Your thoughts on dealer's and my behavior...
Coppernicus
Posts: 1,764 ✭
I asked a somewhat local dealer (I'd never been there before - pretty long drive) if he had any '76 proof sets - clad, not the silver set. He said he had lots of them and I asked if I could look through them (cherrypicking of course). He said no, so I said, "How about if I promise to buy at least ten sets from you if you let me inspect/pick them?" No dice!!
Edited to add: He seemed freindly enough until I made my request, i.e. he was OK until he maybe thought I was going to find something that he had overlooked?
I can see why he wouldn't let me just search them and, if I didn't find any nice ones, I might just walk away. But I promised to buy at least ten sets (at a pretty decent price to him, I might add)!! Also, I was the only one in the shop at the time - in fact, I was the only one there for the entire hour I spent there.
I thought I proposed a reasonable "counter offer" to him and he wasn't very customer freindly - to bad for him, he had some nice raw coins at decent prices.
How do you see this? Was I too pushy, he unreasonable, both?
Thanks for your thoughts!
Mike
Edited to add: He seemed freindly enough until I made my request, i.e. he was OK until he maybe thought I was going to find something that he had overlooked?
I can see why he wouldn't let me just search them and, if I didn't find any nice ones, I might just walk away. But I promised to buy at least ten sets (at a pretty decent price to him, I might add)!! Also, I was the only one in the shop at the time - in fact, I was the only one there for the entire hour I spent there.
I thought I proposed a reasonable "counter offer" to him and he wasn't very customer freindly - to bad for him, he had some nice raw coins at decent prices.
How do you see this? Was I too pushy, he unreasonable, both?
Thanks for your thoughts!
Mike
Coppernicus
Lincoln Wheats (1909 - 1958) Basic Set - Always Interested in Upgrading!
Lincoln Wheats (1909 - 1958) Basic Set - Always Interested in Upgrading!
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Comments
generalization here, i'm sure there's some of you out there that are nice and friendly to new faces.
Ditto
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catch them by surprise. Certainly it's easy to see why they'd be disinclined; if the sets have already been
choiced repeatedly then there'd be little to find and your having to buy some might sour you to the shop
and if they are original then he might fear that you walk out with some valuable coins or you'd leave him
with sets that are unsaleable. Unless he got rude (as sometimes happens) then it would seem that there
was no fault to assign.
Most dealers don't really have a good handle on what exactly cherrypickers are looking for so they can't do
it themselves. Proof and mint sets have never before amounted to very much of retail sales. In the past
the sets would just accumulate in the back room until there were enough to ship off to a wholesaler at bid.
Now days they still don't contribute much to sales but they don't accumulate as much any more. A dealer
looking at this from the "outside" has to be leery of letting someone come in and take all his best coins at
a price which he knows may or not be full market value.
I have mixed emotions about people going through my proof sets. On the one hand I certainly understand a collector wanting to buy a decent set so I don't mind if they want to go through 5 or 10 just to make sure the coins are nice. On the other hand I don't want someone cherry picking trying to buy something for nothing. If they pay extra to go through them then that's different but some guys want to spend all day looking and don't want to pay extra. I don't think that's fair to the dealer.
There is a dealer that doesn't search his sets that lets me go through them and we split the profits. Another guy charges me $5 extra for each set I take. If you make it beneficial for the dealer to let you look then everyone is happy.
My experience is most shops do not look through their sets. Most don't even realize this market exists. In general modern collectors do not buy their coins from shops or shows. They buy their coins mail order or on line so the average shop isn't exposed to the market. Also there are so many different ways to make money many do not have the time to look through their sets. In the Dallas/Ft. Worth area there are a lot more fresh mint set/proof set deals then I could ever look at.
If I were buying sets to re-sale, I would look thru them myself and cherry pick them first for any thing that I may see, however, thier are a lot of varities that I am not aware of, and if someone who is buying the ones I already looked at and then found something good, then more power too them and I would be happy for them. Chalk it down for a learning experience, and move on.
If it gets to a point where someone is hounding the dealer to pick over sets continually, but never buys anything, I could see where that would get annoying to the dealer.
An obviously poor business plan and a very poor businessman. Just because someone has a right to be a moron doesn't make their actions right.
Are you kidding me! He's a jerk AND an idiot. How can anyone advocate NOT letting the buyer look at the merchandise BEFORE buying. Are you advocating forcing someone to buy sight unseen even when the stuff is right in front of you? I gaurantee that dealer is one of the breed of miserable little small minded mean people that can't forgive themselves for never making anything of themselves in life (gee, I wonder why) and wanting to spread their misery to everyone they come into contact with. I know EXACTLY the kind of coin dealer you are talking about. You were perfectly in line asking to look before you bought and don't let anyone tell you different.
Sounds to me he just let your money walk out the door without any effort at all to relieve you of your money. His loss.
Ken
al h.
<< <i><STRONG>It's pretty obvious that he doesn't want cherrypickers as customers. This is a business decision on his part. He is not a jerk, just a businessman sticking to his business plan. Coin dealers are businessmen. Don't ever forget that fact.
</STRONG>An obviously poor business plan and a very poor businessman. Just because someone has a right to be a moron doesn't make their actions right.
Are you kidding me! He's a jerk AND an idiot. How can anyone advocate NOT letting the buyer look at the merchandise BEFORE buying. Are you advocating forcing someone to buy sight unseen even when the stuff is right in front of you? I gaurantee that dealer is one of the breed of miserable little small minded mean people that can't forgive themselves for never making anything of themselves in life (gee, I wonder why) and wanting to spread their misery to everyone they come into contact with. I know EXACTLY the kind of coin dealer you are talking about. You were perfectly in line asking to look before you bought and don't let anyone tell you different. >>
What makes you think he is a poor businessman. A businessman's goal is to make money. The coins are "product." Perhaps the business plan for his shop is to serve almost entirely as a buying point. Wait! The widow is coming in the door with her late husband's collection! Cha-chink!!!
