Your opinion please - a general idea for coin charity
moursund
Posts: 3,207 ✭✭✭✭✭
I got some good and interesting feedback. Feel free to read on and add yours, but you do not need to persuade me of the impracticality of these ideas. I stand persuaded. 
~~I have a notion, and I want to see the forum's general response.
I'm wondering if we can harness the power of coin collectors, and these forums, into a force for good!
Please give a 'like' if you think these ideas have merit, and respond with suggested refinements.
Idea one:
Let's say on the BST board I list a nice coin for sale.
The people offering to buy the coin are encouraged to pay above the market rate.
When I accept the best offer, the buyer sends the payment to an agreed charity, instead of to me.
I ship the coin to the buyer, who gets a nice coin and also supports a good cause.
Second idea:
Let's say I offer $1000 to donate to a nonprofit charity of your choice.
In exchange, you offer a nice coin worth ~$100, and send it to me.
I get the nice coin, I donate to a good cause. You see a good cause supported, essentially getting 10x leverage on your contribution.
3rd idea:
Several people each put up coins for an agreed good cause.
These coins become the prize for a coin giveaway.
Everyone wanting the coins donates e.g. $50 to the agreed charity to be entered into the contest.
Randomly selected winner gets the pot.
Everyone involved helps a good cause, and the lucky winner gets some nice stuff.
Yah?~~
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Comments
Bad idea, IMO
Agree. Poster may not recognize the letters IRS
If you want to donate to a charity, just donate to the charity. Ideas like this just make things complicated.
I prefer to donate privately to the charities I choose. Oftentimes, they are not an organized charity, but people in need that I am aware of. I have never been a big fan of organized charities.... While many do good, there are also many with questionable practices. I donate directly, so I know exactly where and how I have helped. Cheers, RickO
You lost me at,....."I have a notion........."
"The people offering to buy the coin are encouraged to pay above the market rate." says moursund. I say, "Who would have EVER thought of that?"
Unfortunately, there are more than a few "charities" that are little more than thinly veiled for profit operations.
We have had fundraisers, donations, matching gifts, etc...on the forum going back to the 1990s and in a fair number of instances there has been theft, deception, greed, manipulation and acrimony. We are a largely anonymous bunch and you are asking everyone to honor their internet word, which is essentially equivalent to a flashing sign saying "Scammers Welcome".
You want to donate to a good cause? Do it on your own and be happy with your actions.
In honor of the memory of Cpl. Michael E. Thompson
Idea one:
When I accept the best offer, the buyer sends the payment to an agreed charity, instead of to me.
How will you know the payment was sent?
Second idea:
I get the nice coin, I donate to a good cause. You see a good cause supported, essentially getting 10x leverage on your contribution.
How will I know you sent the payment?
3rd idea:
Everyone wanting the coins donates e.g. $50 to the agreed charity to be entered into the contest.
How will everyone know who made a donation?
I agree with this:
"If you want to donate to a charity, just donate to the charity. Ideas like this just make things complicated."
and this:
"We are a largely anonymous bunch and you are asking everyone to honor their internet word, which is essentially equivalent to a flashing sign saying "Scammers Welcome"."
KISS.
IMO, of course.
When the people at the grocery store ask me if I want to donate to a charity when I check out I sometimes ask them if they would like to donate to my favorite charity. But then I feel guilty, not about the charity, but because the cashiers are forced to ask that and aren’t doing it by choice. But it doesn’t make sense to me to not just donate what I want to donate directly to the charities of my choice.
Mr_Spud
You guys are harshing my mellow...
Ok, fair point about IRS implications for charitable and tax-deductible donations, if we are concerned with itemizing deductions.
For the "how will we know if X actually donates"... i suppose X could donate online, and have the acknowledgement from the charity be sent to Y.
But I do appreciate your practicality and candor.
How about let's see the forum reactions to this idea:
While we all have an interest in collecting coins, and many do this as a business or side-hustle, we should think about those less fortunate, and support charities out of our abundance.
Thanks,
am
Apologies, that wasn't my intention.
I'm sure plenty of people here do that, they just don't post about it.
Get your mellow back ...
Good intentions noted. Many here have been mugged while pilgrims on that particular road.
In NJ, the max legal level for bud is 26.8%. YMMV on cynicism going "up in smoke".
Notion?
'If Everybody had a Notion,
Across the U.S.A.,
Everybody'd be Surfin',
Like California,ia"
for PCGS. A 49+-Year PNG Member...A full numismatist since 1972, retired in 2022
You guys don't grok 'notion'?
Can't that word be used to mean an idea?
'if everyone in this country drove red cars, it would be a red carnation'
Am
You're new here. That's an EOC pedigreed (not EAC provenaced) doobie artisanally cultivated in an area that has passive but non-toxic groundhog repellence systems. And he's won "clean fingernails" badges three years running.
