Auction House Damages Lot in Shipping. AGAIN!
harasha
Posts: 3,096 ✭✭✭✭✭
A certain auction firm had once sent me a multiple coin lot, shoving two coins together into a single flip pocket. The items clearly were damaged, but the firm made some sort of restitution. Not happy, but shipping and insurance would not have been worth it.
Well, these same people just sent me an 18 item lot. 16 of the items were banging loose within the package. The paper flips were crushed together. A small lead token, the rarest of the lot, was folded into the flip.
Items were described as attributed in detail. Made things kind of difficult when the items are loose outside of their respective flips. Fortunately, the attributions were very detailed and after about a half hour, I was able to match the token to the flip. Of course, there may have been some additional "wear" due to the so-called packing.
DPOTD
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I’ve had similar problems with a small French numismatic company, a large German company, and a large Swiss company. Not sure why these folks can’t figure out how to package coins for safe shipment.
Just send them photos and ask for a refund. Not much else you can do.
BTW, we should probably out the firms involved so as to let others be aware.
BTW, we should probably out the firms involved so as to let others be aware..
Speaking as someone who deals with legal issues on a regular basis; not a good idea to do so publicly. Could expose oneself to defamation litigation. Word of mouth, between individuals, is the better way to go.
DPOTD
Considering all the firms are non-domestic, I think it would be pretty hard to do. And harder still to collect any damages.
Here was my latest mishap.
Bid on and won two lots at Feydeau Bourse Numismatique in Paris. (During the pandemic, it seems every small shop on la Rue Vivienne decided to do auctions!)
Here is what I received. Note the large item is a cliche, meaning its pretty thin and subject to being bent if improperly handled. Clearly I lucked out. And the other item was just loose in the cardboard mailer thing. No flip, envelope, cellophane, etc.
Though, it cost them EUR55 to ship that envelope and they only charged me EUR24.49, so maybe saving the cost of a flip helped them justify it.
And a certain domestic "professional" numismatic bookseller has sent me packages that are fully worthy of an eBay seller--reused boxes (pre-weakened from prior shipping) held together with a massive quantity of plastic tape, miscellaneous garbage packing material (hodgepodge of reused bubble wraps and crumped paper), and even included a free dead cockroach! Said professional had the nerve to charge not only a shipping fee, but a packing fee as well.
I'll spare you the cringe-worthy photos.
I don’t understand why packaging coins should be a problem. In the early to mid 90s I was buying stamps from Argentina, and every thing came through fine.