BTW - you weren't unreasonable, and neither was the dealer. You just disagreed.
and it sets us apart from practitioners and consultants. Gregor
Why don't they, the dealers, just cherrypick them first for anything they think is valueable and then the sets will be free to be inspected by all who are interested? Who knows. Obviously this dealer must hate people coming in and looking through sets. I can't imagine why? Do they think that every proof or mint set is exactly the same? If not the same, who wouldn't want to find the nicest one to purchase?
Based on your description the dealer sounds like someone you can avoid patronizing today, tomorrow and going forward till the end of time. There are lots of proof sets and lots of other dealers.
Tyler
I say phooey on 'em. It's his right, of course, but it's also your right to patronize a different dealer.
Sometimes I suspect the sets are likely all spotted corroded crap and the dealer doesn't want you to find out about it.
I just move on, there are others who will let you look and are more reasonable about it all.
I have mixed emotions about people going through my proof sets. On the one hand I certainly understand a collector wanting to buy a decent set so I don't mind if they want to go through 5 or 10 just to make sure the coins are nice. On the other hand I don't want someone cherry picking trying to buy something for nothing. If they pay extra to go through them then that's different but some guys want to spend all day looking and don't want to pay extra. I don't think that's fair to the dealer
Why don't you spend the time to look thru all your coins to see if there is something more valuable. This sh_t pisses me off. If I came and sold you this same proof set and you saw that there was a more valuable variety I am 99.99999 % positive you would not offer me fair market value. You'd try to get it for nothing.
I agree you have the right to not let someone cherrypick your inventory. But I only go to dealers that don't mind me searching for varieties. I guess more dealers want to sell to collectors so they can spit out dates, grades and denominations which most dealers are knowledgable about. Most dealers don't want to think that they sold you a coin that was worth $200 for $10. Then why don't they invest in the time to research and be able to know what they have. I know of a few dealers have payed some cherrypickers to go thru their inventory because they were worried of giving away the bank!
<< <i><STRONG>It's pretty obvious that he doesn't want cherrypickers as customers. This is a business decision on his part. He is not a jerk, just a businessman sticking to his business plan. Coin dealers are businessmen. Don't ever forget that fact.
</STRONG>An obviously poor business plan and a very poor businessman. Just because someone has a right to be a moron doesn't make their actions right.
Are you kidding me! He's a jerk AND an idiot. How can anyone advocate NOT letting the buyer look at the merchandise BEFORE buying. Are you advocating forcing someone to buy sight unseen even when the stuff is right in front of you? I gaurantee that dealer is one of the breed of miserable little small minded mean people that can't forgive themselves for never making anything of themselves in life (gee, I wonder why) and wanting to spread their misery to everyone they come into contact with. I know EXACTLY the kind of coin dealer you are talking about. You were perfectly in line asking to look before you bought and don't let anyone tell you different. >>
If the dealer won't let you go thought everything HE has for sale then screw him and walk away. I think if enough of us do this maybe they will change there ways!
What would be the difference if a dealer had 10 or 20 coins of the same date in there show case, would he let you only look at one? Not, I would not deal with such a dealer. IMHO
Mike
idocoins
Jerry
A-Hole
But as you know developing a good relationship will yield you much better results in what is offered to you, and probably being able to "Cherry-pick." I'm just trying to look at it from his point here..... here is a stranger that wants to go through a bunch of items. He doesn't know you so feels he has to watch you while you go through everything.
I firmly believe if some of you would get to know some of these dealers that you think are afraid you'll find something they don't know about, you'd probably have better results. I have been through this with one major dealer, and while it wasn't sets, it was slabbed coins. He'd have 15 (let's say) of a certain coin I was looking for and would bring out ONE coin. I felt like I had to beg to look at another one.
These days he'll bring out anything I want to look at and walk away and leave me alone, knowing he can fully trust me. This is my take on all this.
Now granted, some or most probably are jerks and cranky, but to assume you should be trusted to look through everything and "cherry-pick" a strangers inventory is asking a bit much IMO.
From the dealer's perspective, I dont see anything wrong with asking someone to look through stuff for advice. However, the dude's pretty stupid to ask someone he doesnt even know to line his pockets.
From the buyer's perspective, I see nothing wrong there either. You've done the work and educated yourself so you can cherry pick so you can turn a few bucks. The dude's an idoit to think he can be ignoratne and expect someone else to use their expertise to line his pockets. Where's the incentive for you? None.
I've cherryed some rolls for dealers that I do quite a bit of buisness with. When the submission came back, they were all smiles. However, if someone I didnt know asked me to look through stuff for them... get real.
David
If someone wanted to cherry pick these sets - I'd say -"sure , good luck !" As you mentioned, you were the only one in the store for an hour and the guy had tons of sets; what harm would it have done him to let you go thru these sets, especially if you said that you'd buy at least ten sets. They would be ten sets less he'd have on hand, and as I said before , selling these sets could be turned into one nice coin.
Not only did he lose that sale, but, it seems he's lost a customer as well. My local dealer also has tons of proof sets, and occasionally sells off one or two for "birth year/ anniversaries, etc"; and when I do look for gifts - usually proof sets for their birth year, I always go to him. He's very accommodating, and lets me cherry pick from his inventory. I only check for spots, though, as the receipiants don't know from a no-S 1990 cent.
Also, being in sales myself, I always get a lot of lookers. They are all potential customers. I treat them the way I like to be treated. Most of these lookers do come back and buy. Sometimes the "call-backs" spend more than you'd ever imagine. I don't see you going back there anytime soon. Its his loss.
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