GROK Say it ain't so, Mr Greenjeans. It's the great-great-great-grandpa of @LazurusLong, Robert Heinlein's great grandson himself.
if you can stop trying to be cool, I'll convince all the rest of my fellow shipmates that your grooviness factor, unlike that of Michael Valentine Smith, doesn't merit a last meal as a festival of joy. Using grok is more than sufficiently arcane to qualify as pretentious (who would know better?), and it shows more imagination than most of the 70 year-olds here. They think in terms of gestalt awareness and suspect you of speaking Esperanto..
GROK???
Newbie gets a gumption badge for "red carnation"
Not sure who @ColonelJessup is calling a newbie..
I'm just back after a long hiatus.
And more to the point...
"We are a largely anonymous bunch and you are asking everyone to honor their internet word, which is essentially equivalent to a flashing sign saying "Scammers Welcome"."
I hold out hope that those here with a long history and track record for honest dealing can be trusted at their word. Is that not the case?
Truth.
It's sweet of you to think so. And you're generally correct. @TomB was philosophizing about "Pascal's Wager"
Been here ten years or so and never noticed your profile name. Under 500 posts you're a newbie. Under 1000 posts you achieve probie status. I have no authority to do this, but I did award a "You Suck" to @remunc a few months ago and it seemed to go over OK.
For a "newbie" you've got some moxie. Gumption is a good thing. I get a warning a month for it
I awarded you a badge. I gave you a big smile. And then I gave you some grief about ungrooviness and grok.
So riddle me this, newbie. "Newbie" for deflection? Or mano a mano on grok?
Grok? If you read Heinlein in the original in the 50's like I did, you'd have enough of a history to know how pretentious that sounds to anyone else who did.
Newbie gets a gumption badge for asking ~who the hell is @ColonelJessup calling a newbie~
some might point out the pretention in assuming authority to award honorary badges...
As for me, I like the language, and anachronistic idioms add texture, dig it?
So, Colonel, you've been here a good spell. Would you say that those here with a long history and track record for honest dealing can be trusted at their word?
Thanks,
am
You're making this way too complicated. For some background, I've run a lot of charity auctions here over the years. Members donated coins, I auctioned them off, and all the proceeds were donated to the selected charity. They were quite successful and also a ton of work (unfortunately I just don't have time to do them anymore). I'm forever grateful that so many trusted me and supported the auctions time and again. Occasionally something sold way beyond its value, but often things sold for around what they were worth (or a modest premium), and it was the fact that so many donors contributed items that the auctions raised what they did.
Those auctions were a big group effort. On the flip side, your three ideas, while noble, make things much more complicated.
Idea one: Someone sends a charity a large donation and you send them a coin worth well less than the donation. Why not just sell the coin at its normal value and then the buyer can (if they wish) made a donation of the difference between the prices you're thinking? You can donate your proceeds if you'd like. This could work if the charity itself were selling the coin (like when you get a tote bag for $50 on PBS), but I don't see it with independent parties.
Second idea: This is the flip of the idea above. Why not just buy the coin for $100 and then donate $900 cash to the charity? The seller can then donate the $100. If you really want to ensure $1000 goes to the charity sure you can send all the money and then get the coin for "free" but that's just more work.
3rd idea: This is a raffle with donated coins as the prize. Nothing inherently wrong, and probably the best of the three ideas if someone trustworthy is running it since there's an incentive to buy in (small donation, large potential payoff), other than the other two options where the coin isn't really necessary. That said, there can be legalities impacting how raffles work, though I don't know enough about that or if this could ever get big enough where anyone would care even if it technically ran afoul of some law somewhere.
I can but agree...
Besides supporting good causes, I was noodling around with ways to involve the forum community, and have some fun. I donate a fair amount to charity each year; I was toying with a way to integrate that with the coin world.
am
It kinda sounds like you’re saying we don’t know how to donate or never heard of it. Most here are adults and more than if we can’t be trusted on the forum I find it far more startling that you think we need help with something that’s usually private. Personally I don’t need anyone to know about my donations it’s between me and my God 🤓
🎶 shout shout, let it all out 🎶
Does anyone remember what @DarkStar666 changed his name to after @UrbanDecay?
An anachronism, except for in time travel, is some concept or object from the present time place within a past time in which it could not exist.
Klingon and Inuit have many idiomatic expressions based on local customs, though they have a full language as context.
When I make a joke here in pre-Hellenic Greek, it goes over everyone's head but @Sonoradesertrat's, and he only knows Rilke and stuff like crystalline-structure breakdown factors under prolonged cavitation.
That one Heinlein book, "Stranger in a Strange Land", does not have any special languages of which there might be perhaps some idiom. It has one invented word, grok. It is surely the most meaningful word in the book. I could honor the word. I found the manner of your usage cheap and disappointing.
I've been recently chastised for acting as if I own the Forum (and it hurt).
Since I was never really authorized to say "Get off my lawn" (or offer a badge in good fellowship right before I took it away) you may not grant me credulity. And my sole riposte is "Grow your own damn 4-2-0"
no no, not my intention at all! As I said just above, I was toying with a way to integrate my charitable contributions with the coin world, and these forums in particular, hoping there would be some "yeah, that would work, let's do that!" sentiment.
