Now don't be angry if you are in opposition to my feelings about these numismatic unnecessaries, I am making this list just for fun
So here are the things that I find totally unnecessary/annoying about the nummy hoarding business

First up, Slabs what on earth are they for? Merely for a seller wishing to aggrandise their coin by placing it in a bit of fancy presentation packaging and you can never fully examine the condition of the coin through the plastic glaze...
Next thing that springs to mind, the concept of Rolls - rolly polly-olly!
what on earth is so special about the notion of a stack of coins one on top of the other with the surfaces eternally rubbing across each other? And yet, people seem to go absolutely crazy at the sound of them... coin rolls... yummyyyyyyy.. does it sound like some kind of fast food? :>P
And they are all the same type???

Apart from these big-hitters, we have a menagerie of other things I could do without;

All fakes in general, except from replicas that are labeled so and the state of China for producing worryingly well made ones of them

Dodgy dealers and their often dodgy prices - they exist, they've got to earn money and some people have got to give it to them




Oh yes, that most perennial bete noire of coin buyers alike...

Sellers of fakes!! Not much more to say is there? Though a helluva lot more could be said...

As the Persian saying goes (to males) "may a fart be upon your beard.." (yeah, at least)

To females it is "may shit be in your hair.."

Other coin tricksters and funny do-ers..

Those that sell one coin or a limited number of coins out of a large lot of 100's and suck you in; extra-coin incrementeers who ask for a dollar per extra coin and the stuff they're selling is only going for a couple of bucks anyway; users of stock photography, those that won't combine postage at all!; takers of blurred photographs who actually have much better camera skills... (and many, many more..)

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Things I love!

Verdigris - good old fashioned, natural-green copper rot! mmmm... natures inter-action of time, metal and poor hydration - there could be nothing more authentic, could there?..

Bargains - ebay's only strong point

Making money on reselling them

Dealer's cheapo-trays when the price is low...

Finding rareties in bulk-lots

Acquiring an admirable collection!

Slabs are for speculators/investors. Not collectors. I own some, because the coins in them are nice, but I bought the coin, not the stupid piece of polystyrene.

I've got to agree with you on those. Personally I stopped buying and selling on eBay, not for good, just for now.

The fees are too much lately and the shipping prices are rediculous.

A lot of my currency comes directly from the UK or Africa...there are only about 3 African sellers that don't charge $30 shipping for a small stack of bills...basically my purchases are limited.

Slabs, obviously some people love them. I am NOT one of them. I have slabs, but I don't think they are worth their weight in plastic. I want to replace them with the capitol screw post holders when I get the time to.

Can you PM me your African notes sources pls? I am really interested in that whole continent, I was looking up Gabon notes the other day after Survivor announced that is where the next episode will be, and they have amazing currency.

I have to say that I loathe slabs, but then again I am a hammered lover and so do not see the point of putting a Medieval coin in a plastic coffin... As Dave often says, they're my coins and I don't care much as to what other people think they grade at!

As to eBay, a great place for me to buy, but to sell? No way, I have cut down my listings considerably now and just sell from my site and to friends/contacts, I get the prices I want without paying any extortionately high fees!

I don't like slabs because they make me pay more and because they're too damn hard to display!

Gash, if only I could display my coins around the house instead of the inside of a bank vault.

You could maybe build a secret bunker in the centre of your mansion and nobody would ever know they were there.

If I ever strike it rich I will certainly be doing that! Didn't a large amount of the CC Morgan dollar hoard come from some criminal who did that?

Not to be contrary but I like slabs. I have a nice run of IHCs in early ANACs slabs. These go back to when ANACs was known for their accuracy on copper coins. If you notice old ANACs slabbed IHC command a decent premium these days.

Ebay - I love it. I've purchased there and sold there and have not been "taken". Of course, like with any dealer, you have to exercise care.

S&H fees, I believe, are just starting to come in line with what it really costs to package and ship an item. If you look at what commercial establishments charge you might find that low S&H of the past was being covered by the large price profit sellers were making. With higher fees more are passing this on to the customers.

I am new to numismatics and I don't mind slabs at all. In fact, I quite like them (assuming by slabs we mean good TPGs, not no-name worthless ones). I do most of my buying online (usually ebay) so having a solid 3rd opinion on both the grade and authenticity is very important to me for my more expensive purchases.

I'm curious.

How much are your coins worth collectively?

Remember the old saying about asking how much something is worth?

Yes, it was a criminal by the name of the U.S. Treasury Dept.!

well you did mention that you needed a bank vault for them....

Damn you Bobh, stop giving out State Secrets, you know the Feds are going to find you in Helvetia. You would think with your knowledge of Russia etc. that you would be better about withholding this information.

Ok, I'll run this by you.

I won an auction ao ebay for $0.01 . The shipping was $8.99!!!!!!


Also, I kind of like slabs. They make me feel good. So I send in a really nice looking mecury dime. Comes back AU-55! (If any one heard a really loud scream on Monday, it was me). Happened to me wth a kennedy half dollar too. So call me twice bitten third time shy when it comes to slabs.

I like getting odd stuff. Like half a role of silver dimes; or random stuff like that.

http://www.binioncollection.com/CoinWorld.htm

Actually this is the one I meant. Some 100,000 coins, but not CC's specifically.

Although for hoarding valuable silver and then selling it years later to reap the benefits does seem a bit underhanded of the ol' red white and blue, eh?

I forgot to add to that list best match on ebay - what's it for?

