A QUESTION ABOUT BUYING BU COINS FROM COIN WORLD MAGAZINE

APA1709

As you all know, Coin World has many dealers offering all types of raw BU coins, Morgans, Peace Dollars, Merc dimes, etc. Is it right to think that although these people are largely reputable dealers and I'm sure the coins they offer are in fact BU, that they have been cherry picked and that one would not receive an MS-63 or above? I would expect that if submitted for grading, I'd be lucky to get an MS-62....would anyone offer comment please?

jbsteven

you are better off buying PCGS slabbed common dates of these coins for example buy some 79-81-s Morgans in PCGS ms63 for about $35-$40

Singapore

The reality is, unfortunately, that many of these coins are AU 'sliders' (doesn't that word just send chills up your numismatic spine?) that can be passed off as BU to the novice collector. I would guess you'd get them back from PCGS in body bags or in Au 55 or 58 holders. Maybe the odd 60 or 1. If they were better than that these dealers would be slabbing them themselves and selling them for more.

When considering buying from one of these 'raw sellers' ads, my advice, which you did not ask for, would be to put on some light weight athletic shoes and run as fast as possible in the other direction.

lordmarcovan

I agree. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

While you might get some nice coins, the majority of such "BU" pieces you'll get from those kind of dealers will be sliders. This is not a slam at all such dealers, but I do speak from experience. I switched to slabs years ago for this reason.

Dog97

Well they didn't just pop out of a hidden hoard yesterday. They have been passed from dealer to collector and resold back to dealers again so many times I'm surprised they would be MS rather than not worn down to AG from all the passing around.
True there is some dealers that will give you a fair deal but you will get so many problem coins that I don't recommend mail order dealers from the coin rags.

nucklehead

Paul Sims and Ken Pines from Coast to Coast are in my opinion the worst as I can speak from experience from both the dealers.You're much better off buying in person sight seen.

lordmarcovan

There was an outfit called Ramapo that used to advertise in CoinAge, offering "strictly graded" type coins- at awesome prices. Got a half dime from them once that was supposed to be AU, I think- it was VF with a big "X" scratched across the obverse! And the half cent that was supposed to be EF? It was... but it was bent and whizzed to a bright orange color...

BlueCole

i did get some nice silver rounds from C2C before. they were Xmas ornaments. Price was a little high, but they'll be in the family for 50 years.

B.

Woodwind

All the other replies sound like my experiences buying raw BU Morgan Dollars or any other "classic" series through an advertiser -- you would be lucky if they graded MS-62 by PCGS. I would only suggest buying this way have been collecting for a while, you know a very respected dealer and they have a reasonable return policy.

Lordmarcovan, I just forwarded a Ramapo "Very Choice BU" 1882-CC Morgan Dollar which I purchased 10 years ago to PCGS for grading. I'm thinking AU-58, or possibly MS-60. It's mostly for my personal coin education as I don't come across too many in those grades. We'll see what happens.

ARCO

Stay away...Far away!

Tyler

ursabear

What they said...
cleaned, sliders, not like the picture at all, etc.

michael

when you see coin world advertisers sell BU raw coins it means one thing only

BU Beat up in other words pass.......................

unless you can see them sight seen before you buy save yourself time and headache and money

pass

sincerely michael

darktone

About twenty years ago I bought $5 liberty's from almost every one of the advertisers in the coin newspapers that were advertised as BU, select BU, choice BU, gem BU and about every other description you can come up with that was used back then and not one coin was a problem free uncirculated and most were cleaned XF's. I thought if I tried them all and if I found one honest dealer in the bunch I would stick with that dealer- but I never found one from the newspapers. mike

Casabrown

Given all the problems shared by everyone on this post (and I have had personal experiences myself), what can we do to advise unsuspecting collectors. To know about these problems and do nothing seems almost as bad as the problems themselves. A relative newbie wants to know.

