Sad state of affairs in raw coinage.
Kirk222
Posts: 477 ✭✭✭✭
I decided to try and fill a collection of Walking Liberty Halves. I don't collect them as a rule, but love the coin for it's incredibly beautiful design. Anyway, I decided to buy ones that I could afford, just to fill the album. I started with easier dates. They were so cheap on Ebay, I went for the ones in good looking condition. Now, after about 15 buys, I am canceling the effort. I bought raw Walkers, as described by the sellers, in "AU" to "BU" condition in the last years of production. I bought from 15 different sellers, from the "big guys" on Ebay to the smaller ones. Virtually all of the coins came back cleaned/dipped. Some that were actually excellent coins had been dipped and/or cleaned. Some felt oily. This is just ridiculous. It's like buying a used car. I have a high end Standing Liberty Quarter collection. I have no desire to get a high end Walker collection. That would costs upwards of a million bucks. Why can't people understand that cleaning ruins this hobby? It's a question for the ages.
Comments
Well...This is the PCGS forum...buy PCGS graded coins and don't worry about it.
CC
And buying from strangers in the internet has it's own special hazards. Peace Roy
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After 3 decades of slabbing, just how many decent raw coins are still out there?
More than you might imagine. Besides, getting back to the initial post, who in their right mind is sending in late date walkers in AU for grading?
How much did you pay for these?
Maybe accumulate them from smaller local shows. You can see them in hand and some of those sources are the same sellers on eBay often times. They can also sell a little cheaper because they might have modest table fees at shws but not eBay and PayPal fees and shipping costs.
I agree. It was a mistake I made too and continue to make. I believe the better the deal seems the bigger the problem you're buying. While not always the case, it seems to be the norm more times than not. I also agree with @alefzero to try to buy sight seen when possible.
It sounds like you bought them raw and tried to get them graded?
If you want graded, why not just buy graded to begin with? Some don't go for that much graded.
Also, if you think the coins are excellent coins, why not just enjoy them raw?
I myself do buy raw coins on EBay but I only buy from trusted and known in the business sellers. Once I know they are reputable I only buy from them. Then I also will buy the slabbed PCGS and or NGC versions after I run the serial numbers for confirmed values and authenticity.
Once in a while I buy on the BST here and found good deals.
Sounds like you found out all your purchases were cleaned and or dipped. Very sorry that you had to find out the hard way. Maybe you can post a few pictures for us. TYIA
Looks like I misunderstood when you wrote "the coins came back cleaned/dipped" which I took that to mean "came back" after sending them to TPGs.
For grandkids, I would just get them one or two bigger coins, e.g. a nice Walking Liberty Half, or 1800s Morgan Dollar. My grandparents and father just gave me one off coins like that. Of course, that may be one reason I'm not that into building date/mm sets.
This is why I don't try to sell US coins on eBay. Too much selling competition, buyers not discriminating enough. I had a bunch of choice AUs listed, clearly nicer than lots of listed UNCs. No interest from buyers at $20-$25. Even with "Best Offer" option enabled.
Selling raw coins can probably work if you build up a reputation and following. Steve Hayden sells a ton of raw tokens but he has a pretty strong following. For coins, I haven't run across raw coin sellers with a strong following other than Great Southern Coin.
I've found that all you can really do is introduce kids to things. They will eventually choose what they like on their own.
I had some coins as a kid (10-ish?) but didn't really get into them until much later, mostly when I stopped extensive travel and wanted something to focus on at home. I had no interest in coins during my high school, college, and early working years. So even if they aren't into it now, just the fact they have some and are aware of it, may mean they can look into it later.
Thanks for the suggestion, but honestly it's not worth the trouble. I'll stick with world coins.
The buying raw arena on eBay has always been a tough scene. It tends to be a dumping ground for problem coins that won’t grade. I feel buying raw on eBay is something of a learned skill built over time.
I remember buying raw Lincoln’s on eBay (2005-2008) and paid the price with QC coins. Mostly on color designations and got caught up in Recolored coins with high detail that I thought were kosher but all ended up body bagged. Owie. I see those colors three booths away at shows now, so lesson learned. I too started to wonder what I was doing and if I should just bail or stay the course. I switched to slabbed coins for a while but as I hung around the series the fog started lifting.
I think taking photographs of my coins taught me the most. At around 1000 photos I started to realize how to “read” photos of Lincoln’s and mastery at 10,000 shots. For example, as an amateur photographer with mid grade equipment employing proper lighting techniques, I might take 30-40 shots of one side to get the pic I need for my registry, so the shot count adds up quick. This increased my percentage of predictability of what it was I was looking at raw online. Some looks online are no brainers as to what you will get and the ones that are off or iffy I’ve learned to just scroll on.
Another trick I do is search sort with highest price first as that shows me the best coins offered in descending order, of coarse there are dreamer pricing, ignore those, but usually, there is a noticeable line in price where problem free and problems begin. Searching as they list organically is just a mish-mash of quality and prices. Then....
