@3stars said:
" if pricing was more in line with actual value"
So then each box should be priced based on its contents, which defeats the purpose and point of VB. If I'm paying $20k for the box with the V75 gold in it, I know what I'm getting and could have just purchased one from a dealer.
Actually, I think this could work in a different context. Again, borrowing from the sports card guys, imagine a limited edition slab that's salted in among regular slabs to entice slab collectors. Or imagine a curated set (commems?) where one coin in the set is scarcer. You could actually get people to try to assemble sets.
Idk. These are the things I wish we could discuss but it's just too much trouble. Maybe I'll call one of the NGCX guys and see if I could interest them in working with me.
I'd also love a mystery box of ancients.
I think these could be fun to create as well as collect.
Then at that point you’re collecting plastic and not coins. I realize that already happens, but for legitimately scarce and rare older holders, not modern manufactured “rarities.”
Seriously, what is the point of you writing all that? You’ve said those things over and over and over again. No way you could possibly be replying to anyone because nobody said anything to you. Just because someone started this nonsense again (apparently they think it’s funny), you don’t have to reply.
If you feel like you are performing some kind of public service, you’re not. We all get it. We all know precisely how you feel about VB because you’ve said it so many times.
Fair enough. Similarly, why don't you question why @jmlanzaf is posting nothing new to a zombie thread?
"They should be announcing the composition soon. There will supposedly be 2021 Morgan and Peace dollars in it perv the interview I posted. Modern commems might be fun." is hardly newsworthy. I'm posting for whoever might stumble across the thread. Not you, or @jmlanzaf, or @MasonG, or @WQuarterFreddie.
We also know that none of them are customers or connected to VB, but are all somehow invested in its success. Whatever. There are two solutions for anyone who is annoyed. Stop posting the same repetitive crap, inviting the same repetitive responses you find annoying. Or simply ignore me.
They are engaging in a form of marketing under the guise of a discussion. They are not genuinely interested in buying, other than at a steep discount to the offering price, and I think that is worth repeating, as often as they feel the need to market.
For the record, I did not respond to any of the "funny" posts trying to get the thread going again. I only responded when @jmlanzaf accepted the invitation and picked up where he left off. I then did the same.
Is the info about the Morgan and Peace dollars not new?
I legitimately don’t know, as I will not read every post here.
It's news if you didn't watch the 40 minute video I posted.
I just mentioned it as one of the things I wish could be discussed. They haven't announced anything about the sets but they were supposed to be curated around a theme so I'm thinking maybe modern dollar commems.
Probably clad statehood quarters in 69DCAM. Gotta collect them all in matching VB holders. Declared value of $95 per coin 😂
Yes, I know you're mocking but that is exactly the type of thing that could work here...with a reasonable valuation
@3stars said:
" if pricing was more in line with actual value"
So then each box should be priced based on its contents, which defeats the purpose and point of VB. If I'm paying $20k for the box with the V75 gold in it, I know what I'm getting and could have just purchased one from a dealer.
Actually, I think this could work in a different context. Again, borrowing from the sports card guys, imagine a limited edition slab that's salted in among regular slabs to entice slab collectors. Or imagine a curated set (commems?) where one coin in the set is scarcer. You could actually get people to try to assemble sets.
Idk. These are the things I wish we could discuss but it's just too much trouble. Maybe I'll call one of the NGCX guys and see if I could interest them in working with me.
I'd also love a mystery box of ancients.
I think these could be fun to create as well as collect.
Then at that point you’re collecting plastic and not coins. I realize that already happens, but for legitimately scarce and rare older holders, not modern manufactured “rarities.”
And what's the difference between a Michael Jordan card and a Michael Jordan chrome card?
Yes, you're collecting the "holder" or, more accurately you're collecting the ensemble. It's not just old holders that get collected. People buy U.S. Mint products in different boxes even though they are the same coin. They also buy the slabbed coin from the different box.
@NJCoin said:
Totally agree with everything other than the fact that the lottery is, in fact, perfectly legal.
In fact you are wrong. State sponsored lotteries are legal because the state law permits them (and regulates them). Non-state sponsored lotteries are illegal.
When used in this section, “lottery” shall mean any scheme, arrangement, or plan whereby one or more prizes are awarded by chance or any process involving a substantial element of chance to a participant, and where some or all participants have paid or furnished a consideration for such chance.
-----Burton ANA 50 year/Life Member (now "Emeritus")
@3stars said:
" if pricing was more in line with actual value"
So then each box should be priced based on its contents, which defeats the purpose and point of VB. If I'm paying $20k for the box with the V75 gold in it, I know what I'm getting and could have just purchased one from a dealer.
Actually, I think this could work in a different context. Again, borrowing from the sports card guys, imagine a limited edition slab that's salted in among regular slabs to entice slab collectors. Or imagine a curated set (commems?) where one coin in the set is scarcer. You could actually get people to try to assemble sets.
Idk. These are the things I wish we could discuss but it's just too much trouble. Maybe I'll call one of the NGCX guys and see if I could interest them in working with me.
I'd also love a mystery box of ancients.
I think these could be fun to create as well as collect.
Then at that point you’re collecting plastic and not coins. I realize that already happens, but for legitimately scarce and rare older holders, not modern manufactured “rarities.”
And what's the difference between a Michael Jordan card and a Michael Jordan chrome card?
Yes, you're collecting the "holder" or, more accurately you're collecting the ensemble. It's not just old holders that get collected. People buy U.S. Mint products in different boxes even though they are the same coin. They also buy the slabbed coin from the different box.
I guess we just had the mint example above with the congratulations set ASE.
@MasonG said:
edited to add... VaultBox appears to be located in California. Does California require permits/licenses to start/run a business? Would they approve either if the business was proposing an illegal operation?
In most states, when you form a corporation/LLC, you can identify a specific business, but the articles allow something like any other business function. In many jurisdictions, that's all it says.
The state registers you to ensure you pay taxes, not to pass on the legality of the business you form.
Edit: Typo and to add - the only restriction appears to be that you can't form a new business if you have an outstanding violation of labor laws:
-----Burton ANA 50 year/Life Member (now "Emeritus")
Seriously, what is the point of you writing all that? You’ve said those things over and over and over again. No way you could possibly be replying to anyone because nobody said anything to you. Just because someone started this nonsense again (apparently they think it’s funny), you don’t have to reply.
If you feel like you are performing some kind of public service, you’re not. We all get it. We all know precisely how you feel about VB because you’ve said it so many times.
Fair enough. Similarly, why don't you question why @jmlanzaf is posting nothing new to a zombie thread?
"They should be announcing the composition soon. There will supposedly be 2021 Morgan and Peace dollars in it perv the interview I posted. Modern commems might be fun." is hardly newsworthy. I'm posting for whoever might stumble across the thread. Not you, or @jmlanzaf, or @MasonG, or @WQuarterFreddie.
We also know that none of them are customers or connected to VB, but are all somehow invested in its success. Whatever. There are two solutions for anyone who is annoyed. Stop posting the same repetitive crap, inviting the same repetitive responses you find annoying. Or simply ignore me.
They are engaging in a form of marketing under the guise of a discussion. They are not genuinely interested in buying, other than at a steep discount to the offering price, and I think that is worth repeating, as often as they feel the need to market.