Casabrown

Monstavet

Buyer Beware...these people make their money off of people new to the hobby, or those who don't take the time to learn about the coins they collect. Most of us have learned quickly after buying a few coins from these dealers thtat their product isnot always as advertised. After you make a few mistakes, you learn better ways to improve your collection. You cannot protect everyone from everything all the time.

dorkkarl

completely disagree w/ all the negativity.

1st of all, BU meanS MS-60, not "ms-63, 64, 67, whatever. MS-60, so why would you be expecting a higher grade? 2dof all, some of the very best dealers advertise in c-w, all you need is a guaranteed return policy. again, as always, if you simply observe the most fundamental rule in numismatics, you will do fine:

do not buy coin sight-unseen

couple of simple examples:

dick osburn, exceptionally knoweledgeable about bust halves, seated halves, the guy knows his stuff, & he knows how to grade. frankly, i would trust his grading on "bu", ie ms-60, well over ANY plastic, any time.

jack beymer, once again, the man's integrity & grading standards trounces anything i see coming out of the plastic factories. you get what you pay for, & your gonna pay a bit extra to beymer, but if you care in the slightest about knowledge, experience, integrity, & honest grading, he's the man, wheter slabed or raw.

julian liedman, this guy's knowledge blows away that of just about anyone else on this forum, myself included. you want BU coins? brother you ain't seen nothing yet, check out this man's stuff. he doesn't sell "numbers", he sells coins

the paranoia about howy ever coin dealer seling raw coins in c-w is some sort of horrible, blood sucking newbie-raping vampire is just ludicrous, laughable & a great disservice to the many hard-working dealers out there.

READ the requirements that c-w has set out for their advertisers, LEARN what you can do to protect yourself. there are bad apples in every barrel - GET OVER IT.

give your business to those dealers who earn it, and ENJOY YOUR COINS

K S

paigowjohnny

Dorkkarl...you make a very valid point...it is buyer beware. Unfortunately, as someone in an earlier post pointed out...it's the inexperienced newbies who are getting hammered by trusting implicitly SOME of the major coin rag advertisers. I know, because I was one of them.

Yes to the following....
- it's ultimately the buyer's responsibility.
- Coin World and other rags have published advertising standards, and will address specific complaints about advertisers
- every mail order guy I dealt with quickly and professionally handled any return I submitted.

The problem is some of us who purchase didn't have the smarts to know when we should've sent something back. In some cases, it was an expensive lesson.

Yeah, yeah...I know...it sucks to be me. I just know the experience really soured me on collecting for a while.

If someone has a good eye...knows what they're doing...they can probably find good raw deals with any mail order advertiser and not get stuck with cleaned overpriced overgraded material.

dorkkarl

hey paigowjonny, good points, especially

<< <i>The problem is some of us who purchase didn't have the smarts to know when we should've sent something back >>

slabs are often touted as the solution to this problem. is it really? let's look at the issue.

you decide you like slq's. don't want 'em raw, 'cause you can't grade. ask the dealer for advice. he confirms that you always gotta buy slabs, because there are so many dealers selling overgraded raw coins. all those guys are just out to rip you off! here buy this ms-63 f-h 1917, it's solid for the grade, blah blah blah.

ok, did the newbie really get help here? what did mr. newbie LEARN in this scenario? to me, what he learned is: "you, as a newbie, are not smart enough to learn how to collect coins. you must learn to let slabing co's determine your opinions for you, & buy all your coins from slab-only dealers".

is this what we want?

there is no easy solution to the prob you bring up, but "buy slabs" is not the answer.

my answer is: educate yourself by associating w/ fellow collectors that you respect, getting to know who they deal with, & follow suit.

gotta run, wish i could flesh this out more, but you get the idea....

K S

Merc

I bought a nice PCGS graded MS65 PL Morgan from a person on ebay. When I had to pay, I found out the seller is a major advertiser in Coin World. I was surprised they offered a PCGS graded coin on ebay since they never offer any certified coins in their weekly advertisements. After I bought it, I was placed on their mailing list for a few months and I received color brochures of their coins. All were raw. Most were things like "choice gem BU" morgans. The pictures were very detailed though. Just from the picture of an example coin, I could see it was a dipped AU coin. You could really see the wear! I thought it was amazing they were selling the coins as BU and the picture clearly showed an AU coin!

