"Road Show" Coin Buyers exposed

CaptHenway

Our local Fox News station did a feature tonight wherein they took six decent slabs to two of the traveling coin buyer road shows and got offered $12+K the first time, $15+K at a different roadie and $14+K by the first company during a second visit a few months later.

Then they showed two nationally-known dealers at the Rosemont show here back in June offering a high $18K and a low $19K for the same coins. The owner of one road show refused to talk with the TV station. The other one said that dealers at coin shows inflate their buys because they know that people don't go to shows to sell, and only go there to get free appraisals! Right!!!!

TD

RedTiger

$12,000 offer at a hotel road show, vs. $18,000 at real coin show doesn't sound so bad. Often their advertised prices are worse such as 4x melt for silver when most dealers are offering 7.5x melt.

I don't see any expose here, or why it even makes news. The local pawn shop might offer $5,000 for the same coins. No one has to accept the offer. Duh. The road show buyers probably go to sell at the coin show. The dealers at the coin show are looking for retail clients where the coins are $21,000+. It is just business.

WTCG

There are also other factors that should be considered, such as market fluctuations as the Rosemont show was more than five months ago. When were the coins presented at the roadshow in relation to the Rosemont show?

What kind of coins were offered for appraisal at Rosemont and at the roadshow?

Come to think of it, a $12,000 vs. $18,000(+) disparity isn't that bad. It's not unusual for those roadshow organizers to rip deals for pennies on the dollar. For an $18,000 lot it wouldn't surprise me if the roadshow buy offer was less than $2,000 or so for those same group of coins.

RYK

Like the previous posters pointed out, this is not nearly as egregious as the folks who buy generic Saints for $400. Underpaying for numismatic pieces is not to be condoned. Paying 35% below melt for generic gold is quite another story.

Coinosaurus

That is some really poor yellow journalism. A single call to a knowledgable collector, and Fox could easily have located a dealer offering pennies on the dollar. Then they would have had the story they wanted. A spread from 12K to 19K is completely understandable given market fluctuation, dealer cash position, availability (or lack) of a ready retail buyer, etc.

segoja

Let me run this one buy you for pricing vs market:

MS64 NGC Slabbed Liberty $20 gold. What would you pay for them?

Bid is $1220. Would you be ripping off the old lady if you paid $750 for them???

Now if the same price was paid at a coin auction with over 50 people in attendance, what would you say then???

Happened to me the other day. Guess I was awake as the others were asleep or out of money!!! Needless to say I took both on a choice of A or B.

Bochiman

They probably offered more than normal at the road shows due to it being slabbed coins.
Might have figured the person had some idea of the value....

Now, take the same coins and offer them to the same people, raw, then I would wonder what kind of disparity there is

cullenbryant

<< <i>Now, take the same coins and offer them to the same people, raw, then I would wonder what kind of disparity there is >>



removing the grading company slab from a LOT of coins would cut the value down to sometimes barely over face.

PerryHall

<< <i>

<< <i>Now, take the same coins and offer them to the same people, raw, then I would wonder what kind of disparity there is >>



removing the grading company slab from a LOT of coins would cut the value down to sometimes barely over face. >>




.................especially for ulta high grade moderns.

RichErrors

This was a surprise? Take a 1 carat diamond (cert or not) to several jewelry buyers or a Mint car the used car Dept of a Car dealership.

Prices will vary from merchant to merchany ANYwhere

Coinosaurus

And yet the public seems to have this perception that rare coins should be totally liquid, and trade fluidly with the smallest of margins....why is that?

I could also ask, why is the Republican party perceived as more fiscally conservative than Democrats, when the Reagan and Bush administrations have engaged in far more deficit spending that Carter and Clinton's?

tmot99

Hey guys, we are more knowledgable collectors. The general public doesn't know how bad the road shows are. If the road shows offered $12000 and the "real value" is more along the lines of $19,000, thats a 50% spread. Since when is this considered acceptable?

The coins included a 1799 Draped Bust Dollar, a 1794 Large Cent and a $3 Gold piece. All pieces as I remember were graded by PCGS. The large cent may have been NGC. There were a few other coins too.

If anything, the June show would have been lower prices. Remember all the continuous talk about prices going up on here? How great the market continues to be? Therefore, any "market fluctuations" would not really matter. If anything, it makes this even worse than a 50% spread.

If everyone thinks that a road show ripping people off for $7000 is acceptable as has been suggested, can send the $7000 to me any time. My bank account is open.

roadrunner

I agree with the majority that there is nothing close to an expose here. They picked the wrong road show to tag along with. No doubt they could have found others paying 10c on the dollar.
My local B&M dealers buy at 30c on the dollar at times for coins of the caliber listed. Now they aren't slabbed mind you, but paying 30% is stretching it. Take those same coins to any major show and I'll guarantee you that you will get a spread of $12-$19K as you show them to a large number of dealers. Walk those into most of the local shops in my region and you'll get offers under $12K. Bust dollars are all over the place. I would pay well under bid for one of those. Who am I gonna sell it to? You see them in quantity at even small shows these days. What if those coins were low end quality to boot (more than likely that was the case since 75% of what is on the market just floats around looking for homes)? Possibly the dealers offering $17-19K were CDN readers and knew too little about coins to realize they were blue sheet coins. The list is endless. At any major auction you will have dealers drop out at half what a coin realizes. Were they crooks? Or do the higher bidders wear rose colored glasses?