For the record, I did not respond to any of the "funny" posts trying to get the thread going again. I only responded when @jmlanzaf accepted the invitation and picked up where he left off. I then did the same.
Is the info about the Morgan and Peace dollars not new?
I legitimately don’t know, as I will not read every post here.
It's news if you didn't watch the 40 minute video I posted.
I just mentioned it as one of the things I wish could be discussed. They haven't announced anything about the sets but they were supposed to be curated around a theme so I'm thinking maybe modern dollar commems.
Probably clad statehood quarters in 69DCAM. Gotta collect them all in matching VB holders. Declared value of $95 per coin 😂
Yes, I know you're mocking but that is exactly the type of thing that could work here...with a reasonable valuation
I agree. Could be a successful niche as long as valuations are realistic.
Universal Citation: CA Penal Code § 319 (2021)
319.
A lottery is any scheme for the disposal or distribution of property by chance, among persons who have paid or promised to pay any valuable consideration for the chance of obtaining such property or a portion of it, or for any share or any interest in such property, upon any agreement, understanding, or expectation that it is to be distributed or disposed of by lot or chance, whether called a lottery, raffle, or gift enterprise, or by whatever name the same may be known.
(Enacted 1872.)
-----Burton ANA 50 year/Life Member (now "Emeritus")
@NJCoin said:
And, as I said below, the fact that sports card hobby boxes have been doing something similar, forever, without regulatory interference validates that the "lottery" has been structured in a way that is perfectly legal.
Prosecutorial discretion
"In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate, yet equally important groups: the police, who investigate crime and the district attorneys, who prosecute the offenders. These are their stories." [Law & Order, TV show]
In most places, the DA is elected. (Or a high profile presidential appointment like the Attorney General)...
Where do you think the time and effort goes? Given a choice between spending time prosecuting "white collar" crime where the victims are relatively well-off chumps, mostly living outside of the jurisdiction... or the local drug kingpin who is hurting a lot of voters?
-----Burton ANA 50 year/Life Member (now "Emeritus")
But that still doesn't answer my original questions:
Do you think the VaultBox people put together their business without consulting an attorney? Do you think NGC agreed to put their name on the slabs included in VaultBoxes without running the idea past their legal department?
Universal Citation: CA Penal Code § 319 (2021)
319.
A lottery is any scheme for the disposal or distribution of property by chance, among persons who have paid or promised to pay any valuable consideration for the chance of obtaining such property or a portion of it, or for any share or any interest in such property, upon any agreement, understanding, or expectation that it is to be distributed or disposed of by lot or chance, whether called a lottery, raffle, or gift enterprise, or by whatever name the same may be known.
(Enacted 1872.)
It might technically be illegal but so are most grab bags and all hobby boxes. But no one seems interested in interpreting it that way.
@NJCoin said:
Totally agree with everything other than the fact that the lottery is, in fact, perfectly legal.
In fact you are wrong. State sponsored lotteries are legal because the state law permits them (and regulates them). Non-state sponsored lotteries are illegal.
When used in this section, “lottery” shall mean any scheme, arrangement, or plan whereby one or more prizes are awarded by chance or any process involving a substantial element of chance to a participant, and where some or all participants have paid or furnished a consideration for such chance.
With all due respect, I am not wrong.
We are all calling this a lottery, but technically, it isn't. These guys are selling mystery boxes with a "random" assortment of fully disclosed coins inside. It is not a "lottery" as defined by your links.
It is sold in all 50 states, as hobby boxes have been forever, with no interference from any state attorney general. It is not under the radar. Topps has been a public company on and off over the years. You can rest assured that if VB and products similar to it were deemed to be non-state sponsored lotteries, they would have been shut down many years ago.
The lack of prosecution is not due to prosecutorial discretion, all over the country, for decades, by every law enforcement officer in every jurisdiction where they are sold. It is because it it legal, specifically because the boxes contain actual products with some value. If it was a scratch off with pictures of modern bullion, with winners eligible to be cashed in for thousands of dollars, that would be a different matter.
The similarities to a lottery you are spotting, and the fact that it is unregulated by anyone (or unsupervised by a trusted third party), is one of the big reasons (besides price), why I am not interested. Believe me. I am one of the biggest critics here, and I am telling you, what they are doing is not illegal.
@MasonG said:
Do you think the VaultBox people put together their business without consulting an attorney? Do you think NGC agreed to put their name on the slabs included in VaultBoxes without running the idea past their legal department?
People do things that are technically illegal all the time, they balance the risks & rewards. A good attorney will discuss this with you. A bad one just answers the questions that are being asked. If you don't know enough to ask the right questions... oh well. If you ignore them, well, SBF.
Do you ever jaywalk? Depending on the jurisdiction, it's either an administrative violation or a misdemeanor.
VaultBox is an LLC - Limited Liability Company. There is no reason for them to hold assets beyond the current round of boxes. As soon as a series sells out, you balance the books and pay out the owners. There isn't much in the way of assets to go after on a consent decree / guilty verdict.
I don't know about NGC, nor do I know what the contractual relationship between them and Minshull is. There is nothing wrong with grading objects using their new grading scheme. There is nothing wrong with performing extra services for a fee like selecting which coins from each pile goes into a box. If they are smart (and nobody says NGC is not smart), they have no involvement with the distribution. NGC's hands are clean.
-----Burton ANA 50 year/Life Member (now "Emeritus")
@MasonG said:
Do you think the VaultBox people put together their business without consulting an attorney? Do you think NGC agreed to put their name on the slabs included in VaultBoxes without running the idea past their legal department?
People do things that are technically illegal all the time, they balance the risks & rewards. A good attorney will discuss this with you. A bad one just answers the questions that are being asked. If you don't know enough to ask the right questions... oh well. If you ignore them, well, SBF.
Do you ever jaywalk? Depending on the jurisdiction, it's either an administrative violation or a misdemeanor.
VaultBox is an LLC - Limited Liability Company. There is no reason for them to hold assets beyond the current round of boxes. As soon as a series sells out, you balance the books and pay out the owners. There isn't much in the way of assets to go after on a consent decree / guilty verdict.
I don't know about NGC, nor do I know what the contractual relationship between them and Minshull is. There is nothing wrong with grading objects using their new grading scheme. There is nothing wrong with performing extra services for a fee like selecting which coins from each pile goes into a box. If they are smart (and nobody says NGC is not smart), they have no involvement with the distribution. NGC's hands are clean.
There is an argument to be made that they are illegal as are box breaks, hobby boxes etc.
About half the states have some sort of gaming commission.
This type of thing could violate some standard but it would probably take a formal complaint to prompt enforcement.
I am not sure the total numbers would justify it, but its not the pertinent issue. Its overcharging.
For instance the American Bar Association discourages lawyers from overcharging, but it does not prohibit it. How does a retailer like a comparison with a blood-sucking attorney?
@fathom said:
About half the states have some sort of gaming commission.
This type of thing could violate some standard but it would probably take a formal complaint to prompt enforcement.
I am not sure the total numbers would justify it, but its not the pertinent issue. Its overcharging.
For instance the American Bar Association discourages lawyers from overcharging, but it does not prohibit it. How does a retailer like a comparison with a blood-sucking attorney?