Woodwind

I wanted to echo what Dorkkarl said about Jack Beymer. A little bit more money, but very good, quality coins. I've never purchased anything from him through the mail, though I've purchased some very nice type coins from him at the Long Beach Show. The best one was a 1902 AU 5c nickel that's starting to tone.

BAJJERFAN

You must be referring to Coast to Coast coins. I bought two eBay items from them. Paid for both with a CC on their 800 number. Both coins were 1893-s Morgans in slabs. I still get their pretty catalogs which go straight to the circular file. Any profit they made from me has long since been squandered sending me stuff fer the trashbag.

Merc

Yep Bajjerfan, you guess exactly who I was talking about. Are you also surprised they offered PCGS graded coins on ebay but not in their Coin World ads?

Barry

I bought a slabbed coin from Coast to Coast from Ebay. No problem with that transaction. After getting their catalog for about 6 months I emailed them and asked my name be removed from their mailing list. End of story and end of catalogs.

paigowjohnny

I figure they sell their slabbed stuff on ebay because they'll get more money for them. If they offered them in catalog/CW ad...they'd probably have to ask at least full retail and they wouldn't sell.

BAJJERFAN

I expect the reason that they don't list slabbed coins in those "purty" mailed out catalogs is that the time lag between catalog preparation and when the recipient gets it is long enough that the coins would be sold in the meantime. Then it is frustrating for both buyer and seller when an item isn't available. Also they would end up paying for hundreds of toll free calls just to say the item is no longer available.

rays

I would avoid these offers. Any coin show will have tons of mint state morgans in slabs; you can take your pick. Eben an MS65 is less than $100 now.

lordmarcovan

OK, on the flip side of the coin, I had a good transaction recently with Julian Leidman. My only business with Coast to Coast was positive and it got me a very nice 1917 Type MS63 FH Standing Lib. quarter, but it was ANACS slabbed and I'd bought it from them on eBay, where I could see a picture. Ramapo was mostly bad, but I can think of at least one occasion where I got an UNDERgraded coin from them. Paul Sims sent me some slider $10 Liberties that were nowhere near the grade claimed, but they were nice coins and roughly worth what I paid.

Most of the mailorder dealers that I sent returns to handled the returns smoothly. The one exception was Foothill coins, who used to advertise in the front of Coins and some of the other magazines. I bought a set of five semi-key Lincolns (1911-1915 "S" mints) from them. The toughest semi-key, the '11-S, when I got it, turned out to be a 1911-P. I can't remember if I sent all five coins back or just the 11-P Lincoln. It's difficult to prove that one received an 11-P instead of an 11-S. They didn't question that, but as I recall, the refund (or replacement, I forget which), took over a month.

sinin1

I bought a raw Isabella BU quarter on eBay from Coast to Coast - looked good to me.

When it came back from ANACS it was in an AU-58 holder - I like their color brochure, a good example of a direct mailing piece.

I doubt if I will ever buy from them again.

billiardmaster

Even though Mark Feld thinks me a basher, I'm going to tell you how it is. If the coins were worth grading, they would. Often the 63 in coin
world will not even be new. If it is, probably a crack out from a 61 or 62 holder. Great place to go if you want to buy from a shady dealer.
All you have to do is check w/s prices and if the coins are priced below what a dealer would pay, well nobody sells below wholesale. Nobody.
If for some reason you can't buy your coins in person, then find one good dealer and stick with them. There are some honest dealers in
Coin World. When you see dollars at $18, you should know that I get $20+ from dealers for my roll rejects. Expect sliders at best. Common
sense will point you in the right direction. If you can't find a dealer you can work with, send me a message and I will help you out.
Rusty