Is it time for a no haggling policy? Would you buy more coins if prices were fixed?

ohbaby

As many car dealers now have a fixed no haggle pricing is it time for coins as well?

Would you spend more if you knew exactly the price?

Why is there haggling in coins anyway?

Russ

That would be boring. Haggling is one of the great pleasures in life. I've never bought a car from one of those dealers, and never will.

Russ, NCNE

ER

If coin prices were fixed, there would be no more auctions.

foodude

The haggling is part of the fun! Of course I like to buy cars from sales people to (and I collect Franklins so what do I know) (and oh, by the way, I have professional training in negotiating, that's why it is so much fun to deal with car sales people, they are not use to a more even playing field).

fishcooker

Yes. I see a high price, and I just plain leave. I don't have extra time to spend trying to figure out whether or not someone is serious about selling or not, am I a good customer or not, blah blah blah......I've got other things to do

ARCO

I guess dealers can sell their coins any way they wish. Coins are not like cars, appliances or other objects with utility. Those objects have known fixed production costs that must be recouped.

Grading is subjective. Originality is subjective, and coins have no intrinsic value minus the few dollars of silver of gold. Dealers I know move a little, but are pretty fixed on pricing their coins at some point at wholesale bid or ask or some multiple of that. I just don't buy their cleaned coins, whether the prices were fixed or with some wiggle room.

I saw a dealer had an AU 1907-S Barber Half. We was asking $550.00 FIRM! This is a very scarce date in XF and higher. Coin was nearly polished clean, barely AU if not XF and had nicks and ticks all over it...Oh and it was raw! It will be in his case for many years to come at those prices.

Tyler

Barry

Never work. Violates human nature. Remember when Sears tried "always aboslute low pricing" a few years ago? It was a failure and they went back to the old system of periodic sales.

BigD5

To each their own as far as their style of selling, but I have found more and more dealers putting "net" prices on their slabs, at shows, just to keep things simple. A lot would depend on the variety of items listed. Everyone always seems to do a bit of haggling with gold.
I will say that if I'm running around a show and don't have much time, I avoid certain dealers that HAVE to haggle with everything they sell. Sometimes it gets to a point where the aggravation level (maybe the wrong term) and the time required to sift through everything don't jive.

Steve27

It's time for a no haggling policy for grading, too bad no one knows how to implement it.

dorkkarl

you can in fact haggle w/ "no-haggle" car dealerships

K S

RYK

I never for haggle for coins. I ask for the price (if it is not indicated), and if I do not like it, I walk away.

nwcs

I'd love a no haggle policy.

UncleJoe

First I think you have to separate your lower price from your higher price coins.

Since I purchase many more lower priced coins ($50. or less) I have found very few times where I would haggle.

Most of the time the dealer would discount the price on the 2x2 without my asking.

The key for me is that there is actually a price on the 2x2. No price, no sale. I do not even look.

I guarantee that I would buy more coins if some dealers would put prices on them. (Just my own, and probably others?, idiosyncrasy)

Joe.

MacCoin

isn't haggling a part of collecting?

nwcs

>isn't haggling a part of collecting?

Nope, it's part of people who collect.

BillJones

Haggling is OK, but when you make your counter offers you need to keep some things in mind.

Last week a member of this forum asked about a token. I priced it to him with an extra amount for postage. He comes back with a counter offer that was more than 10% less than my original price PLUS he wanted me to pay the postage and take a credit card or Pay Pal. That was a triple whammy and needless to say there was no deal.

When dealers make counteroffers, they are made in cold hard cash, not credit cards. Using credit cards costs money, and when you are working on 10% gross margins, you can’t afford to give away 2 or 3 percent to the credit card company. You also need to recognize that the mark-up on coins is many times a lot lower than it is for other things. Haggle if you want, but you should have an good idea what the item is worth before you start, and you also need to realize that the dealer needs to earn a living to stay in business.

jadecoin

Haggling is a great part of the business! Coin Dealers haggle with customers in trying to buy their coins, so it's only right that customers be able to haggle with the dealer as well to get their best deal. We almost never sell a coin at our full asking price (unless it is an under $20 kind of coin). Especially if a customer is going to buy multiple coins, a fair amount of haggling is expected.