How does an attorney like a comparison with a blood-sucking retailer?
😉
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
@fathom said:
About half the states have some sort of gaming commission.
This type of thing could violate some standard but it would probably take a formal complaint to prompt enforcement.
I am not sure the total numbers would justify it, but its not the pertinent issue. Its overcharging.
For instance the American Bar Association discourages lawyers from overcharging, but it does not prohibit it. How does a retailer like a comparison with a blood-sucking attorney?
How does an attorney like a comparison with a blood-sucking retailer?
😉
Not all attorneys are blood-sucking just as not all retailers are blood-sucking.
But the blood-sucking types of each would loudly applaud the overcharging.
In either case it's bad for the marketplaces and we know the reputation consequences.
@MasonG said:
Do you think the VaultBox people put together their business without consulting an attorney? Do you think NGC agreed to put their name on the slabs included in VaultBoxes without running the idea past their legal department?
People do things that are technically illegal all the time, they balance the risks & rewards. A good attorney will discuss this with you. A bad one just answers the questions that are being asked. If you don't know enough to ask the right questions... oh well. If you ignore them, well, SBF.
Do you ever jaywalk? Depending on the jurisdiction, it's either an administrative violation or a misdemeanor.
VaultBox is an LLC - Limited Liability Company. There is no reason for them to hold assets beyond the current round of boxes. As soon as a series sells out, you balance the books and pay out the owners. There isn't much in the way of assets to go after on a consent decree / guilty verdict.
I don't know about NGC, nor do I know what the contractual relationship between them and Minshull is. There is nothing wrong with grading objects using their new grading scheme. There is nothing wrong with performing extra services for a fee like selecting which coins from each pile goes into a box. If they are smart (and nobody says NGC is not smart), they have no involvement with the distribution. NGC's hands are clean.
There is an argument to be made that they are illegal as are box breaks, hobby boxes etc.
@fathom said:
About half the states have some sort of gaming commission.
This type of thing could violate some standard but it would probably take a formal complaint to prompt enforcement.
I am not sure the total numbers would justify it, but its not the pertinent issue. Its overcharging.
For instance the American Bar Association discourages lawyers from overcharging, but it does not prohibit it. How does a retailer like a comparison with a blood-sucking attorney?
Overcharging in the criminal sense or the retail sense?
The cost of the boxes in aggregate are not excessive. The issue, if it is one, is that the top prizes sucked value away from the lower value boxes. That's a distribution issue not a charging issue.
@fathom said:
About half the states have some sort of gaming commission.
This type of thing could violate some standard but it would probably take a formal complaint to prompt enforcement.
I am not sure the total numbers would justify it, but its not the pertinent issue. Its overcharging.
For instance the American Bar Association discourages lawyers from overcharging, but it does not prohibit it. How does a retailer like a comparison with a blood-sucking attorney?
How does an attorney like a comparison with a blood-sucking retailer?
😉
@MasonG said:
Do you think the VaultBox people put together their business without consulting an attorney? Do you think NGC agreed to put their name on the slabs included in VaultBoxes without running the idea past their legal department?
People do things that are technically illegal all the time, they balance the risks & rewards. A good attorney will discuss this with you. A bad one just answers the questions that are being asked. If you don't know enough to ask the right questions... oh well. If you ignore them, well, SBF.
Do you ever jaywalk? Depending on the jurisdiction, it's either an administrative violation or a misdemeanor.
VaultBox is an LLC - Limited Liability Company. There is no reason for them to hold assets beyond the current round of boxes. As soon as a series sells out, you balance the books and pay out the owners. There isn't much in the way of assets to go after on a consent decree / guilty verdict.
I don't know about NGC, nor do I know what the contractual relationship between them and Minshull is. There is nothing wrong with grading objects using their new grading scheme. There is nothing wrong with performing extra services for a fee like selecting which coins from each pile goes into a box. If they are smart (and nobody says NGC is not smart), they have no involvement with the distribution. NGC's hands are clean.
There is an argument to be made that they are illegal as are box breaks, hobby boxes etc.
Perhaps start a thread around that topic.
No....please don't!🤣😂
... Said the guy who started three VB threads and counting. 🤣😂
@fathom said:
About half the states have some sort of gaming commission.
This type of thing could violate some standard but it would probably take a formal complaint to prompt enforcement.
I am not sure the total numbers would justify it, but its not the pertinent issue. Its overcharging.
For instance the American Bar Association discourages lawyers from overcharging, but it does not prohibit it. How does a retailer like a comparison with a blood-sucking attorney?
Overcharging in the criminal sense or the retail sense?
The cost of the boxes in aggregate are not excessive. The issue, if it is one, is that the top prizes sucked value away from the lower value boxes. That's a distribution issue not a charging issue.
Actually, no. At least my issue is that the guide values they are using as proxies for retail are utter BS, and that the cost of the boxes is, in fact, excessive in relation to the aggregate retail value of what is actually in the boxes.
Top prizes sucking away value might be your narrative, and theirs, but that was to be expected. That's not what people are complaining about. People are unhappy because what was supposed to be $400-500 worth of coins in the losing boxes is actually $250-350 worth.
Simple math. The lottery ticket that funded the red cores cost waaay more than the collective retail value of the red cores. The excess went directly into VB's pocket. Maybe on the theory that all cores would carry huge premiums, so the excess was earned.
I dunno. You certainly showed no willingness to pay one, although you have repeatedly pontificated that a vibrant secondary market can develop for an infinite number of flavors of slabs. If that's true, what do they need coins for, anyway? Just make the slabs and sell them as collectibles.
Limited editions. Different colors, holograms, etc. Why bother with coins that people can objectively value? Because people won't care about stupid slabs without coins? Maybe they also won't care about them even with the coins!
One example -- a $2,500 proof red core AGE has been sitting on eBay for $4,000 with no takers for over a month. Is its retail value $4K, as the seller hopes, or $2,500, as similar coins without a VB pedigree sell for in the market. If it's the latter, then all VBs, collectively, were vastly overpriced, even though a few lottery winners did well even at the inflated price.
Oh Hello,
We are VaultBox. We will sell you a set of coins for 2 times the price of their retail value. In rare cases, the set of coins you receive will have retail value that is more than what you pay. In extremely rare cases, like say, 3 in 800, we will sell you a set of coins for much much less than retail value. That is, if we don't give these to our influencers, or do a presale and show videos of what the presale had in it which are the high value coins, alas. In that case, these rarer coins with very large values won't make it our offering we are presenting to you. So you are going to get coins at 1/2 the price in retail value than the price we sell them to you probably and we think you will like that and come back for more. But wait, if you don't like that, we will buy these coins back from you once you see them. Of course, our offering will be wholesale, 30-40% less than retail, so that you end up paying 3 times the price of their worth for this set of coins. But that is okay, because you might have a chance at making out big on this, even if that chance is much less than our claim of shipping out boxes with random values (don't forget our influencers and presale). We can't possibly have enough influencers, and we saved a couple coins worth more than the price of our set we are selling to you, so that someone hopefully can report back a boondoggle of a score who is just a Joe on the street, not an infuencer! So you are going to love this right? And come back again and again for more!