As a related question of social propriety, would you say that mention or discussion of religious views, in the context of e.g. being a good person in general and a good forum member in particular, is something best avoided in the forums?
Is this a safe place for sensible and sensitive discussion of morality (in the midst of coin talk), or is that safer and better left entirely to private chat and other venues?
Thanks,
am
p.s. not a troll, not a zealot, probably a sensible and sensitive person...
And you felt the need to tell me that, in front of the whole forum. Ouch.
am
I swear @Fred, sometimes I can smell your early rock posters all the way from Sarasota.
I prefer Cretan to pre Hellenic. I've always thought of Cretans (sic?) as a joke. Do you know any Cretan jokes?........HELEN WAS A FOX!
OK, you thought you had a good idea to enhance the brotherhood of numismatics and help needy folks. Good thought. It doesn't appear to have flown here. Let's say not going to pass and let it go, before someone says something that can't be forgotten and the whole thing blows up. I thank you for your thoughts, but this appears to be a more personal thing for most of the forum, unless it occurs to one of our own.
Jim
When a man who is honestly mistaken hears the truth, he will either quit being mistaken or cease to be honest....Abraham Lincoln
Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.....Mark Twain
Truth is, old-timer, you sounded like some dumbed-down space-age version of the Fonz after a few too many hours playing Jamaican bong-pong with Tommy Chong.
Are you figuring on telling some people they're not welcome to participate because their history here isn't long enough?
Agreed, and i'll move on, ignoring somebody's continued attempt to bait me. Thanks!
Oh that i figured would be like most any other trade or sale; without a track record, I would want to see evidence of payment before I shipped a coin, that sort of thing. Isn't that the house rule?
Naw.
peacockcoins
I know idiot jokes and moron jokes, but my bombastic friends from Santorini says the Cretans are such cretins they take them as compliments.
You're proposing that people send money to someone other than the seller. What sort of evidence are you thinking of, that would demonstrate to the seller the money was sent?
You can't control who joins your various charity events. It won't all be people with a long history.
I surrender, the dead horse is beaten enough...
No clever coin sales benefitting a good cause are likely to work.
Thanks for all the feedback!
Can I close the topic?
Probably have to be a moderator...
Oooh, i know, i can edit the topic. Look above....
Well, to be fair- you did ask for opinions.
Yes, all part of my cunning plan...
I give up......UNCLE!😂
Um are you looking for sympathy because some of us don’t agree with your proposal. Why can’t it just be something like “thanks I believe I have my answer “. For some reason I want to almost cry and I feel terrible that I don’t want to send you a coin or don’t necessarily think it’s a good idea to ask for a pledge of honesty?
By the way if your not a newbie how the hell do you not know and respect the Colonel?
🎶 shout shout, let it all out 🎶
I do not like the idea. I will leave it at that.
Also, YOU NEED APPROVAL FROM A PCGS MODERATOR to run any kind of a charity here.
Is it really charity if you need to be rewarded for doing it?
And turn the country into a flower?
This is the show.
Great thread. Very entertaining.
Thought he was a newbie because he didn't know my name. If he doesn't know me, he has no reason to respect me or my opinion. If he does, he might not. Do not fall into the trap of being anyone's fan-boy. The desperate sucking sound I hear of respect for facts and logic going down the drain is not Forum-specific.
I won't be here much longer. I just got a warning for using two words that would have offended Queen Victoria. I used them in my sig-line for year. Numismatic "----" and market ".....". Insipid pablum is not my milieu. My problems probably started in 1976 when I told David Hall the 45-P FB 10c he sent me was cleaned. That's likely why, after he passed on a stack of my coins at Long Beach, my tablemate JD could sell him coins he looked at and never even quoted for more than my asking price. Speaking truth to power? Here?
My first warning this year was for mentioning the names of two senators of dramatically opposed political camps (I simply described the effort as "bi-partisan) co-sponsoring a bill to celebrate National Police Week. Political content (I suppose)
My next warning came for being "inflammatory" They were right. I deserved it. If I, or anyone else, can't deal with their own mistakes and the messes they make.... ? Want some truth? "Beauty walks the razor's edge. Some day I'll make it mine". And shed some blood (including my own) along the way. If you can find the truth in an MS70 ASE, "bless your heart"
The OP I heard gave no hint of being on the Forum 20 years ago. Rather, I imagined the other kids on the school bus giving him a wedgie for saying "harshing my mellow"?
You only get two cents on the dollar on this post. Mostly self-pity. If you've experience a similar funk, some of it might prove useful.
Unfairly substituting "want" for "need", in following Jewish law, it is. There are seven levels of charity described. Non-Jews can simply view this as a moral calculus. Extraneous to describe them; that a hierarchy exists is sufficient to make the point.
Even if you do it just for the social credit, some good is done. Do you want a national award or just a hug? Maybe just a chance to hug yourself?
Virtue does not require purity. People often require purity in others so they don't have to deal with their own flawed humanity.
So, my tolerance for you creates social credit on this forum which is an act of social good and, therefore, an act of charity!
Throw open the gates of heaven, I'm on my way!