Coin Show Madness!?

Android

Has anyone ever gone to a coin show, made a few purchases, gone home, looked at the coins you bought again and wonder what the he!! you were thinking? In the privacy of your home the coin NOW looks different? More bag marks? Diminished lustre? Hairlines you didn't see? Maybe not even the grade you thought it was when you bought it?

This "coin show madness" seems to happen to me more often than I'd like to admit - with both raw AND slabbed coins. I take different lighting and other conditions into account, but this phenomenon still seems to happen.

Andy

LanLord

Yeah, I was at a coin show in Santa Clara a couple years ago and I had a couple dollars left. I had picked up a 1896s and 1913s barber quarter, a 1895 and 1895o barber dime and still had about 30 bucks that needed emancipation. I walked over to a guy that had a bunch of raw SBAs and started buying a bunch of stuff. I go home and noticed that the 1981s unc I bought had most of the stars missing on one side (grease filled die I assume). I don't know for the life of me what I was looking at but it sure wasn't the SBA. I could have kicked myself for that. I guess it was a buying hangover or something.

cladking

It is very difficult to adjust for florescent lighting and it will seem to affect
coins differently. I also make a lot of snap judgments when looking at lots
of items, and do a lot of scanning instead of looking. Yes, I end up with some
junk I wouldn't ordinarily buy and sometimes something different than what
I thought I had bought.

RLinn

I think any honest coin buyer would have to admit that they have experienced buyer's remorse over at least one purchase. That is why return policies live and breathe. For me, different venues lead to different temptations and regrets. Auctions can induce bidding fever. I have bought some junk (or sold something at a loss) at coin shows simply to help the club or a particular collector.

The lighting at shows is not always great so I take a couple of examples from my collection that I know I like just to have a reference point when viewing potential purchases. I don't like to take all of the trouble of going to a show and then come home empty handed, although the older I get the more content I am to buy nothing.

baccaruda

i gaurantee thought went into exactly what you're talking about. when my girlfriend and i were looking at diamonds in the jewelry shop even i was impressed. i had to make sure that she understood that there was about 400,000 watts of flourescent light beaming at that rock from all directions and once we got that expensive thing home it would look more like a shard of broken glass than the Hope diamond that it appeared to be in the store.

i then tried to convince her how foolish it is to find value in shiny rocks. shiny metal, now that's a different matter entirely.......

nucklehead

In all my years of coin shows, coin shops, club meetings I can say yes I've bought many a coin on impulse.

ARCO

Definitely. I collect circulated coins and have been very picky in acquiring them. After a few hours at a coin show looking at thousands of cleaned and problematic coins somehow the marginal or just Ok coins seem downright stunning!

You buy the coin thinking it was the nicest one you saw at the show, take it home and compare it to your real beautifies and wonder how the hell you ever thought it was that nice.

Probably like Hugh Hefner cruising a seedy bar looking for a new love interest, when right under his nose at home are a hundred perfect tens waiting for some attention!

g097103

I usually get home to discover that my record keeping was faulty and I now have a duplicate. If I'm really lucky it is an upgrade.

Scott M

agentjim007

Some shows have what I call "fake out lighting". Makes all coin look better. Those would be the house lights. Hold coin under table lamp to compare. BEWARE OF FAKE OUT LIGHTING.

berylcoin

I give you exhibit A: obverse, reverse. Not a bad coin, for me anyway, but I cannot for the life of me figure out how I didn't see the large srcatches on the obverse until I got home.

My theory has always been that "coinshow madness" results from a combination of bad lighting, and airborn psychotropics piped in through the ventilation system. They're addictive; that's why we keep going to shows even though we come back with dogs we mistook for gems.

BC

goose3

Beryl
that is pretty bad!! had me laughing pretty hard here.


I've had the opposite happen. I usually don't buy anything then kick myself in the arse for stuff I should have bought

bigtonydallas

Or maybe the dealers are magicians. They used slight of hand to change your coin for one with scratches!!! lol

steventheyn

I once bought a 1954-D Franklin ANACS MS65 FBL's. I thought is was a bright white coin but when I took it home and gave it a look it had some ugly brown toning on the reverse. Anyway it now stands out in my brilliant FBL collection.

CalGold

It must effect dealers too. In Scott Traver's Coin Collectors Survival Guide he pictures an MS lincoln with tiny spots in the field and comments that it is the kind of coin that a dealer buys at a show thinking its MS65 and then gets home and sees all of the spots and realizes that he paid too much. Sounds a bit like Mr. Tavers was talking from experience.

Android

<< <i>My theory has always been that "coinshow madness" results from a combination of bad lighting, and airborn psychotropics piped in through the ventilation system. They're addictive; that's why we keep going to shows even though we come back with dogs we mistook for gems. >>



Yes, I agree completely! Have you ever noticed there are no clocks at coin shows? Just like casinos! Also, casinos pump extra oxygen in the ventilation system for, perhaps, an induced state of perception where everything is "all good"? I'll be looking for the oxygen tanks hanging out behind the PCGS and NGC booths next time I go to a coin show!

Andy

berylcoin

Big Tony, don't think I didn't consider that possibility, but I just dont think I can give dealers that much credit.

BC

roadrunner

I learned the "lighting" lesson at the '88 ANA when viewing Heritage lots in a large hall with a huge ceiling. You could tell the coins looked wrong, actually sort of fuzzy looking. After requesting that they
turn down the intensity I thought all was well. During the auction I was "amazed" at how cheaply some of the lots were selling for. Once I got back to my hotel room (no interfering lights), I realized I was off a grade on many of the lots. It was a rather expensive lesson. The same problems exists at most big coin conventions. You have to look at the coin at many different angles and intensity to see everything. Too bad someone doesn't rent a darkroom in the middle of the show to properly view coins.

I cannot ever recall buying a coin at a show that I didn't find more marks or hairlines once I brought it home. The more you look, the more you find. One of the pitfalls of buying at a show rather than getting coins via the mail to slowly examine at home.

roadrunner

truthteller

It has been known for years, that the coin show promotors fill the coin convention hall with "buy it" gas, oderless and colorless. A chemical gas that mixes with human perspiration and promotes the instict to buy a coin under any circumstance, in good light or bad. The effect lasts for 5 hours, just enough time for most of the major coin purchases. Once you go out into the fresh air, the gas mixes with the environment and it's effects are neutralized within 1 hour. Just enough time to get home and view your new 'purchases'. Dealers counteract the effect at their tables by acting obnoxious, a clear sign to the newbie that "buy it" gas is in the convention hall. BEWARE! It's effects over the long term have been know to kill brain cells, especially the nerve endings which connect the brain with the impulse buying membranes. Once those nerve endings are eliminated, a happy glow emanates from the face, a tell tale sign to the coin dealer that the "buy it" gas has left its mark.

TRUTH

braddick

The antidote is continuous eating of sloppy sandwiches. That is how the guys at the ACG table get away from it.

IrishMike

There isn't a dealer at the show I go to once a month that doesn't have one or two lamps, I'm with goose I usually have remorse for the ones I passed up. The guys there know me, they let me scrounge through every coin they have. I might have 10 or 12 sitting there on the case, looking and relooking at them with my 5X. We chat up a storm all the while.