Thank you dear customer,
Best, VB
Here is a link to daCoinGeek on Youtube. He took his 4 lowball boxes - see the table with VB instant offers and the values, and sold them on ebay and only ended up losing about $350 on 4 boxes totaling $2380. Hmm...........
Bottom line is that VB better give better value if they truly want folks to buy in for the long run......... This is very different than trading card wax packs, which don't cost $595 per.......................................
@spacehayduke said:
Oh Hello,
We are VaultBox. We will sell you a set of coins for 2 times the price of their retail value. In rare cases, the set of coins you receive will have retail value that is more than what you pay. In extremely rare cases, like say, 3 in 800, we will sell you a set of coins for much much less than retail value. That is, if we don't give these to our influencers, or do a presale and show videos of what the presale had in it which are the high value coins, alas. In that case, these rarer coins with very large values won't make it our offering we are presenting to you. So you are going to get coins at 1/2 the price in retail value than the price we sell them to you probably and we think you will like that and come back for more. But wait, if you don't like that, we will buy these coins back from you once you see them. Of course, our offering will be wholesale, 30-40% less than retail, so that you end up paying 3 times the price of their worth for this set of coins. But that is okay, because you might have a chance at making out big on this, even if that chance is much less than our claim of shipping out boxes with random values (don't forget our influencers and presale). We can't possibly have enough influencers, and we saved a couple coins worth more than the price of our set we are selling to you, so that someone hopefully can report back a boondoggle of a score who is just a Joe on the street, not an infuencer! So you are going to love this right? And come back again and again for more!
Thank you dear customer,
Best, VB
Here is a link to daCoinGeek on Youtube. He took his 4 lowball boxes - see the table with VB instant offers and the values, and sold them on ebay and only ended up losing about $350 on 4 boxes totaling $2380. Hmm...........
Bottom line is that VB better give better value if they truly want folks to buy in for the long run......... This is very different than trading card wax packs, which don't cost $595 per.......................................
@spacehayduke said:
Oh Hello,
We are VaultBox. We will sell you a set of coins for 2 times the price of their retail value. In rare cases, the set of coins you receive will have retail value that is more than what you pay. In extremely rare cases, like say, 3 in 800, we will sell you a set of coins for much much less than retail value. That is, if we don't give these to our influencers, or do a presale and show videos of what the presale had in it which are the high value coins, alas. In that case, these rarer coins with very large values won't make it our offering we are presenting to you. So you are going to get coins at 1/2 the price in retail value than the price we sell them to you probably and we think you will like that and come back for more. But wait, if you don't like that, we will buy these coins back from you once you see them. Of course, our offering will be wholesale, 30-40% less than retail, so that you end up paying 3 times the price of their worth for this set of coins. But that is okay, because you might have a chance at making out big on this, even if that chance is much less than our claim of shipping out boxes with random values (don't forget our influencers and presale). We can't possibly have enough influencers, and we saved a couple coins worth more than the price of our set we are selling to you, so that someone hopefully can report back a boondoggle of a score who is just a Joe on the street, not an infuencer! So you are going to love this right? And come back again and again for more!
Thank you dear customer,
Best, VB
Here is a link to daCoinGeek on Youtube. He took his 4 lowball boxes - see the table with VB instant offers and the values, and sold them on ebay and only ended up losing about $350 on 4 boxes totaling $2380. Hmm...........
Bottom line is that VB better give better value if they truly want folks to buy in for the long run......... This is very different than trading card wax packs, which don't cost $595 per.......................................
Trading card mystery boxes go up to $10,000. Even card breaks are several thousand. Please research first.
@fathom said:
About half the states have some sort of gaming commission.
This type of thing could violate some standard but it would probably take a formal complaint to prompt enforcement.
I am not sure the total numbers would justify it, but its not the pertinent issue. Its overcharging.
For instance the American Bar Association discourages lawyers from overcharging, but it does not prohibit it. How does a retailer like a comparison with a blood-sucking attorney?
Overcharging in the criminal sense or the retail sense?
The cost of the boxes in aggregate are not excessive. The issue, if it is one, is that the top prizes sucked value away from the lower value boxes. That's a distribution issue not a charging issue.
Nice try. Most buyers will be in a loss position, End of story.
Buyer funds costs, again most buyers will be in a loss position by normal retail pricing, maybe times two. if the retailer wants to justify high price because of distribution then he can separate the distribution costs in the pricing, which he did not because nobody would tolerate that. The closer you look, the less attractive the offering, why would the retailer want scrutiny of costs?
@fathom said:
About half the states have some sort of gaming commission.
This type of thing could violate some standard but it would probably take a formal complaint to prompt enforcement.
I am not sure the total numbers would justify it, but its not the pertinent issue. Its overcharging.
For instance the American Bar Association discourages lawyers from overcharging, but it does not prohibit it. How does a retailer like a comparison with a blood-sucking attorney?
Overcharging in the criminal sense or the retail sense?
The cost of the boxes in aggregate are not excessive. The issue, if it is one, is that the top prizes sucked value away from the lower value boxes. That's a distribution issue not a charging issue.
Nice try. Most buyers will be in a loss position, End of story.
Buyer funds costs, again most buyers will be in a loss position by normal retail pricing, maybe times two. if the retailer wants to justify high price because of distribution then he can separate the distribution costs in the pricing, which he did not because nobody would tolerate that. The closer you look, the less attractive the offering, why would the retailer want scrutiny of costs?
"nice try"? I think you meant to say "excellent point"
You are misunderstanding the "distribution" point. Your apology is accepted in advance.
When you have $40,000 in prize coins spread over $800 boxes, those coins alone draw $50 from each of the other boxes. When you throw in the 2nd tier gold coins, you end up with a lower value for the boxes that don't have winners. No one would call that over-charging. Over-charging is when the company ends up with excess profits not when your missing value went to the lottery winner next door.
We had the spreadsheet worked out in the other closed thread. The average value per box was around $500 against a sticker price of $595. That is hardly excessive pricing. The DISTRIBUTION OF VALUE is uneven because of the prize coins. That is a very different situation than "over-charging".
@fathom said:
About half the states have some sort of gaming commission.
This type of thing could violate some standard but it would probably take a formal complaint to prompt enforcement.
I am not sure the total numbers would justify it, but its not the pertinent issue. Its overcharging.
For instance the American Bar Association discourages lawyers from overcharging, but it does not prohibit it. How does a retailer like a comparison with a blood-sucking attorney?
Overcharging in the criminal sense or the retail sense?
The cost of the boxes in aggregate are not excessive. The issue, if it is one, is that the top prizes sucked value away from the lower value boxes. That's a distribution issue not a charging issue.
Nice try. Most buyers will be in a loss position, End of story.
Buyer funds costs, again most buyers will be in a loss position by normal retail pricing, maybe times two. if the retailer wants to justify high price because of distribution then he can separate the distribution costs in the pricing, which he did not because nobody would tolerate that. The closer you look, the less attractive the offering, why would the retailer want scrutiny of costs?
"nice try"? I think you meant to say "excellent point"
You are misunderstanding the "distribution" point. Your apology is accepted in advance.
