Options
Would a buyer tell you that that you have a million dollar coin?
ms70
Posts: 13,946 ✭✭✭✭✭
Let's stand on the other side of the counter now! You are the seller....
What do you think would most likely happen if you were the seller and unknown to you, a buyer recognized something you missed? 
Great transactions with oih82w8, JasonGaming, Moose1913.
2
Comments
Probably not.
Successful transactions with : MICHAELDIXON, Manorcourtman, Bochiman, bolivarshagnasty, AUandAG, onlyroosies, chumley, Weiss, jdimmick, BAJJERFAN, gene1978, TJM965, Smittys, GRANDAM, JTHawaii, mainejoe, softparade, derryb
Bad transactions with : nobody to date
Golden rule.
I need to be able to look at myself in the mirror. And I need to be able to look my son in his eyes.
If I could help a novice place a $1M coin, the journey would be worth it. If I could get a little something for my stewardship and knowledge, I'd be thrilled.
But I'd never take advantage of someone.
--Severian the Lame
Excellent post, but in this scenario you're the seller. What do you think would happen?
Great transactions with oih82w8, JasonGaming, Moose1913.
@Weiss said:
Golden rule.
--Severian the Lame
If a buyer saw something I missed I probably wouldn’t know it. If someone bragged about it afterwards I’d find it crass but my tough luck.
If the buyer told me before the sale, I would appreciate it and negotiate some kind of “reward” for letting me know. It would likely be some percentage of sale. Unless the buyer could afford the price and then I’d drop the price by a similar amount. I’d make it a win-win.
TurtleCat Gold Dollars
I'd say the odds are against it.
Whoever has the "Gold" makes the rules
. > @Weiss said:
Oh I've got the gold. I came by it through hard work, using my brains, and trying to be a good person.
I'm not perfect. But I can sleep at night.
--Severian the Lame
In reality / most likely no.
No - they would pick up the deal (Fumble) and take it to the end zone. Be careful out there.
Most likely no.
This comes up from time to time, and so the Dealers trick is to ask the collector "What do you need to get for that?" And whether its a million dollar coin or just a $50 coin, if the Dealer is satisfied to pay what the collector asked, the Dealer will just console himself/herself that the collector walked away happy!
Unfortunately, NOT in today's world.
“I may not believe in myself but I believe in what I’m doing” ~Jimmy Page~
My Full Walker Registry Set (1916-1947)
https://www.ngccoin.com/registry/competitive-sets/16292/
If someone spends decades of hard work learning about coins, should he give away his hard earned knowledge for free?
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
I know 2 dealers. The one dealer cherry picked the other dealer on a replacement note for far less than a million dollars. The cherry-picked dealer never forgave the other dealer and they never did business again, as far as I can tell.
Hopefully people seek out trustworthy people who will have their best interest at heart. Or at least a modicum of sensible ethics. If I, personally, go to sell a coin worth a million and don't know it, that's on me. If it's my grandma, who has no coin knowledge, I would hope she'd get some real help.
I've worked with a lot of honest dealers over the years and think that walking into a respectable place of business with something like a million dollar coin yields the average customer quite a bit better than a 50/50 shot at being treated fairly.
@PerryHall - yes, sort of - the profit from their years of hard work comes from paying a fair price (or brokering a deal) that allows them to make a fair return. You can argue what that means in this situation (% vs absolute dollars) but used car dealers don't get a pass for taking advantage of people because of their hard earned knowledge, and neither should anyone else.
I think I misunderstood the question. So if I’m the buyer and a random seller came to me with a coin and wanted to sell it to me...
Same basic rules. If the seller is presumed to be knowledgeable like a dealer or well known expert collector then I’d ask what they want and go on with life. It would be a cherry pick.
If it was a random person and they clearly are not knowledgeable in coins then I’d tell them what they have, explain it, etc. I’d offer them options on how they could maximize their coin. I would probably start with offering a consignment for either a percentage or a fixed fee. It would be their choice at that point.
I would probably also require some documentation or ID to be safe since it may be stolen property. If they were nervous about that then I’d presume stolen and inform the authorities of a possible crime.
TurtleCat Gold Dollars
No... You're the seller. You got it right the first time.
Great transactions with oih82w8, JasonGaming, Moose1913.
