Best Of

@ambro51 said:
Julius Caesar

Any coin owned by a famous historical person would be cool to own but would need credible documentation.

I see plenty of solid sales in December auctions. And I believe that the results tend to depend much more upon the coin and the venue than on the month of the sale.

Below are some of the messages I received from the seller among my many interactions with him. I hope they will show what it can be like from the point of view of someone on the other side of threads like this one - a seller who wasn’t out to take advantage of clueless bidders.

“Our grandfather died and we’re now cleaning out his stuff/my decreased uncle’s house (they lived together). Everything’s a bit crazy right now, just know there isnt anyone trying to screw anyone over here”

“I meant nothing by offering the coin on sale, especially disclosing my lack of knowledge in the description. The reaction was quite surprising to be honest.”

“And you guys are super proud of yourselves in that forum. My grandfather died, now this. You guys arent the good guys you think you are,”

“Just took the sale down, really hoping i don’t have to incur the possible “cancellation fee”. For the record, of all the people that reached out- you were the only one who wasnt accusatory in a brutal way. Sounds like a lot of them didnt actually read my reviews to see what kind of salesman i am. Either way - you were by far the most approachable.”

“It cost me $63 to cancel that. Let your goonsquad know it cost me instead of making that money on something i listed with honesty.”

“They should not feel pride for the way this went down. Shame on you guys.”

Possibly mercury plated, I would be careful in handling it.

@jmlanzaf said:

@MFeld said:
Below are some of the messages I received from the seller among my many interactions with him. I hope they will show what it can be like from the point of view of someone on the other side of threads like this one - a seller who wasn’t out to take advantage of clueless bidders.

“Our grandfather died and we’re now cleaning out his stuff/my decreased uncle’s house (they lived together). Everything’s a bit crazy right now, just know there isnt anyone trying to screw anyone over here”

“I meant nothing by offering the coin on sale, especially disclosing my lack of knowledge in the description. The reaction was quite surprising to be honest.”

“And you guys are super proud of yourselves in that forum. My grandfather died, now this. You guys arent the good guys you think you are,”

“Just took the sale down, really hoping i don’t have to incur the possible “cancellation fee”. For the record, of all the people that reached out- you were the only one who wasnt accusatory in a brutal way. Sounds like a lot of them didnt actually read my reviews to see what kind of salesman i am. Either way - you were by far the most approachable.”

“It cost me $63 to cancel that. Let your goonsquad know it cost me instead of making that money on something i listed with honesty.”

“They should not feel pride for the way this went down. Shame on you guys.”

Unfortunately, I'm sure he's right. Most people seem to assume that it is always a "scam" and respond that way.

This type of situation is yet another example of what I feel can be a very difficult challenge - at least for myself.

Each of us has differing levels of experience and knowledge. And I think that the more a person knows, the more difficult it might be to remember what it was like when they first started out. Are they even able to think from the point of view of a beginner, now that they’re so far removed from that place?

I often catch myself wondering how a newbie (or even a not-so-newbie) can be so clueless about something to do with coins. It might concern a laughable counterfeit, an obviously damaged coin as opposed to a mint error, a ridiculous looking artificially toned coin, etc. And sometimes I try to look back at what I knew at different points in time. When would I have been equally clueless? When I do that, it usually helps me to have a better attitude and be more understanding of others.

In the case of the coin in this eBay listing, it would be obvious to most collectors that the mintmark was an S, not a D. Yet, a number of people were bidding on it before the seller ended the listing. And the seller isn’t even a collector. Yes, if he’d taken the coin to a dealer for authentication, or looked at enough pictures of genuine 1916-D dimes he would have learned that his coin wasn’t as he listed it.

But, while his intentions weren’t dishonest, the same can’t be said for many other sellers. And unfortunately, we can’t and/or don’t always distinguish between the ones like him (who don’t know as much as we do) and the ones who do know better, and seek to take advantage of others.

It’s no longer listed. Good work you all.

So I reported the auction linked below, and included a photo of a genuine 16-D Merc

https://www.ebay.com/itm/156566227540?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=xGbYoag0SzO&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=bxjklrq3tfe&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

The coin is clearly a 16-S blob and not a 16-D. I tried to inform the seller of this, but the seller refuses to end the auction. Ebay supposedly had a live person review it but got this canned response:

I will try reporting it again with my other account, but maybe if a few of us report it, it will be interesting to see if it then gets zapped.

On the other hand, maybe the bidders who bid it up to $455 should not be buying raw coins on ebay and need a $500 lesson.

Please feel free to share some Christmas pics (decorations, trees and so on) with us board members.

It's not really surprising to me.

When the modern commemorative program started I bought one of everything minus the gold. After too many commemorative programs I (mostly) stopped buying anything. I'm out.

People like me used to keep these mintages high, but no more.

@ChrisH821 said:

I think the underlying question is how was a nickel reproduced (at least relatively) accurately at 2X+ scale.
What I find interesting is that it has a mintmark, so someone created this from an already struck coin, or less likely, from a prepared die.

Indeed the copying of the design is impressively accurate. The maker might have access to a pantograph machine of some sort, though I can't rule out the possibility that he started with a 1950 plain obverse coin and a common D-mint reverse coin and pounded them out "Texas coin" style and then used the enlarged coins to make casting molds.