction houses. And in the ANA auctions of the past two years alone, that has amounted to thousands of coins and millions of dollars from just that single venue.
Yes I watch them. And yes, sorry to say, I bought some coins from Art & Coin TV when I first started in the hobby. I consider it lessons learned and very educational. I didn't spend too much and have wasted more money on other hobbies, like golf! I've actually learned some things while watching Rick Tomaska, but his coins are grossly overpriced. His prices on eBay are also grossly overpriced.