It also has to have a good ‘feel” on the overall listing. Poor grammar and punctuation and I’m not buying. Low feedback and more than 1 neg in a year and I’m not buying. Etc etc. I start off with low value items with buyers and maybe ask them a specific question and if they answer promptly thats a good sign they are on the ball and actually have the coin in hand. If it starts off well I will search their future listing and buy more readily and comfortably. I’ve bought a fair share of my collection on eBay over the years and even met a few sellers in person at shows. Pretty cool.
I take this approach with my own eBay sellers listings and have decent success and enjoyment with low return rate. I never list anything on eBay unless my responsibilities allow the time to make responses and shipping times promptly. Slow shippers are the worst...
Hopefully, you understand that people did read your post. And that when you wrote “ Virtually all of the coins came back cleaned/dipped.” that implied that the coins had come back from grading. If not from grading, from where did they “come back”? If you’d said that they “arrived”, rather than “come back”, there probably wouldn’t have been a misunderstanding.
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
I had slightly better luck buying albums full of circulated Walkers. Every once in a while you can find sets out together by someone who knew what they were doing. I tried to be picky and avoid sellers that seemed shady. Mostly I got them for a little over melt. Many sets were missing the key dates. The later dates were usually AU/MS coins and the early coins were mostly VF or so. I would swap out for better coins when they showed up and sell the rest. Eventually I ended up with the full set. A few slots are still problem coins. I sent the keys in and they all graded out OK.
Sorry to hear. Just buying a set for the grandkids WAS a worthwhile gesture.
but old coins should tick their "cool" box.
Now that you've been discouraged on this project, maybe a type set of raw coins would engage their interest even more.
Most kids think of "old" as interesting.
Maybe not old grandparents,
Anything "so cheap" is unlikely to be as represented.
Enough to keep the TPGs busy for three more decades even without crackouts.
An interesting thing is that I'm always seeing classic coins in the latest generation slabs. I wonder if these are new coins or crackouts?
Of note, I tend to see a lot of patterns and rare tokens in older slabs. Since they are so rare, there may be less incentive to get regrades.
The rarity of a coin seldom serves as a reason not to get it re-graded. As long as there is an adequate value increase for an upgrade, the incentive is there.
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
'They' do understand and don't care. It's about making money. WL halves are a great example. An AU coin with a little rub can be dipped and sold to the unknowing as an MS coins. Offer it cheap and the naive come running. It's been going on for decades. If it wasn't profitable, 'they' wouldn't do it.
See http://www.doubledimes.com for a free online reference for US twenty-cent pieces
Want a nice, raw set of WL halves? Then buy them already graded and crack them out and put in your album. You will pay more, but you lessen the risk of buying doctored coins.
Edited for punctuation ...
See http://www.doubledimes.com for a free online reference for US twenty-cent pieces
The last few years my coin show fees exceed my ebay/paypal fees. This is balanced out by what I am able to buy.
Buying coins on ebay can be quite discouraging... especially if one is seeking quality coins. Most kids, just starting out, like the coin and are not concerned about cleaning/dipping....So coins in those categories can be used as teaching tools and the kids will still enjoy the beautiful designs and the heft of silver halves. Cheers, RickO
Virtually all of the coins came back cleaned/dipped.
I also read this to understand the coins had been submitted to a TPG. I suggest that for a project such as you described, album fillers, you should save yourself the headaches and buy in-hand at a show or a shop.
My point was that, even the ones that were in excellent condition, had been dipped or cleaned.
Everyone saying the OP needs to buy slabbed coins, to avoid this problem, may be surprised to know that many slabbed walkers have been dipped in the past. Unless overdipped, or mechanically cleaned/scrubbed, they're probably still being slabbed, as these are 'market acceptable'.
To the OP - if you are looking for (I assume) white walkers that are totally original, you need to be seeking MS coins from original rolls. If you are seeking totally original AU's, they ain't gonna be white.
Buy them in person and then you can be as picky as you want to be.
Buying raw online is risky to me.
For those who are new to 'bargain hunting' raw coins in numismatics ...
Little has changed over the past 40 years. 'Back in the day' ... Coin World and Numismatic News would have multipage ads with 'bargain' prices for 'BU' coins. These coins were priced below wholesale and tempted the naive and the greedy. The coins were mostly cleaned sliders that fooled enough people and made enough money that the ads kept being printed (ignoring the papers' complicity in the scam).
Now, the same happens with some online sellers and on eBay. The difference is 'instant' access to satisfy the compulsion and pictures of the coins to 'verify' the quality.
Same problems, different venues.
See http://www.doubledimes.com for a free online reference for US twenty-cent pieces
I agree rare coins will get regraded but I haven’t seen the same for pattens or tokens. My intention was to compare coins to non-coins. e.g patterns and tokens, so there may be something else at work other than just raritty.
