What Has Happened To Our Hobby?

Among last evenings morass of garbage emails, the image below showed up in one of them. Being curious, I went down the rabbit hole. This was a Pinterest image. When I followed the link there were dozens and dozens of comments attached to it. "Oh, I have one! Where can I cash it in?". All of the attached replies were similar. It really just hurt my heart.... So now I have to ask, has the web ruined our hobby?

 

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I see that crap all the time on my homepage. Luckily, they're just Ads. I also have seen ads for Utube videos on cashing in on coins. So sad.

 

Here are some of the stuff I see on my Google homepage on a daily basis..

 

You'd think for 925 million you could get one that wasn't hairlined or die polished to death.

 

Yeah, they're real beauties. I guess a million bucks doesn't go too far these days. I guess I'll just keep my million in my sock.

Bruce

 

The New York style series??? What???

 

If I'm gonna have a coin worth $925 million, I better have traveled to 2008 Zimbabwe, and I shall have a MS-71 coin. No imperfections will be visible upon 100x magnification.

Ah, yes, some of the other things to go with it: pigs can fly, the semiquincentennial coins should start this year, a silver proof quarter from Littleton is actually worth $27.95, and people definitely do not go flying up the road I live on at 80+ miles an hour.

For the record, folks, the world's most valuable coin, which is obviously the 1933 double eagle, has reached only $18.8 million as I can recall. For a coin worth $925 million, which is a very suspicious number, I don't think that even Elon Musk would give you the money to buy that. And steel pennies, as mentioned above, are still in circulation. I have found 3 since Christmas, and my friend has also found some.

This is one of the things that's destroying numismatics. They see these, and they believe that their pocket change is worth millions. All I can say is, do not trust a Google ad unless a reputable company is doing it.

 

One of my old dealer buddies had bought a collection that included a very crudely made counterfeit 1913 V-nickel. He put that nickel in a flip and hand wrote $12,000,000.00 on the flip and everyone that came in had a great laugh over it. Heck, these days that almost wouldn't be funny.

 

Was it altered from 1903? I know that a lot of the 1913's are altered from 1903's. I do agree with you, though, that these days it wouldn't be funny. Somebody would take it seriously and try to raise $12 million like clockwork.

 

I am not clear about what you are conveying.

Are you referring to the Hobby known as "Coin Stuff Investing"....CSI for short?

It is quite popular among the Attorneys that specialize in Bankruptcy. It is a constant source of clients.

 

I was helping friends cash out the husband's coin collection/accumulation. The wife visited esty and asked me why I had valued a common date silver dime at bullion value when the same coin was on etsy for a couple of grand. Fortunately they were smart people and after sending the wife to few sites like PCGS and sharing a Red Book with her she understood.

Most of what they had was circulated silver. I went through everything and pulled out the better date US coins. There some Roman bronzes and a bunch of other odd ball items. I intended to do the job for free. I put aside some things I wanted to buy and they gave them to me as a gift plus a $500 check. I sold all of their coins for over $40,000.Some were sold as junk silver and some received a premium for being better dates. I also know that one of the local thieving shops had offered them a little less than $4,000 for everything and luckily, they backed off from that shop.

 

"There is no Santa Claus in Numismatics."
Lee F. Hewitt

It really doesn't get much simpler than that.

 

I wouldn't draw any broader conclusions about the hobby based on this. These ads don't appeal to collectors; they appeal to speculators who want to get rich quick. If you don't know anything about the hobby it's easy to believe that there's some rare thing out there that you just might have in your pocket that will make you rich.

There's a good gag in the movie UHF, by Weird Al Yankovic. There's the arrogant jerk TV executive, and a homeless man asks him for change. The executive sneers at him and gives him a penny and laughs about it. Later in the movie the homeless man buys the stock that saves the day, and he tells the executive that the penny he gave him was a 1955 double D and he sold it for so much money he was able to buy that stock.

 

THIS^

 

Randy,
These gimmicks are not our hobby. These gimmicks are from hucksters that have existed since the beginning and yes have proliferated with the advent of the 'net. Our hobby exists here on CT, at coin shows, auctions, and coin clubs around the world. The gullible will always be gullible. The knowledgeable, the collector and the hobbyist will always be just that too. We have coins and segments for every budget, from legit seven figure rarities to $35 circ cam Morgans. Let's just keep doing what we do, enjoy, and filter out the static.
Thank you for starting a great thread and conversation!
Happy collecting all!

 

$85,000.00 for a Wheat Cent! I've got close to $64,000,000.00 sitting in my safe. Score!

 

If you think these are bad, click through some of the ads talking about THIS ONE FOOD/DRINK/TV SHOW THAT WILL KILL YOUR LIVER/HEART/CHILDREN.

Hucksters have always hucked, and always will. Most people will ignore them. Others will learn.

 

What I'd need to know before purchasing it for that price is if shipping is free. That right there would definitely make or break the deal.

 

2 annoying problems.
The disinformation ad and having to clue someone in who thinks they have something worth money.

 

Having to pay sales tax on the shipping costs after the purchase would turn anyone off.

 

RIGHT ON! I could not have said it better…imo…Spark