When you have $40,000 in prize coins spread over $800 boxes, those coins alone draw $50 from each of the other boxes. When you throw in the 2nd tier gold coins, you end up with a lower value for the boxes that don't have winners. No one would call that over-charging. Over-charging is when the company ends up with excess profits not when your missing value went to the lottery winner next door.
We had the spreadsheet worked out in the other closed thread. The average value per box was around $500 against a sticker price of $595. That is hardly excessive pricing. The DISTRIBUTION OF VALUE is uneven because of the prize coins. That is a very different situation than "over-charging".
Its not about averages, its about many buyers or even some buyers getting overcharged. The odds say you will be an extreme loser rather than "20% over sticker" which is still too high. They have too much invested to not overcharge.
@fathom said:
About half the states have some sort of gaming commission.
This type of thing could violate some standard but it would probably take a formal complaint to prompt enforcement.
I am not sure the total numbers would justify it, but its not the pertinent issue. Its overcharging.
For instance the American Bar Association discourages lawyers from overcharging, but it does not prohibit it. How does a retailer like a comparison with a blood-sucking attorney?
Overcharging in the criminal sense or the retail sense?
The cost of the boxes in aggregate are not excessive. The issue, if it is one, is that the top prizes sucked value away from the lower value boxes. That's a distribution issue not a charging issue.
Nice try. Most buyers will be in a loss position, End of story.
Buyer funds costs, again most buyers will be in a loss position by normal retail pricing, maybe times two. if the retailer wants to justify high price because of distribution then he can separate the distribution costs in the pricing, which he did not because nobody would tolerate that. The closer you look, the less attractive the offering, why would the retailer want scrutiny of costs?
"nice try"? I think you meant to say "excellent point"
You are misunderstanding the "distribution" point. Your apology is accepted in advance.
When you have $40,000 in prize coins spread over $800 boxes, those coins alone draw $50 from each of the other boxes. When you throw in the 2nd tier gold coins, you end up with a lower value for the boxes that don't have winners. No one would call that over-charging. Over-charging is when the company ends up with excess profits not when your missing value went to the lottery winner next door.
We had the spreadsheet worked out in the other closed thread. The average value per box was around $500 against a sticker price of $595. That is hardly excessive pricing. The DISTRIBUTION OF VALUE is uneven because of the prize coins. That is a very different situation than "over-charging".
Its not about averages, its about many buyers or even some buyers getting overcharged. The odds say you will be an extreme loser rather than "20% over sticker" which is still too high. They have too much invested to not overcharge.
Meh. That's a rather odd definition of overcharge. By your definition, a raffle that returns 100% of the money to the participants is overcharging the people that don't win.
@jmlanzaf said:
The average value per box was around $500 against a sticker price of $595. That is hardly excessive pricing.
Perhaps you're addressing Garrison Keillor fans, where the value of all boxes are expected to be above average?
That appears to be the case.
Even more oddly, almost all retail purchases are defined as overcharging because the items aren't worth 100% of the purchase price after the sale is made.
If you take part in a raffle, you do it for the fun of it, at least in part. You have to assign some value to the experience. You can't treat it like an investment, although even those have a chance of loss.
I don't expect everyone to want to play. My father never gambled in his entire life. I was at a NYE party with family in a night when there was a $500 million lottery jackpot. We decided to throw in a $1 and buy a bunch of tickets. Everyone played except my father. [We lost. He won. But not wanting to play yourself is rather different than arguing that no one should play and/or the entertainment provider should not be allowed to provide it.
I'm fine with 95% of everyone not liking mystery boxes, card breaks or the like. But they are YouTube channels dedicated to card breaks. Some people obviously enjoy them. There are YouTube channels dedicated to coin lotteries - see joeycoins threads. So let the people who enjoy them have their fun.
I'm not sure why people enjoy jumping on here and urinating on the fun... and even complain that the thread exists while they are ON IT!
@fathom said:
About half the states have some sort of gaming commission.
This type of thing could violate some standard but it would probably take a formal complaint to prompt enforcement.
I am not sure the total numbers would justify it, but its not the pertinent issue. Its overcharging.
For instance the American Bar Association discourages lawyers from overcharging, but it does not prohibit it. How does a retailer like a comparison with a blood-sucking attorney?
Overcharging in the criminal sense or the retail sense?
The cost of the boxes in aggregate are not excessive. The issue, if it is one, is that the top prizes sucked value away from the lower value boxes. That's a distribution issue not a charging issue.
Nice try. Most buyers will be in a loss position, End of story.
Buyer funds costs, again most buyers will be in a loss position by normal retail pricing, maybe times two. if the retailer wants to justify high price because of distribution then he can separate the distribution costs in the pricing, which he did not because nobody would tolerate that. The closer you look, the less attractive the offering, why would the retailer want scrutiny of costs?
"nice try"? I think you meant to say "excellent point"
You are misunderstanding the "distribution" point. Your apology is accepted in advance.
When you have $40,000 in prize coins spread over $800 boxes, those coins alone draw $50 from each of the other boxes. When you throw in the 2nd tier gold coins, you end up with a lower value for the boxes that don't have winners. No one would call that over-charging. Over-charging is when the company ends up with excess profits not when your missing value went to the lottery winner next door.
We had the spreadsheet worked out in the other closed thread. The average value per box was around $500 against a sticker price of $595. That is hardly excessive pricing. The DISTRIBUTION OF VALUE is uneven because of the prize coins. That is a very different situation than "over-charging".
Its not about averages, its about many buyers or even some buyers getting overcharged. The odds say you will be an extreme loser rather than "20% over sticker" which is still too high. They have too much invested to not overcharge.
Meh. That's a rather odd definition of overcharge. By your definition, a raffle that returns 100% of the money to the participants is overcharging the people that don't win.
No Meh, you're subsidizing the winners.
I dont want to go to a car dealer and find out I'm paying $10K more because they gave away 10 cars.
@fathom said:
About half the states have some sort of gaming commission.
This type of thing could violate some standard but it would probably take a formal complaint to prompt enforcement.
I am not sure the total numbers would justify it, but its not the pertinent issue. Its overcharging.
For instance the American Bar Association discourages lawyers from overcharging, but it does not prohibit it. How does a retailer like a comparison with a blood-sucking attorney?
Overcharging in the criminal sense or the retail sense?
The cost of the boxes in aggregate are not excessive. The issue, if it is one, is that the top prizes sucked value away from the lower value boxes. That's a distribution issue not a charging issue.
Nice try. Most buyers will be in a loss position, End of story.
Buyer funds costs, again most buyers will be in a loss position by normal retail pricing, maybe times two. if the retailer wants to justify high price because of distribution then he can separate the distribution costs in the pricing, which he did not because nobody would tolerate that. The closer you look, the less attractive the offering, why would the retailer want scrutiny of costs?
"nice try"? I think you meant to say "excellent point"
You are misunderstanding the "distribution" point. Your apology is accepted in advance.
When you have $40,000 in prize coins spread over $800 boxes, those coins alone draw $50 from each of the other boxes. When you throw in the 2nd tier gold coins, you end up with a lower value for the boxes that don't have winners. No one would call that over-charging. Over-charging is when the company ends up with excess profits not when your missing value went to the lottery winner next door.
