Coins for sale on Home Shopping Network???
MrDan
Posts: 214
I was watching the coins for sale on HSN the other day, and I can't help but wonder if they WAY over price their coins. Has anyone else noticed this, and what are your thouhts? Is it ripping people off, or is it simply business?
Here is one example....I looked this up in the Red Book and even if it were MS60, it would only be worth $12. This is just Exhibit A
Here is one example....I looked this up in the Red Book and even if it were MS60, it would only be worth $12. This is just Exhibit A
There are 10 types of people in this world. Those who know binary and those who don't.
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Either way, any markup, even if 10,000,000,000%, is legitimate. While I know most here wil disagree with me, if a customer is willing to pay $x for a product, they have paid $x for a product. It doesn't matter if they can go to a local coin shop and buy it for 1/2 the price. This is a legitimate markup.
However -- If the HSN misrepresents, or states facts that are untrue, then it is a ripoff, as the same would be for anyone else including coin dealers and eBay.
Coins are worth what someone will pay you for them. No more, no less. If HSN gets them to pay more for it, that's all legitimate bizzzness.
That's my $0.02.
-Ben
<< <i>I was watching the coins for sale on HSN the other day, and I can't help but wonder if they WAY over price their coins. Has anyone else noticed this, and what are your thouhts? Is it ripping people off, or is it simply business?
Here is one example....I looked this up in the Red Book and even if it were MS60, it would only be worth $12. This is just Exhibit A >>
It's a total rip off. They're fasely advertising it. It is not an error coin. Total BS. When the mint first released those nickels, they did not put the word "cents" on them. Con artists immediately began to gold plate them and sell them as $5 gold pieces. It is not a mint error, after they realized people did this, they put in the cents on the coin.
A mint error coin would be something like a die clash, wrong plancet strike, die break, etc.
W.C. Fields
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.
Can't you just hear the people saying to themselves "Wow, that coin is over 100 years old!!"? That's who they are selling to. Oh, those people and the people who have no idea about bullion coins and how they are priced.
I watch it for the laughs and the occassional bout of angst...
Chicolini: Mint? No, no, I no like a mint. Uh - what other flavor you got?
<< <i>Well, both really. "Rip off" implies that they're doing something illegal -- which clearly they are not. As bentasm1 said, a business is free to charge whatever price it wants to for its goods and services -- and I as a consumer am free to walk away when the price is too high. >>
I agree that business are free to charge whatever price people are willing to pay, but doesn't it seem like they are taking advantage of the naive? Besides, I've heard them make outlandish claims about the value of coins to make it sound like people are getting a great value for their money. If someone buys a coin because they are told it is worth (this is just a hypothetical example) $200 but "we have it on sale for the astronomical price of $150" , only to later find out the coin is really worth $6, is this not a rip off? Just my 2 cents.
I hate it when you see my post before I can edit the spelling.
Always looking for nice type coins
my local dealer
<< <i>I agree that business are free to charge whatever price people are willing to pay, but doesn't it seem like they are taking advantage of the naive? >>
-A business can charge what they want
-Ignorance is bliss
HOWEVER,
I have watched the programs many times, and items are misrepresented, bogus comparisons that hold NOTHING to anyone who knows the slightest bit about coins are made, and gross misrepresentations of value are made. That said, it is not a fair argument to say that ignorance is bliss, as people are being fed lies. With that in mind, I think HSN is not just ripping people off, but doing so fraudluently. Honestly, if I had a ton of money right now, I'd love nothing more than to head a class-action suit against them.
Jeremy
<< <i>Here is my take:
<< <i>With that in mind, I think HSN is not just ripping people off, but doing so fraudluently. Honestly, if I had a ton of money right now, I'd love nothing more than to head a class-action suit against them.
Jeremy >>
Wow, your opinion of them is even stronger than mine!
independent verification of this and have seen some of the coins they ship. They
are not extremely picky when they buy but so far as I've seen do not overgrade
or misrepresent coins. What's left are the high prices mainly. These prices do get
pretty steep in most cases and informed collectors would not normally be willing to
pay them. But keep in mind they do have high overhead and provide the convenience
of bringing coins right into the living rooms of millions of people. Even informed collect-
ors might be willing to pay a 50% premium for something on rare occasion. While pre-
miums do average a little over 100% there is a wide range. Furniture and jewelry is
normally marked up quite a bit more than this yet people flock to the stores and then
pay more yet for delivery.
This leaves only the inaccuracies in their descriptions. All these shows seem to have
a knack for not making statements which are true and not misleading. One of their
competitors once made a string of statements which were entirely inaccurate which
lasted for several minutes as he repeated each several times. Many of these inacc-
uracies would seem to in no way encourage people to buy. They seem more to be
policy. Certainly these should not be allowed whether they are designed to sell more
product or not. Where are the regulators? Why do they do it?
Charles Fey built slot machines in SF in the early 1900's.
He also ran a string of them there,during the Quake of 1906 and the subsequent fires,most of the city burned as well as his factory.
The nickel and the 5 dollar gold were almost identical size wise.
The drunks confused the two very easily.
When the smoke cleared and he salvaged what he could,he had enough gold to rebuid his factory !
Proof
42/92
1. HSN (Home Shopping Network)
2. SAH (Shop at Home-The Coin Vault)
Steve
My Complete PROOF Lincoln Cent with Major Varieties(1909-2015)Set Registry
If some potato chip eating slob wants to buy a worn Liberty nickel for $80 at three in the morning...well, God bless him. There's worse things I can imagine, as long as they're not selling problem coins, or outright junk.
Having said that, I think that they're pretty cheesy, and I wouldn't buy from them, and if a friend asked my opinion, I would tell them to steer clear as well.
I wish there were a choice between rip-off and legit mark up.
Just be aware of what and who you are listening too....
Neither one of the poll questions are accurate.
They are not a rip off if you the consumer and they, the seller, are satisfied with the transaction.
I don't know what you would consider a 'legitimate mark up'. Some business can survive on less markup than other companies.
<< <i>They are not a rip off if you the consumer and they, the seller, are satisfied with the transaction. >>
Unless, of course, the buyer thinks the item they are getting is worth much more than it actually is. In that case, I'm sure the seller would be quite pleased but the buyer (if they ever find out) would be decidedly unpleased. Caveat emptor I guess.
What does make me consider them a ripoff is the abundance of Bravo-Sierra that they spew on that show. Their show has so many falsehoods in it, it is almost comical - except that some people are being taken by their BS.
When someone is telling lies to make a sale, that's where they cross the line from sales man/women to ripoff artists.
<< <i>Here is one example....I looked this up in the Red Book and even if it were MS60, it would only be worth $12. This is just Exhibit A >>
It's a total rip off. They're fasely advertising it. It is not an error coin. Total BS. When the mint first released those nickels, they did not put the word "cents" on them. Con artists immediately began to gold plate them and sell them as $5 gold pieces. It is not a mint error, after they realized people did this, they put in the cents on the coin. >>
Not a rip off and not falsely advertised. If the buyer is happy paying that, that's his problem. They have said it is Unc but not what level of Unc, but they haven't said that it is a good investment, or even that it can't be purchased for less elsewhere. And read the ad again, they DON'T even claim that it is a mint error. The design WAS fundamentally flawed. Approving such a design could definitely be considered to be an error. This nickel shows that error in judgement and therefor could be legitimitely called an error nickel, as a coin with cents could be called a corrected or "the non-error nickel". You have to be very careful reading or listening to their ads. They are deliberately written so that the customer will make inferences which are not actually said. (As in this case when they called it an error nickel, and people infer that to mean a mint error or defective coin.)