Anyone who buys a collectible sight-unseen should not be surprised if the item arrives in a disappointing state. This includes items in slabs; one of the stated reasons that CAC was founded was to facilitate dealer-to-dealer, sight-unseen trading.
As Astrorat noted, this has been going on for along time (I also remember those ads, many featuring 'Select BU' coins).
B&M dealers use Ebay too, frequently to sell coins that won't sell in face-to-face transactions. So don't expect much if you buy coins from Ebay listings.
RMR: 'Wer, wenn ich schriee, hörte mich denn aus der Engel Ordnungen?'
CJ: 'No one!' [Ain't no angels in the coin biz]
Little has changed over the past 40 years. 'Back in the day' ... Coin World and Numismatic News would have multipage ads with 'bargain' prices for 'BU' coins. These coins were priced below wholesale and tempted the naive and the greedy. The coins were mostly cleaned sliders that fooled enough people and made enough money that the ads kept being printed (ignoring the papers' complicity in the scam).
I wasted a lot of time (and money) returning crapola back then.
In the pre-Internet, fewer shows era, there weren't many options for building collections.
Thank goodness for JJ Teaparty - they consistently provided nice coins for the prices paid.
David Lawrence was pretty good too.
PCGS VF35, $34.99 on ebay:
Hmmmm, as I recall this was the reason for the advent of the TPG's!
amworldcoin,
You are correct. We are locked into a situation in which cowbells are being piled onto cowbells.
RMR: 'Wer, wenn ich schriee, hörte mich denn aus der Engel Ordnungen?'
CJ: 'No one!' [Ain't no angels in the coin biz]
If I was a young grandkid again, I would totally appreciate and treasure one slabbed PCGS big silver coin like a 1800s Morgan in MS65. I’d like that more than a raw album but that’s just me.
Noted. I wonder if the dealers cleaned the coins themselves or picked them up that way.
I think buying raw coins on ebay is a gamble so the only way to safely do that is buying from a seller that has return privileges. Just be sure to find out who pays the return postage.
Successful BST transactions with lordmarcovan, Moldnut, erwindoc
Because when you buy them authenticated you can safely remove them and put them in your album. Keep the slab insert with the book. Easy peasy and you know what you are getting. Maybe, once you get the hang of grading them, you can then venture in the wild raw world.
bob
The confusion may be in the sentence, "Virtually all of the coins came back cleaned/dipped." This is commonly used when coins 'come back' from a grading company.
See http://www.doubledimes.com for a free online reference for US twenty-cent pieces
Some of them feel oily?
Why are you handling and rubbing all over the coins with bare hands anyways?
If you don’t know the first thing about handling coins properly, how do you even know the ones you’ve purchased are cleaned?
I don’t think there’s a “sad state of affairs in raw coinage” seems to me you just don’t know what you’re doing!
Virtually all of the coins came back cleaned/dipped. Some that were actually excellent coins had been dipped and/or cleaned.
READ YOUR OWN POST
Now that we've established the coins in question hadn't been send for grading, I'll assert that eBay is probably the easiest, at-a-distance, "guilt free" venue for unloading problem raw coins. Heck, we all know that cracking out problem coins and selling them as raw is one dealer's business model.
I have some Danscos that I put coins in simply because I think albums are cool to look at. I don't actively pursue stuff for them, because I'm actively pursuing other stuff, but will add a coin now and then should the opportunity present itself. Typically this happens in the "cheap seats" at a big show or at a smaller show when I can look at the coin before buying it. Online, I'd stick to venues that encourage open communication with someone you'd like to establish a working relationship with, and not the "dip-n-ship" department of someone's eBay store. The BST here and elsewhere, and groups on FB are good for this.
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars • Variety Attribution
The state of raw coins is in part "what it is for what it is " for reasons that have been touched upon in this thread. So much to write within the time spand before folks tune out and lose interest. And perhaps that is the centerpiece of the problem.
Grading coins and buying them is a learned skill that is developed over years of looking... And developing an appreciation for the look and those coins that make and miss the mark.
Instead of coming here and complaining about how your endeavor did not go as planned, why not take a moment and explore what you could have done to enhance your chances of success?
The idea of assembling a WLH set raw to place in a Dansco or Whitman bookshelf album or Library of Coins is an unreasonable objective... But think about that objective and how you plan to get there.
Think about understanding grading and the grades that will satisfy your collecting objectives.
Think about attending coin shows and seeing coins in hand before you make a commitment to buy a coin that just does not meet your expectations. And while we are are the subjective of expectations, have expectations that are well founded based a study and appreciation of what is available. This is important because many early WLH dates rarely show up in a nice pleasing EF to AU grade.
Best wishes with your collecting efforts
Experience the World through Numismatics...it's more than you can imagine.
Not appreciating or understanding the need for the 1941-D to be graded... Also, not sure this even is what it looks to be.
Experience the World through Numismatics...it's more than you can imagine.