BillJones

Yes, I agree Jade. I learned early on when I got into the business that you had to "pad" your asking prices for the haggling. The trouble is because of sales tax trouble, the haggle room is different in every state.

I give my best customers my best best price from the beginning. One of them started haggling all time, even when I was selling him coins below bid (on a couple of occasions even Blue Sheet bid). After a time I ended up putting him on the Sh-- List. He gored the goose that was laying the golden eggs for him. Today he could make a pretty penny from the coins I sold to him, but he would not take the time to get to know the value of what he was buying, and it cost him.

RYK

So jadecoin (or any other dealer that expects to haggle), hypothetically, if I approach your table at a show, and coin "X" is marked $1000, should I asked you how much coin "X" will cost me, or should I offer you $800 for coin "X"? Or should I plop down a check for $950? Or should I count out nine one hundred dollar bills and lay them on the table? What is the best strategy?

In the haggle world, every purchase must be gamed, you never know if you got the best price on the purchase, and once you leave the table with the coin, you do not know how much money you left on the table.

If I want games, I will pull out a deck of cards.

Perhaps this point brings us back to the topic of developing a relationship with one or two trusted dealers. I think this improves the likelihood of getting a good price on your purchases and eliminates this other nonsense.

Edited to say that Bill Jones just made this point for me. Thanks!

BillJones

Believe me I'd love to play without the games, but the situation at show will not let me do it.

I could offer an Ike dollar to some people for 99 cents, and the next words out of their mouth would be, "Can you do any better?"

RYK

Bill,

When I come to you to buy a coin, I will pay whatever you tell me is the price

vam44

I prefer to cut the BS and be straight-forward when buying or selling.

Unfortunatly,I`m in the minority in the coin biz as almost all whom I buy from give me a lower price than markedand almost all I sell to ask for my "best price"

You have to mark stuff higher than you really want because almost everyone wants to haggle.

What gets me are those that are offered a $500 coin for $250 and insist on haggling!I always pay whats asked when looking a gift horse in the mouth!

kranky

A dealer told me last weekend he went to another dealer's table and asked how much for a certain coin. The seller named a price, the dealer said OK, and then the seller wouldn't sell it - he decided he wanted another $1000! I guess that's "reverse haggling".

jadecoin

Quick story. When the sacagaweas first came out, we were appalled at dealers hawking the coins at three, four, sometimes five dollars or more - for coins that you could go down and buy at the bank. To make a point, Dennis and I bought twenty rolls of the coins, piled them up on our table, and marked them at ninety-nine cents apiece (limit 2).

Would you believe a few people seriously had the nerve to ask for a BETTER price?

(Needless to say, our $.99 dollars were our fastest sellers ever - and pissed off a lot of dealers!)

James

BillJones

What were even more appalling were the dealers who sent normal Sacagawea dollars by the roll to NGC, had them slabbed and then tried to sell them for $20 to $30 a piece. We are not talking about registry quality stuff here. We are talking about coins with obvious marks on them that made them only good for spending.

To make matters worse NGC graded them by the random number method. By that I mean that the grades 65, 66 and 67 were randomly placed on the slabs. It was obvious that they did not spend much time critiquing these coins! It was just a “slab ‘em ‘n ship ‘em” operation. This was one of the factors that ruined NGC in the high grade modern coin market.

Conder101

I hate haggling. I ask what the dealer needs and if I like the price I pay it, if not I pass. No counteroffers no trying to beat them down.

We have the same problem sometimes in the carpet shop. We don't have a high mark up and we get a few customers who constantly try to get us to lower our prices even more. We had one in particular, no matter how good a deal we gave him it was always "You do better, you do better!". One day when he came in and started doing it again we raised our bid and told him "Ok, we've decided to do better, you'll do worse." Now when he comes in we give him our best deal and he either accepts or passes because he knows we won't haggle.

dorkkarl

haggling is about the only way you can make smack these days. there's not much left to cherry-pick!

K S