We had the spreadsheet worked out in the other closed thread. The average value per box was around $500 against a sticker price of $595. That is hardly excessive pricing. The DISTRIBUTION OF VALUE is uneven because of the prize coins. That is a very different situation than "over-charging".
Its not about averages, its about many buyers or even some buyers getting overcharged. The odds say you will be an extreme loser rather than "20% over sticker" which is still too high. They have too much invested to not overcharge.
Meh. That's a rather odd definition of overcharge. By your definition, a raffle that returns 100% of the money to the participants is overcharging the people that don't win.
No Meh, you're subsidizing the winners.
I dont want to go to a car dealer and find out I'm paying $10K more because they gave away 10 cars.
Understood, but that's not typically what one would call "overcharging". Overcharging usually refers to gross profit.
@fathom said:
About half the states have some sort of gaming commission.
This type of thing could violate some standard but it would probably take a formal complaint to prompt enforcement.
I am not sure the total numbers would justify it, but its not the pertinent issue. Its overcharging.
For instance the American Bar Association discourages lawyers from overcharging, but it does not prohibit it. How does a retailer like a comparison with a blood-sucking attorney?
Overcharging in the criminal sense or the retail sense?
The cost of the boxes in aggregate are not excessive. The issue, if it is one, is that the top prizes sucked value away from the lower value boxes. That's a distribution issue not a charging issue.
Nice try. Most buyers will be in a loss position, End of story.
Buyer funds costs, again most buyers will be in a loss position by normal retail pricing, maybe times two. if the retailer wants to justify high price because of distribution then he can separate the distribution costs in the pricing, which he did not because nobody would tolerate that. The closer you look, the less attractive the offering, why would the retailer want scrutiny of costs?
"nice try"? I think you meant to say "excellent point"
You are misunderstanding the "distribution" point. Your apology is accepted in advance.
When you have $40,000 in prize coins spread over $800 boxes, those coins alone draw $50 from each of the other boxes. When you throw in the 2nd tier gold coins, you end up with a lower value for the boxes that don't have winners. No one would call that over-charging. Over-charging is when the company ends up with excess profits not when your missing value went to the lottery winner next door.
We had the spreadsheet worked out in the other closed thread. The average value per box was around $500 against a sticker price of $595. That is hardly excessive pricing. The DISTRIBUTION OF VALUE is uneven because of the prize coins. That is a very different situation than "over-charging".
Yes we did.
And then people started opening their boxes.
There turned out to be nowhere near in $450 in actual, retail value in the boxes, which would be your very reasonable $500 minus the $50 lottery ticket. It turns out the lottery ticket funding the $40,000 worth of prizes actually collectively cost the buyers something around $100-200 each, or $80,000-160,000 in total.
And that's on top of the $95 on $595 that we are allowing as "normal" profit. That's the where the accusations of overcharging and excess profits are coming from.
@jmlanzaf said:
The average value per box was around $500 against a sticker price of $595. That is hardly excessive pricing.
Perhaps you're addressing Garrison Keillor fans, where the value of all boxes are expected to be above average?
I think you might actually be starting to understand. No, each box is not expected to be above average. But all boxes, combined, are very much expected to be average or above.
When I buy a 1/800 share of a $480,000 pool of anything for $600, I expect $480,000 worth of whatever to be in that pool. Not $300,000, or less. The fact that I have a 1/800 chance to walk away with $23,000 in return for my $600 does not alter that expectation.
I am willing to allow the seller to make a normal, reasonable retail markup. If, over time, the product turns out to have intrinsic value of its own, it's not crazy to allow the seller to share in that as well.
But, to place something like $300,000 in retail value, not wholesale, but retail, and not using BS Guide values, or HSN values, but real world, current, retail selling price values, in 800 boxes that sell for $600 each is a rip-off. Having a few dozen people out of 800 get more than $600 in value does not change that one bit. Nor does the fact that it might cost the seller $200,000 to pack those boxes.
And that's before getting into the uneven distribution of winners and losers between regular folks and people with a connection to the sellers and their marketing partners.
Is it, though? The only people presently claiming the offering was priced fairly are those who priced it, and those who bought a single coin in the secondary market at a very, extremely, significant discount to the so-called fair price. Not made up. For real.
I'm sure the relatively few winners are also not too upset with how things went, or how the boxes were priced. But you never did reconcile how including $50 in the price of each of the 800 boxes sold to account for the $40,000 worth of Big Coins, brings the rest of the value of those boxes close to the $595 retail each sold for.
The imponderable about all of this is that some people seem to think that one can "win" an internet argument about things that don't matter even a little bit.
I can't believe we are still talking about this. Those who like it, like it. Those who don't, don't. There are no new points that need to be made. We all know what it is now... and an additional post is not going to "sway" anyone in either direction.
I say for you to spend your money however you like. If you love vault box and you love the "game", great! If you would rather keep your head down and collect coins in a "traditional" way, great!
I promise not to tell you how to spend your money if you promise not to tell me to spend mine. Deal?
I am a newer collector (started April 2020), and I primarily focus on U.S. Half Cents and Type Coins. Early copper is my favorite.
@124Spider said:
The imponderable about all of this is that some people seem to think that one can "win" an internet argument about things that don't matter even a little bit.
Carry on....
Very true.
I'm not trying to "win" anything, and don't for a second think I am going to change anyone's mind. In fact, I'm pretty sure most people already agree with me.
I'm just not leaving what I consider to be disingenuous, hypocritical posts supporting a numismatic product the poster does not support with his own hard earned dollars go without a response.
I'd actually be taking a very different approach if someone who actually participated came on here to explain how they received $300 worth of "fun" to go along with the $300 worth of bullion that was contained in their $600 VB, as some on here speculated is clearly the case.
Just haven't seen that. Apparently because the prospect of being criticized is just too much for some to take. OTOH, those who did not participate have absolutely no problem being criticized. Again and again and again and again.
They keep posting, I'll keep responding. Until someone gets tired or the thread runs its course. Which it has already done several times, but some choose not to leave it alone. So we carry on.
Comments
Then at that point you’re collecting plastic and not coins. I realize that already happens, but for legitimately scarce and rare older holders, not modern manufactured “rarities.”
Sorry, I was busy admiring my scarce Vault Box coin.
Yes, I know you're mocking but that is exactly the type of thing that could work here...with a reasonable valuation
I’ll still be buying coins sight seen
And it won’t be modern junk bullion
And what's the difference between a Michael Jordan card and a Michael Jordan chrome card?
Yes, you're collecting the "holder" or, more accurately you're collecting the ensemble. It's not just old holders that get collected. People buy U.S. Mint products in different boxes even though they are the same coin. They also buy the slabbed coin from the different box.
In fact you are wrong. State sponsored lotteries are legal because the state law permits them (and regulates them). Non-state sponsored lotteries are illegal.
Just a random example...
https://www.legis.iowa.gov/docs/code/99g.pdf
https://law.justia.com/codes/iowa/2014/title-xvi/subtitle-1/chapter-725/section-725.12
ANA 50 year/Life Member (now "Emeritus")
I guess we just had the mint example above with the congratulations set ASE.
In most states, when you form a corporation/LLC, you can identify a specific business, but the articles allow something like any other business function. In many jurisdictions, that's all it says.
The state registers you to ensure you pay taxes, not to pass on the legality of the business you form.
