I just bought a Belgian coin from MacVanderstein on eBay. Looking over his many listings I am a little surprised that so many world coin listings had no bids at all, even those ending in a few hours. What's up? Minimum bid too high considering the shipping? A few British hammered coins seemed to have reasonable minimum bids; is there a question of authenticity? Have any of you had experience with this seller?
I have only purchased US coins from them. I have been happy with the ones I've purchased and the price I've gotten them at. There are times when some of the "whales" I'm after are a bit pricey, but the quality of the coins I've gotten are what I was expecting from the purchase.
I've gotten some great deals from him. I have probably 20-30 Victorian farthings in XF or better condition I got for about $1 each off him. It's just about watching and seeing what comes along. But he does have some coins that are overpriced.
I won one of his auctions and everything went well. I believe some avoid the auctions due to the higher start prices, multitude of raw coins (plenty will only buy slabbed), and presence of problem coins. Here is a similar thread from another forum: https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/963227/macvanderstein
I have bought one coin from them and from my experience it seems that they do what Great Southern Coins do with their photos. Atleast with toned coins. Covers up any cleaning, makes toning much more vibrant in their pictures, things like that. I mean im happy with the coin i bought, i was just disapointed as i was expecting brighter toning like what was in their picture. Looking at their listings however, their pictures remind me of those from GSC.
Here is the thread about the coin I bought from this seller. It was a slabbed coin. Oddly enough the cert number does not work any more on PCGS. https://www.cointalk.com/threads/cool-coin-russia-ivan-the-terrible-odd-truview.277096/
The only coin i ever bought from him was a Franklin half, advertised as BU, it was cleaned so i sent it back. I didn't have any trouble getting a refund, though.
I find his photos very strange. I'm not sure they're bad; they're just different enough that I'm not sure I can interpret them accurately. It's kept me away so far.
I personally have won one auction from this seller. I cherrypicked a very, very important (and valuable) variety from one of his listings (it's now the example coin for the variety on the PCGS website and is at least a five-figure coin.) I never received the coin. (Paid immediately.) Through the process of dealing with the seller and trying to figure out what was going on, I was lied to, talked down to (things like, "I'm a millionaire and I don't care"), and eventually cheated out of a major, major find. I would like to state that I was always polite/professional in my dealing with Mr. Denis, and that courtesy was returned until the moment I politely pointed out that his stories didn't make sense, at which point his demeanor really changed. I had the entire story typed out on an NGC forum thread, but after their software update it's disappeared. Yes, I still have the text of exactly what happened saved in a note on my computer. Summary: I would personally never, ever, EVER do business with MacVanderstein (Ron Denis) based on how I was treated during this transaction. I wish there was a way to block his listings from my eBay search results.
I would venture an educated guess that this is due to the spam factor. This seller is on my block list for that reason, even though I have never dealt with them. I simply don't feel like looking through page after page of material that I am not likely to bid on anyway. This is the case for many people, and also why so many people that list a high volume of low value and/or low interest coins end up doing so on multiple accounts.
I bought a few fairly expensive coins from him and was satisfied. Then he stopped shipping to the country where I live (Thailand), and that was that.
