Just back from N.O. - went to Cohen's shop....
my3cents
Posts: 1,411
Took a quick trip to New Orleans for the Vikings/Saints game and had a chance to go in Cohen's shop on Royal in the French Quarter. There was quite a large selection of graded and ungraded stuff but I thought it was all a little over-priced. BUT - I really didn't make any offers on anything - just thought the items were at the high end of the scale.
One thing that did take place - I was looking at some trade dollars and asked the lady if they had found any counterfiets or if any of these were counterfiets...
The lady acted offended and mad at me and started reciting a litany of how Mr.Cohen had been in the ANA, etc. for over 40 years and if they had a coin here, it sure as He11 wouldn't be counterfiet, and blah, blah,blah...
All I could think was that if these people knew anything about coins....wouldn't they know about all of the counterfiet Trade Dollars that showed up at the Hong Kong show and have been surfacing everywhere?
I left after that...
In your opinion, if someone is in the business and is selling and dealing in rare coins in a big way - wouldn't they be aware of something like the trade dollar counterfiets and what a big problem it was?
One thing that did take place - I was looking at some trade dollars and asked the lady if they had found any counterfiets or if any of these were counterfiets...
The lady acted offended and mad at me and started reciting a litany of how Mr.Cohen had been in the ANA, etc. for over 40 years and if they had a coin here, it sure as He11 wouldn't be counterfiet, and blah, blah,blah...
All I could think was that if these people knew anything about coins....wouldn't they know about all of the counterfiet Trade Dollars that showed up at the Hong Kong show and have been surfacing everywhere?
I left after that...
In your opinion, if someone is in the business and is selling and dealing in rare coins in a big way - wouldn't they be aware of something like the trade dollar counterfiets and what a big problem it was?
0
Comments
....... bob**rgte**
Imagine if you went to a used car dealer and asked "Have any of these had the odometer rolled back?" Even if you had just read a Time cover story about how widespread that problem was, it's not going to sound like that was your reason for asking.
I know you asked the question in light of the recent stories about the counterfeit trade dollars. If you had prefaced your question with a comment about those stories it might not have sounded the way it did.
New collectors, please educate yourself before spending money on coins; there are people who believe that using numismatic knowledge to rip the naïve is what this hobby is all about.