OK, I have one, no sense of scale in the pics on ebay. I just got a beauty of a Russian coin, but it's considerably smaller than I thought. No big deal really, (I know it's on me to know what I'm buying) but would it be that hard to list the size?

What type/year/mintmark is it? Do you have the item number or a link to the auction handy?

Hey I LOVE Slabs. They provide me the fastest selling on ebay anything could offer! If there weren't slabs I wouldn't be able to sell some coins for half the price they go for. Sure it's bad for the buyer, but excellent for the seller. (sometimes it helps the buyer though, ex. to guarentee authenticy).

For me slabs are a mixed lot. Second or third level slabs you can get bit on or pick up a good deal if others aren't bidding on it since its in a odd slab. NGC and PCGS its a race. According to how the graders felt that day.

so? you bid on the auction ... the seller is clearly engaging in fee avoidance. if you felt it was a bad deal then why did you bid?

I didn't feel it was a bad deal. It was 7 coins for 1 cent. I just felt the seller could take his shiping fees and take them somewhere else.

No, it was 7 coins for $0.01+$8.99 = $9.00... Why wouldn't you read the not-so-fine print?

I've never bought/sold/bid on anything on eBay. What do you mean by fee avoidance?

ebay charges fees on the amount of the sale, not on the amount of post+pack ... so many sellers boost their shipping charge to make a little extra outside the ebay fee structure.

this is not allowed, and sellers who do this can lose their right to sell on ebay. i report this when i find it.

He is no longer a member on ebay. I will not tell you what was in the pacage, but I didn't like it. I sent him a message to give me my money back.

Slabs are probably my biggest bug-a-boo. I've purchased 20 or so coins over the years in slabs and have gotten pretty good at busting the coin out. Since I'm in the business from the collector side I don't want a piece of plastic but the coin inside. To me it's like those folks that collect Mint in Box items. Sure, you can sell them for more but you also obviously never played with the toy. WTF?

I appreciate raw coins better than slabbed ones. I had the distinct pleasure of doing my first crack out on a 1707 British Crown from Edinburgh recently. When I read up on cracking the NGC slabs, I have a $20 from 1899 that I bought recently that I will liberate also. Slabs are nothing more than tools for speculators, I am a collector not an investor.

I don't like slabs...at all. But I do have to admit that as far as authenticity of the coin is concerned they are very helpful.

My biggest peeve as far as numismatics is concerned is sellers who don't know the difference between errors and die varieties. When I do a search for errors I don't want to see doubled die cents. I don't want to see overdates. I don't care if there is a die gouge. These are all die varieties, not errors. Coins struck from these dies replicate EXACTLY what the mint meant for coins from those dies to produce.

Do not like sellers who refuse to show only stock photos that do not match the item or do not show a clear viewable photograph of a product.
Do not like sellers who refuse to respond to you when you have a problem with an order or auction win.
Do not like sellers who do not respond to you when you 'ask a question about this item' before it actually sells.
Do not like sellers who change the shipping cost after you win an item, or demand payment immediately which negates multiple item shipping discounts, when one orders multiple items from a seller during the same session.
Do not like sellers who offer second chance offers that are considerably higher priced than your last bid just because the actual winner decides they cannot afford or want the item they hiked up the price on. There is something about this practice that I feel borders on dishonesty.
These are the type of sellers that get put on my 'do not buy from again' list.

I appreciate sellers who are personable, honest, and reasonable. Yes, there are quite a few on the ebay auction venue that fit this description. They are also the same sellers who will believe you when you contact them that something is missing from the order, or you did not get the exact item they were selling. I appreciate sellers who are willing to work with you when you 'goof-up'.
I like being as honest as possible with sellers and everyone else I deal with in the marketplace. I only wish more of them were worthy of of my respect in their dealings with me.
A few times I have received an item that I had not won, whether it be mis-marked, or more of the same thing that I know I did not order.
I have always contacted the seller as quickly as possible after my discovery and make arrangements to return their property. In all cases the seller has been very grateful. My reward for being honest is knowing I have done the right thing.

One needs to earn the other's trust, both in selling and in buying...
Almost without exception, every time I buy from fellow forum members I have been very pleased with the transaction.

Thank You to all you sellers who are honest and understanding!

corky

If I did it right it's this one http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...N:IT&ih=005

Bang on there. I had one of those recently, he was the one who claimed I wasn't paying when I told him I was about to - what he did was to change his tune from the original $4 airmail to $15 when I didn't pay his invoice after the first few days because I wanted to grab a hoard of bargains... then I think it increased to $20+ suddenly ....

Well, for all the slab bashing, I guess I can see your point in a way, certainly for my modern coins, they are raw and in albums and not in slabs, so the vast majority of the number of my coins are not in slabs, but nearly every Saint I own is slabbed and will stay that way. This is because slabbed Saints are much more saleable than raw ones, expecially among the key dates. That's not to say I don't feel a bit of frustration when I see a 2008 pennie that is selling for oodles of money just because it's encased in plastic with a certain number on it! It just depends on what you collect is all, so I hesitate to pronounce judgement either way.

As for things that bug me, the worst is when buying from some dealers, their coins are all "PQ" but ever try to sell, and your coins are nothing but dogs...

Oh yeah, and as for shipping, sometimes I think we lose perspective too...today I attempted to order a new burner for my gas grill and for a 5"x24" burner for $39 they wanted to charge another $15 shipping, plus another shipping charge for another $15 part. I think I'll just buy a new grill...

Ditto on that one ... all of a sudden my coins get these HUGE rim dings that I never noticed before!