I have an exciting story from today at my local coin shop. I decide to head to the LCS to poke through their foreign coins. I pick out about $300 worth of foreign silver (bought at melt value,) and while I'm waiting I decide to poke through the non-silver stuff. There is a box that includes Australian non-silver coins...so I open up the Krause manual on my iPad and begin checking dates. I find a 1946 Penny. I look it up. Eureka! Krause lists this coin with a mintage of 240,000, and a price of $42 in Fine. I think, "Okay, that's great, I found one!" And then I find another one. And another. I start to get suspicious...am I looking at the manual correctly? Yes. Is there a variety or something? Nope. I verify the date and denomination again. I check on eBay...regularly selling for between $40 and $75. In total, I find TWENTY FOUR of them. Being an honest person, and also knowing that buying 24 of the same coin would draw suspicion anyway, I ask an employee to check what I am seeing. Then one of the owners. Yep, they are what I think they are...meaning I just found them at least $1k lying around in basically a junk box! Now, if you're wondering what's in it for me: 1) It's really fun to look through coins 2) When I'm honest about stuff like this, they know I am treating them fairly when I spend 4 hours going through their foreign coins 3) They asked me to consign them on eBay So, all in all, I had a pretty good day looking through foreign JUNK! Isn't that pretty cool? Anyone else had a recent "find" like that?
No, but I have to take a better look through the foreign junk box at my shop. It's huge, and I throw stuff into it a little too indiscriminately these days.
You are far more honest than most people. Many would have pocketed the coins at the 6 for $1 deal or whatever and made out like bandits. I dont know of too many folks who leave money on the table like that and I sure wouldnt turn down an opportunity myself. They are the dealers, I am sure they have a Krause, and if not, well the internet is everyones friend. I dont know, but they should do their due diligence in my eyes, they are the store owners and the experts. HOWEVER, with that being said, if I felt it would benefit my relationship with the store owner and he/they were a good dealer, then I may have done the same thing, but that would depend on the dealer.
I think in life it's a give&take, you certainly did the right thing. I am sure your good relationship with them will be beneficial to you one day.
Super cool find! Apparently today is the day of the Lucky Foreign Junk Box -- one of our employees just found a $5 Indian in what was supposed to be a copper-nickel foreign junk box. Everyone just those junk boxes, immediately!
I have found some scarcer British like the 1950 and 1951, and Australian pennies from the teens that are pretty high catalogue values in job lots. People in the USA don't pay much attention to that stuff.
What's funny is that two of the owners (the parents) kind of give me the stink eye when I come in...and I found out today it's because they are afraid I know more about coins than they do. I really, really find this embarrassing - that people with decades in the coin business would think that I know more than they do. Yes, I have focused my energies on foreign coins and varieties...which they have chosen to ignore...but I wouldn't even consider myself in the same league as they are when it comes to the hobby as a whole. I did take a moment to specifically point out that today was a good example of my letting them know when I find something cool in their inventory...
Oh, and another funny moment: I had a stack of 8 Washington Quarters I'd picked out of their BU rolls. The manager/owner (the son) asks me how much he usually charges me for them. I said, "Well, somewhere between $6 and $10 each, depending on how good of a mood you are in." Ha! He laughed and charged me $7 each.
Sounds like you surely made the right move then. Hopefully this will build the bond between you guys better and you can maybe help supplement your income further by moving more of their product without you having to have an inventory. Great job!
I really hope they appreciate what you did for them Stldan'. That's a big favor you performed for them today. Anyway, the coin Gods will smile sweetly upon you my friend..........
Exactly, Trey. Exactly. And this way is much, much less stressful for me. I love being nice to people and treating them fairly.
Great find. I have never found anything that good, but i have found several silver coins in junk boxes, the last one was a 1994 200 Forint, silver proof.
Lucky duck... It's so cool that there are still coin sellers out there who don't seem to care about world coins. I guess cherrypicking is alive and well. Congrats, and keep it up!
It's actually harder to find dealers who do care about foreign coins. Last week I was on vacation in Florida and I stopped at a shop to see what they had. He had about six small binders with foreign coins in 2x2s. To me it looked like he had probably bought someone's collection and just put them out for display. I didn't find anything this good, but there were four silver coins and several other nice finds. They were sitting there plain as day and some of the silver coins even had "sil" written on them. Anyone could have bought those probably for months but no one bothered to look or recognized what they saw. I bought 82 coins for $20.