This is the basic secret of the coin biz. Your coins are only worth what someone is willing to pay. In many cases you can't even get offers on your coins. Most people don't find this out until they finally decide to sell their holdings and take a breather from the hobby.

roadrunner

ziggy29

<< <i>Possibly the dealers offering $17-19K were CDN readers and knew too little about coins to realize they were blue sheet coins. >>

Perhaps. It's also possible they had retail customers with want lists where they thought they could quickly flip these coins, while the $12K offer came from dealers who would just flip them wholesale.

thebeav

<< <i>$12,000 offer at a hotel road show, vs. $18,000 at real coin show doesn't sound so bad. >>



My feelings exactly. When an outfit comes into town and runs full-page newspaper ads, it's very costly.....
No expose here. A non-event......

Pentimento

There was a Trade Dollar, I think I saw an AU 1794 cent, maybe a flowing hair in fine, a Morgan, etc.

ziggy29

<< <i>... I think I saw an AU 1794 cent, maybe a flowing hair in fine... >>

Widgets!

cladking

I caught this broadcast! They ended the segment with the advice, buy the book before the coin.

They did an excellent job with it.

tmot99

<< <i>

<< <i>$12,000 offer at a hotel road show, vs. $18,000 at real coin show doesn't sound so bad. >>



My feelings exactly. When an outfit comes into town and runs full-page newspaper ads, it's very costly.....
No expose here. A non-event...... >>



And a "real" dealer doesn't have a lease to pay, phone and phone book listings, electricity, shows (local and/or national), a base inventory, etc.

Come on. People on here bash dealers who take advantage of the old lady bringing in her late husband's rare coin collection. This is the same scenario.

RedTiger

<< <i>I caught this broadcast! They ended the segment with the advice, buy the book before the coin.

They did an excellent job with it. >>



Why do I think this is going to end with a bunch of folks buying Red Books and then going to a local dealer and getting offered 50% below the values listed and thinking dealers are all like the road show folks?

Sigh. I did not see it, but from what I am reading, it looks to me like a big waste of air time, that will make many coin dealers look like bad guys and gals when they are typical average business people.

Reality check please. Coins, especially high value coins, trade for a wide variety of values. I am surprised at the tight $18k to $19k offers at the coin show. There are times offers will vary by 30% or more dealer to dealer, depending on their needs, if they are going to wholesale it, or have a retail buyer they know is interested. Auction results will often show a 50% or more difference on coins in the same grade, same company's holder.

ziggy29

<< <i>Why do I think this is going to end with a bunch of folks buying Red Books and then going to a local dealer and getting offered 50% below the values listed and thinking dealers are all like the road show folks? >>

True. Too many people don't understand that not all (say) $100 coins will get the same offer. Some may get $80-85 if it's one that a dealer believes they can quickly turn around for $100 or more, and some may get $50 if the demand is thin and liquidity is low. This is one thing few sellers who don't understand the coin business can see, so if they have something like F-VF three cent nickels, they may not understand why they get half of Red Book value while people selling other types with more liquidity can get $80.

tmot99

<< <i>Reality check please. Coins, especially high value coins, trade for a wide variety of values. I am surprised at the tight $18k to $19k offers at the coin show. There are times offers will vary by 30% or more dealer to dealer, depending on their needs, if they are going to wholesale it, or have a retail buyer they know is interested. Auction results will often show a 50% or more difference on coins in the same grade, same company's holder. >>



But this depends greatly on the look of the coin and if it truly meets the grade on the holder. Don't take differing auctino results out of context.

I am really surprised that the entire group defending the road show prices. To me, it came across as greater than 30% below bid (they didn't mention specific prices or greysheet values so it's hard to say). Any dealer making those kind of offers are usually bashed here. Why not now?

mrearlygold

Who were the alleged experts again?

ziggy29

Here's another consideration why some dealers might offer more money than others. If you have a really nice, say MS-66RD IHC, are you going to sell it to a Morgan specialist or to Rick Snow? Conversely, if you have a beautiful better-date MS-66 Morgan, whom do you sell to? Not to Rick.

Dealers who aren't specialists in a particular series may buy other coins, but they may wholesale them out to others...or they may try to sell them themselves, but they may sell slowly because most people looking at their inventory aren't in the market for the "wrong" type of coin. But dealers who are specialists in that series probably have a lot of eyes looking at the "right" type of coin (within their specialty) and the coin can sell more quickly, at full retail. So it makes sense that some dealers -- particularly specialists -- can offer more for Coin A than Coin B even though both have an equivalent FMV, and vice-versa.

cladking

Swiatek was one of the experts they interviewed at MidAm.

All publicity is good publicity. Certainly it's not as goo publicity for the road
shows as it is for the hobby. I think their defence wasn't too far off though.
They used hidden cameras at the road shows and not at MidAm. It might
also matter who offered these coins.

At least the show was generally positive to coins.

GoldenEyeNumismatics

You can't expect everyone to be on the same page