Confucius say: Ignorance is bliss until you realize you made a poor decision. Pass the wasabi! Peace Roy
BST: endeavor1967, synchr, kliao, Outhaul, Donttellthewife, U1Chicago, ajaan, mCarney1173, SurfinHi, MWallace, Sandman70gt, mustanggt, Pittstate03, Lazybones, Walkerguy21D, coinandcurrency242 , thebigeng, Collectorcoins, JimTyler, USMarine6, Elkevvo, Coll3ctor, Yorkshireman, CUKevin, ranshdow, CoinHunter4, bennybravo, Centsearcher, braddick, Windycity, ZoidMeister, mirabela, JJM, RichURich, Bullsitter, jmski52, LukeMarshall
Where's my passport?
I always ask myself...if the shoe was on the other foot how would I want the other party to respond...then I try to do that.
100% positive transactions with SurfinxHI, bigole, 1madman, collectorcoins, proofmorgan, Luke Marshall, silver pop, golden egg, point five zero,coin22lover, alohagary, blaircountycoin,joebb21
Very few coin dealers have integrity.
I can't agree with that statement based on my experience. Many of the big scores and cherry-picks you read about are by collectors from underinformed dealers or eBay sellers, etc.
Dealers have far more "big scores" than collectors. Doesn't everyone know that they make their money on the buy side?
Dealers also typically have far more opportunities to make such scores. Curiously, do you think collectors would be more likely than dealers to be fair, if they had the same opportunities? If so, upon what do you base that?
By the way, if you’d said something like “lots of coin dealers lack integrity”, instead of “very few coin dealers have integrity” I probably would have agreed with you. But those are two very different statements and I think you can substitute “people” for “coin dealers”.
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
I believe in the Golden Rule but I wouldn’t hold my breath.
I'm speaking of the types of dealers who set up at national shows, not who run big ads soliciting people to bring coins to their road shows. And more than "very few" of the former dealers DO have integrity, IMO. Beyond that, it's entirely possible to make a decent living on the buy side with consistent "little scores". Reputation is a fragile thing and word gets around quickly nowadays. I don't really want to argue about it here. We can just agree to disagree.
For me, that was the exact point that came to mind in the earlier thread. The opinion of first OP seemed to be that an ethical buyer would/should inform the dealer, rather than cherrypick the coin.
I don't agree with that position - it's not the obligation of the buyer to give away hard earned knowledge and free labor whenever he looks at a dealer's coins. If the buyer chooses to alert the dealer, that's fine, but I see no moral strike against him if he doesn't.
Hypothetically, if I were the dealer, and a buyer alerted me to a million dollar coin, I'd offer to sell it to him for half price or split the profit with him 50/50. That kind of buyer a) deserves a reward, and b) is the kind of buyer I'd want to cultivate a relationship with. If he cherrypicked it from me, I'd never want to know about it - I hope he'd have the decency to never tell me about it or let me hear about it through the grapevine. If he found it, he's entitled to buy it at the price I offered him, but I'd be devastated to know that I let a coin like that get away!
That is also a really good point, I think. Even though it is not wrong to cherrypick, per se, things get complicated if the dealer who got cherrypicked finds out. The more valuable the item, and the stronger the pre-existing relationship between buyer and the dealer, the more the buyer can expect that relationship to suffer if the seller finds out. The buyer should never brag about his cherrypicks in a way that the dealer would find out. Aside from being bad business, it's just cruel - why would you want to rub their face in it and make them feel terrible? It makes no sense.
@Weiss.... "But I can sleep at night." That is good.... But I would sleep better at night if you would sell me that silver tankard...
As far as the original question, if I were the buyer, in a shop or at a show, I would tell the seller. I have done that with other products I deal in...Saved one fellow a huge amount of money on something he was selling. In today's market, I sadly think the majority would not tell the seller - it seems to me, morals and ethics have degenerated over the last 30-40 years....Cheers, RickO
This happens all the time.
Odds very, very heavily NO.
In fact, I suspect most buyers would try to bid down from your asking price. LOL
One way to test, bring a high value coin to a buyer, see what they offer. The honest ones will be in the ballpark
I wouldn't count on it.
P.S. responding to the OP not 3stars.
It's a million dollar coin ONLY if you know where to sell it. A million dollars at auction is not the same as paying $1 million over the counter. There are advertising costs, and it takes time to collect the money. There is also a buyers' fee which would make the hammer price more like $833,333.
Ethics dictate that you tell the person what they have, but to say that they should expect to get the $1 million is a stretch.
Of course the buyer wouldn’t tell me. He would probably offer me half my asking price to make the rip that much sweeter for him.