$2000 coin offered for 30K. Is this fraud?
MrEureka
Posts: 24,331 ✭✭✭✭✭
Hypothetically (:>
, let's say you're a knowledgable collector and you buy a nice original 1871 Seated Dollar at a small antique auction for $2000. It's a little too dark for most people, it has a light fingerprint in the left obverse field, and it has some recent abrasions on the knee from being mishandled by the auction staff. (Actually, let's say, hypothetically, that the coin got the abrasions from clinking around with some cheap circulated coins in a small cardboard box.) The abrasions are bad enough that the whiteness of the silver is shining through, making the problem that much more glaring to the eye.
You take the coin home. With a solvent, you remove a layer of dirt and lighten the fingerprint, but the coin is still "too dark" and the abrasions are still somewhat glaring.
You send the coin to PCGS and they grade it 63. You were hoping it would grade 64, so you crack it and send it to NGC. They also grade it 63. You shrug your shoulders, figure you have nothing to lose - the coin will always be a solid 63, whatever you do to it - and you dip it. It comes out better than you could possibly have imagined, with booming, fresh luster. The abrasions on the knee no longer seem that bad, since the entire coin is now snow white. You send the coin to PCGS and they grade it 65.
You offer the coin to a dealer for $18,000 and he buys it in a heartbeat without even countering.
One month later, you see the coin in his showcase. The coin looks exactly the same, but it's now in an NGC MS66 holder. A couple of weeks later, you hear through the grapevine that he sold the coin for 30K to a prominent retailer.
OK, got that? Now, tell me, who should we send to jail?
, let's say you're a knowledgable collector and you buy a nice original 1871 Seated Dollar at a small antique auction for $2000. It's a little too dark for most people, it has a light fingerprint in the left obverse field, and it has some recent abrasions on the knee from being mishandled by the auction staff. (Actually, let's say, hypothetically, that the coin got the abrasions from clinking around with some cheap circulated coins in a small cardboard box.) The abrasions are bad enough that the whiteness of the silver is shining through, making the problem that much more glaring to the eye. You take the coin home. With a solvent, you remove a layer of dirt and lighten the fingerprint, but the coin is still "too dark" and the abrasions are still somewhat glaring.
You send the coin to PCGS and they grade it 63. You were hoping it would grade 64, so you crack it and send it to NGC. They also grade it 63. You shrug your shoulders, figure you have nothing to lose - the coin will always be a solid 63, whatever you do to it - and you dip it. It comes out better than you could possibly have imagined, with booming, fresh luster. The abrasions on the knee no longer seem that bad, since the entire coin is now snow white. You send the coin to PCGS and they grade it 65.
You offer the coin to a dealer for $18,000 and he buys it in a heartbeat without even countering.
One month later, you see the coin in his showcase. The coin looks exactly the same, but it's now in an NGC MS66 holder. A couple of weeks later, you hear through the grapevine that he sold the coin for 30K to a prominent retailer.
OK, got that? Now, tell me, who should we send to jail?
Andy Lustig
Doggedly collecting coins of the Central American Republic.
Visit the Society of US Pattern Collectors at USPatterns.com.
Doggedly collecting coins of the Central American Republic.
Visit the Society of US Pattern Collectors at USPatterns.com.
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Comments
<< <i>I say we hang the scumbag coin doctoring collector for having the nerve to disagree with the coin gods at PCGS. >>
Russ, NCNE
And, when the "new service" won't sticker the MS66, because they conclude the coin was "dotored", the end user buyer (who just paid $40,000) will be "screaming bloody murder" and demanding the dealer who sold him the coin hang on the nearest tree
Andy, your hypothetical gives just one example of the difficulty such a service will encounter and the fact that "assigning blame" may, at times, be extremely problematic.
Wondercoin
I agree with the intent of the original poster here. Is the dealer to blame for this? Is the collector who actually altered the coin? By the time the service proclaims a problem with the coin, who can prove the entire chain of ownership on the coin?
While I want to make it clear that I don't like coin doctoring, I think it is imperative that people buy stuff that they can handle, meaning buying more expensive stuff only if they can afford a loss if it turns out bad, etc. Coins are kind of a "Everyone for himself" deal where you can't expect a lot of safeguards - certainly not from the goverment, not from other parties such as the A.N.A, and you have to trust your own judgement, and if that is too much, don't make the purchase.
JJacks
Now I want YOUR opinion. Of course your question was not a rhetorical question so now it is your turn to tell us like it is.
If it wasn't done right , it'll look like crap in a couple years.
There's "CLEANING", and there's 'cleaning'. If the cleaning was done right, and the coin actually maintains the luster, doesn't spot , film or look like a seagull hit from above, O.K.
I've seen many posts about the pro's and con's. .. Where the blame belongs when fingerprints appear...
PM to follow.
BOSTON BOB
I would say no fraud unless the coin is mis-represented as something it isn't. Now, some might say that cleaning up the coin to reveal what is already there is mis-representing the coin. Some might say that the coin's condition in the box it was originally found is a mis-representation of a beautiful coin waiting to be found. A vicious circle that has been endlessly debated here. This doesn't seem to be a case of fraud to me because either way, the coin isn't being represented as something that it isn't. IMO.
I do understand you point very clearly. As usual, the debate still revolves around what is acceptable to the numismatic community, and what is not.
Andy
First POTD 9/19/05!!
Lincoln Wheats (1909 - 1958) Basic Set - Always Interested in Upgrading!
I agree with whoever said this stuff happens all the time. I do believe that this kind of thing, to varying degress, happens more often than it doesn't happen.
I do a lot of research, and I can assure you that the number of coins that migrate up the numeric scale from 63 to 66 or 67 having been 'enhanced' along the way would absolutely amaze you.
So who do you blame, if anyone? Much as I detest that coin doctors out there, I blame the guy who buys something for big money without doing his homework.
I don't buy any coin until I satisfy myself that it is what its supposed to be. If its a fantastic brilliant gem then it should have been a fantastic brilliant gem last time it was sold.
My personal approach is that if I can't trace a coin back to where it came from, I don't buy it.
You have just described the MS coin market succintly and accurately.
Joe. (I don't do MS)
My personal opinion on all of this is "buy the coin if it is what you think you want". BUYER BEWARE!!!
As for the coin services, I think that they are all over-rated. Send your money and we shall take it. They may be OK for authenication, but that is about it in my book. Just my opinion!
<< <i>who should we send to jail? >>
In other words, who committed criminal fraud?
I'm much too new at serious collecting to get into the question of how ethical the conduct described may have been. It's been well covered.
After 40 years of practicing law, I think I'm qualified to answer the fundamental question, and the implied question of civil fraud. The answer is a resounding No One!
Ethics is the study of what one should do, law is the study of what one must do.
In law, fraud requires "fraudulent intent", which I used to explain to my students in first year contracts means an intentional attempt to gain something of value by misrepresenting material facts. Opinions (like "This is an MS66 grade coin") are not usually facts. Giving that opinion, expecting someone else to rely on it, without in fact believing it, would be fraud. Nothing in the hypothectical described indicates any fraudulent intent.
<< <i>It is to bad that dippng can result in enhancing some coins if done well >>
Dipping does not "enhance" a coin. It restores a coin. "Enhancing" means to add something to the coin. To use the example offered by the author of this thread, the dipping did not create the "booming, fresh luster". It can't. That luster already existed on the coin.
A correctly done dip only removes contaminants, it does not add anything. Aside from the semantics of "cleaning", which can be argued until the cows come home, it is incorrect to call it enhancing.
Russ, NCNE