Edit: Typo and to add - the only restriction appears to be that you can't form a new business if you have an outstanding violation of labor laws:
ANA 50 year/Life Member (now "Emeritus")
I agree. Could be a successful niche as long as valuations are realistic.
PS: for California (I had picked Iowa at random)
The Lottery Law is https://law.justia.com/codes/california/2022/code-gov/title-2/division-1/chapter-12-5/
and the criminal offense is: https://law.justia.com/codes/california/2021/code-pen/part-1/title-9/chapter-9/section-319
ANA 50 year/Life Member (now "Emeritus")
Prosecutorial discretion
"In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate, yet equally important groups: the police, who investigate crime and the district attorneys, who prosecute the offenders. These are their stories." [Law & Order, TV show]
In most places, the DA is elected. (Or a high profile presidential appointment like the Attorney General)...
Where do you think the time and effort goes? Given a choice between spending time prosecuting "white collar" crime where the victims are relatively well-off chumps, mostly living outside of the jurisdiction... or the local drug kingpin who is hurting a lot of voters?
ANA 50 year/Life Member (now "Emeritus")
Edit.
Disclaimer: I'm not a dealer, trader, grader, investor or professional numismatist. I'm just a hobbyist. (To protect me but mostly you! 🤣 )
Ok.
Ok.
But that still doesn't answer my original questions:
Do you think the VaultBox people put together their business without consulting an attorney? Do you think NGC agreed to put their name on the slabs included in VaultBoxes without running the idea past their legal department?
It might technically be illegal but so are most grab bags and all hobby boxes. But no one seems interested in interpreting it that way.
https://www.thompsoncoburn.com/insights/blogs/sweepstakes-law/post/2014-02-04/can-a-grab-bag-be-a-sweepstakes-
With all due respect, I am not wrong.
We are all calling this a lottery, but technically, it isn't. These guys are selling mystery boxes with a "random" assortment of fully disclosed coins inside. It is not a "lottery" as defined by your links.
It is sold in all 50 states, as hobby boxes have been forever, with no interference from any state attorney general. It is not under the radar. Topps has been a public company on and off over the years. You can rest assured that if VB and products similar to it were deemed to be non-state sponsored lotteries, they would have been shut down many years ago.
The lack of prosecution is not due to prosecutorial discretion, all over the country, for decades, by every law enforcement officer in every jurisdiction where they are sold. It is because it it legal, specifically because the boxes contain actual products with some value. If it was a scratch off with pictures of modern bullion, with winners eligible to be cashed in for thousands of dollars, that would be a different matter.
The similarities to a lottery you are spotting, and the fact that it is unregulated by anyone (or unsupervised by a trusted third party), is one of the big reasons (besides price), why I am not interested. Believe me. I am one of the biggest critics here, and I am telling you, what they are doing is not illegal.
People do things that are technically illegal all the time, they balance the risks & rewards. A good attorney will discuss this with you. A bad one just answers the questions that are being asked. If you don't know enough to ask the right questions... oh well. If you ignore them, well, SBF.
Do you ever jaywalk? Depending on the jurisdiction, it's either an administrative violation or a misdemeanor.
VaultBox is an LLC - Limited Liability Company. There is no reason for them to hold assets beyond the current round of boxes. As soon as a series sells out, you balance the books and pay out the owners. There isn't much in the way of assets to go after on a consent decree / guilty verdict.
I don't know about NGC, nor do I know what the contractual relationship between them and Minshull is. There is nothing wrong with grading objects using their new grading scheme. There is nothing wrong with performing extra services for a fee like selecting which coins from each pile goes into a box. If they are smart (and nobody says NGC is not smart), they have no involvement with the distribution. NGC's hands are clean.
ANA 50 year/Life Member (now "Emeritus")
How's that quote go, in the movie Casablanca.....?
" I am shocked - shocked! to find out there is gambling going on in here! "
There is an argument to be made that they are illegal as are box breaks, hobby boxes etc.
Perhaps start a thread around that topic.
About half the states have some sort of gaming commission.
This type of thing could violate some standard but it would probably take a formal complaint to prompt enforcement.
I am not sure the total numbers would justify it, but its not the pertinent issue. Its overcharging.
For instance the American Bar Association discourages lawyers from overcharging, but it does not prohibit it. How does a retailer like a comparison with a blood-sucking attorney?
Define "overcharging".
How does an attorney like a comparison with a blood-sucking retailer?
😉
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
Not all attorneys are blood-sucking just as not all retailers are blood-sucking.
But the blood-sucking types of each would loudly applaud the overcharging.
In either case it's bad for the marketplaces and we know the reputation consequences.
No....please don't!🤣😂
Overcharging in the criminal sense or the retail sense?
The cost of the boxes in aggregate are not excessive. The issue, if it is one, is that the top prizes sucked value away from the lower value boxes. That's a distribution issue not a charging issue.
Aren't you an attorney working for a "retailer"?
... Said the guy who started three VB threads and counting. 🤣😂
Actually, no. At least my issue is that the guide values they are using as proxies for retail are utter BS, and that the cost of the boxes is, in fact, excessive in relation to the aggregate retail value of what is actually in the boxes.
Top prizes sucking away value might be your narrative, and theirs, but that was to be expected. That's not what people are complaining about. People are unhappy because what was supposed to be $400-500 worth of coins in the losing boxes is actually $250-350 worth.
Simple math. The lottery ticket that funded the red cores cost waaay more than the collective retail value of the red cores. The excess went directly into VB's pocket. Maybe on the theory that all cores would carry huge premiums, so the excess was earned.
I dunno. You certainly showed no willingness to pay one, although you have repeatedly pontificated that a vibrant secondary market can develop for an infinite number of flavors of slabs. If that's true, what do they need coins for, anyway? Just make the slabs and sell them as collectibles.
Limited editions. Different colors, holograms, etc. Why bother with coins that people can objectively value? Because people won't care about stupid slabs without coins? Maybe they also won't care about them even with the coins!
One example -- a $2,500 proof red core AGE has been sitting on eBay for $4,000 with no takers for over a month. Is its retail value $4K, as the seller hopes, or $2,500, as similar coins without a VB pedigree sell for in the market. If it's the latter, then all VBs, collectively, were vastly overpriced, even though a few lottery winners did well even at the inflated price.
Oh Hello,
We are VaultBox. We will sell you a set of coins for 2 times the price of their retail value. In rare cases, the set of coins you receive will have retail value that is more than what you pay. In extremely rare cases, like say, 3 in 800, we will sell you a set of coins for much much less than retail value. That is, if we don't give these to our influencers, or do a presale and show videos of what the presale had in it which are the high value coins, alas. In that case, these rarer coins with very large values won't make it our offering we are presenting to you. So you are going to get coins at 1/2 the price in retail value than the price we sell them to you probably and we think you will like that and come back for more. But wait, if you don't like that, we will buy these coins back from you once you see them. Of course, our offering will be wholesale, 30-40% less than retail, so that you end up paying 3 times the price of their worth for this set of coins. But that is okay, because you might have a chance at making out big on this, even if that chance is much less than our claim of shipping out boxes with random values (don't forget our influencers and presale). We can't possibly have enough influencers, and we saved a couple coins worth more than the price of our set we are selling to you, so that someone hopefully can report back a boondoggle of a score who is just a Joe on the street, not an infuencer! So you are going to love this right? And come back again and again for more!
