Five VG mercs. for $92. or a roll of random wheats for $73 ?!?

Icollecteverything

Some of you have probably already figured out which company has these deals but please don't name them so we can stay within the rules. Besides, I am only stating the facts.

My MIL is in a senior housing complex and has made friends with a 92 year old lady who is on oxygen and not too well. She has been giving away her possessions and one day my wife brought home a small bag of coins she had given her. Some of the coins were in little bags with the company name on them and my heart sunk.. Other than a VG Walker the rest of the coins were worth maybe 5 bucks including about 40 wheats that about half of were culls.

Then she gave us the magazine size catalog that she had ordered from...WOW

One roll of wheats ("may include duplicates" and "these coins don't meet our grading standards") for just $73++

Five VG Walkers from the forties for only $199.00 instead of the usual $231.00

Five VG mercs for $92.00++

There is a coupon for $25 off but it's for one time only and expires. I know they have overhead from advertising in magazines and their catalog but the prices still seem extreme.. I used to think they were OK because they may bring in new collectors but can you imagine what they will think about collecting when they hear the real values. Buyer beware.

DeplorableDan

This type of unethical practice has been going on for decades, and exists in just about every industry on some level. The business complex where my office is, has 1 or 2 “coin rooms”. They hire people with no numismatic experience to target leads of well off middle aged or elderly men looking to invest. They buy rolls of dirty Franklin halves, shine ‘em up, and peddle them them as “Gem BU” and convince people that it’s a wise investment.

Elcontador

@Icollecteverything said:
Some of you have probably already figured out which company has these deals but please don't name them so we can stay within the rules. Besides, I am only stating the facts.

My MIL is in a senior housing complex and has made friends with a 92 year old lady who is on oxygen and not too well. She has been giving away her possessions and one day my wife brought home a small bag of coins she had given her. Some of the coins were in little bags with the company name on them and my heart sunk.. Other than a VG Walker the rest of the coins were worth maybe 5 bucks including about 40 wheats that about half of were culls.

Then she gave us the magazine size catalog that she had ordered from...WOW

One roll of wheats ("may include duplicates" and "these coins don't meet our grading standards") for just $73++

Five VG Walkers from the forties for only $199.00 instead of the usual $231.00

Five VG mercs for $92.00++

There is a coupon for $25 off but it's for one time only and expires. I know they have overhead from advertising in magazines and their catalog but the prices still seem extreme.. I used to think they were OK because they may bring in new collectors but can you imagine what they will think about collecting when they hear the real values. Buyer beware.

And you don't get 'lube' with that, either.

JBK

I love their loss leader deals.

I just bought a CU $2 bill from them for $2, for example.

As for their regular prices, .

ricko

A business that thrives on the uninformed. Cheers, RickO

Icollecteverything

I bet the guy with many barrels of wheaties in his garage would love to sell them at $10 a roll let alone $50+ a roll.

Jimnight

And yet people go back.

NJCoin

@Icollecteverything said:
I bet the guy with many barrels of wheaties in his garage would love to sell them at $10 a roll let alone $50+ a roll.

It's a business, like any other. The sad fact is that, without the scale of the Big Boys, the guy with many barrels of wheaties in his garage would lose his shirt selling his wheaties at $50 per roll if he had to buy those magazine ads and print and mail those catalogs.

If that were not the case, there would be tons of other Big Boys lining up to sell for less. People on these boards shake their heads at what uniformed people pay for some things, but the fact remains that they are buying through channels that are very expensive to operate.

If the profits were really that obscene, common sense and capitalism dictate that someone would come in and do it for a little less, eventually driving prices down to what people who know what they are doing pay. And yet, that doesn't seem to happen.

Why? Don't you think any of the dealers here would see a vibrant market where they can provide a service to the victims of these predators and make a nice profit, if one existed?

Icollecteverything

I know they do a lot of advertising but so does Coke and they don't charge $50 for a soda.

It's a business treading very carefully on the edge. Selling colorized coins and bills, copper rounds and other silly stuff. They claim that reprocessed 1943 cents and average circulated war nickels are highly sought after by collectors. I did a search on their name plus an R and the first suggestion was "ripoff". A lot of BBB complaints were on their approval programs that people didn't want.

If a guy loads up his pickup with generators and bottled water and then drives to an area devastated by a hurricane or whatever people would be yelling PRICE GOUGING if he tried to sell them for double what he paid. If they raise the gas price by a nickel people want an investigation.

hfjacinto

At least there coin albums are reasonable and look pretty good.