Thank you dear customer,
Best, VB
Here is a link to daCoinGeek on Youtube. He took his 4 lowball boxes - see the table with VB instant offers and the values, and sold them on ebay and only ended up losing about $350 on 4 boxes totaling $2380. Hmm...........
Bottom line is that VB better give better value if they truly want folks to buy in for the long run......... This is very different than trading card wax packs, which don't cost $595 per.......................................
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Very well said.
Trading card mystery boxes go up to $10,000. Even card breaks are several thousand. Please research first.
Or keep buying U.S. Mint products and continue to rack up those sweet, sweet profits with your aftermarket sales.
That's an "investment"
Nice try. Most buyers will be in a loss position, End of story.
Buyer funds costs, again most buyers will be in a loss position by normal retail pricing, maybe times two. if the retailer wants to justify high price because of distribution then he can separate the distribution costs in the pricing, which he did not because nobody would tolerate that. The closer you look, the less attractive the offering, why would the retailer want scrutiny of costs?
"nice try"? I think you meant to say "excellent point"
You are misunderstanding the "distribution" point. Your apology is accepted in advance.
When you have $40,000 in prize coins spread over $800 boxes, those coins alone draw $50 from each of the other boxes. When you throw in the 2nd tier gold coins, you end up with a lower value for the boxes that don't have winners. No one would call that over-charging. Over-charging is when the company ends up with excess profits not when your missing value went to the lottery winner next door.
We had the spreadsheet worked out in the other closed thread. The average value per box was around $500 against a sticker price of $595. That is hardly excessive pricing. The DISTRIBUTION OF VALUE is uneven because of the prize coins. That is a very different situation than "over-charging".
Perhaps you're addressing Garrison Keillor fans, where the value of all boxes are expected to be above average?
Its not about averages, its about many buyers or even some buyers getting overcharged. The odds say you will be an extreme loser rather than "20% over sticker" which is still too high. They have too much invested to not overcharge.
Meh. That's a rather odd definition of overcharge. By your definition, a raffle that returns 100% of the money to the participants is overcharging the people that don't win.
That appears to be the case.
Even more oddly, almost all retail purchases are defined as overcharging because the items aren't worth 100% of the purchase price after the sale is made.
If you take part in a raffle, you do it for the fun of it, at least in part. You have to assign some value to the experience. You can't treat it like an investment, although even those have a chance of loss.
I don't expect everyone to want to play. My father never gambled in his entire life. I was at a NYE party with family in a night when there was a $500 million lottery jackpot. We decided to throw in a $1 and buy a bunch of tickets. Everyone played except my father. [We lost. He won. But not wanting to play yourself is rather different than arguing that no one should play and/or the entertainment provider should not be allowed to provide it.
I'm fine with 95% of everyone not liking mystery boxes, card breaks or the like. But they are YouTube channels dedicated to card breaks. Some people obviously enjoy them. There are YouTube channels dedicated to coin lotteries - see joeycoins threads. So let the people who enjoy them have their fun.
I'm not sure why people enjoy jumping on here and urinating on the fun... and even complain that the thread exists while they are ON IT!
No Meh, you're subsidizing the winners.
I dont want to go to a car dealer and find out I'm paying $10K more because they gave away 10 cars.
Understood, but that's not typically what one would call "overcharging". Overcharging usually refers to gross profit.
Yes we did.
And then people started opening their boxes.
There turned out to be nowhere near in $450 in actual, retail value in the boxes, which would be your very reasonable $500 minus the $50 lottery ticket. It turns out the lottery ticket funding the $40,000 worth of prizes actually collectively cost the buyers something around $100-200 each, or $80,000-160,000 in total.
And that's on top of the $95 on $595 that we are allowing as "normal" profit. That's the where the accusations of overcharging and excess profits are coming from.
I think you might actually be starting to understand. No, each box is not expected to be above average. But all boxes, combined, are very much expected to be average or above.
When I buy a 1/800 share of a $480,000 pool of anything for $600, I expect $480,000 worth of whatever to be in that pool. Not $300,000, or less. The fact that I have a 1/800 chance to walk away with $23,000 in return for my $600 does not alter that expectation.
I am willing to allow the seller to make a normal, reasonable retail markup. If, over time, the product turns out to have intrinsic value of its own, it's not crazy to allow the seller to share in that as well.
But, to place something like $300,000 in retail value, not wholesale, but retail, and not using BS Guide values, or HSN values, but real world, current, retail selling price values, in 800 boxes that sell for $600 each is a rip-off. Having a few dozen people out of 800 get more than $600 in value does not change that one bit. Nor does the fact that it might cost the seller $200,000 to pack those boxes.
And that's before getting into the uneven distribution of winners and losers between regular folks and people with a connection to the sellers and their marketing partners.
People just making up numbers
Did you know that 78.9% of all statistics in online comments are made up?
Is it, though? The only people presently claiming the offering was priced fairly are those who priced it, and those who bought a single coin in the secondary market at a very, extremely, significant discount to the so-called fair price. Not made up. For real.
I'm sure the relatively few winners are also not too upset with how things went, or how the boxes were priced. But you never did reconcile how including $50 in the price of each of the 800 boxes sold to account for the $40,000 worth of Big Coins, brings the rest of the value of those boxes close to the $595 retail each sold for.
Real numbers. Yours, not mine.
Did not know that, and that is good to know! (edit: But how can I trust your 78.9%).
https://www.dacardworld.com/sports-cards/2020-21-upper-deck-the-cup-hockey-hobby-box-case-fresh
6 cards per pack for this price. Taking a gamble on the rookies actually making it. Maybe we should warn the card collectors!!
The imponderable about all of this is that some people seem to think that one can "win" an internet argument about things that don't matter even a little bit.
Carry on....
I can't believe we are still talking about this. Those who like it, like it. Those who don't, don't. There are no new points that need to be made. We all know what it is now... and an additional post is not going to "sway" anyone in either direction.
I say for you to spend your money however you like. If you love vault box and you love the "game", great! If you would rather keep your head down and collect coins in a "traditional" way, great!
I promise not to tell you how to spend your money if you promise not to tell me to spend mine. Deal?
I am a newer collector (started April 2020), and I primarily focus on U.S. Half Cents and Type Coins. Early copper is my favorite.
Very true.
I'm not trying to "win" anything, and don't for a second think I am going to change anyone's mind. In fact, I'm pretty sure most people already agree with me.
I'm just not leaving what I consider to be disingenuous, hypocritical posts supporting a numismatic product the poster does not support with his own hard earned dollars go without a response.
I'd actually be taking a very different approach if someone who actually participated came on here to explain how they received $300 worth of "fun" to go along with the $300 worth of bullion that was contained in their $600 VB, as some on here speculated is clearly the case.
Just haven't seen that. Apparently because the prospect of being criticized is just too much for some to take. OTOH, those who did not participate have absolutely no problem being criticized. Again and again and again and again.
They keep posting, I'll keep responding. Until someone gets tired or the thread runs its course. Which it has already done several times, but some choose not to leave it alone. So we carry on.