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Travails of a small local Darkside dealer...
lordmarcovan
Posts: 43,799 ✭✭✭✭✭
*rrriiiing*
Me: Hello?
Lady on phone: Hi, are you the coin guy from the antique mall? They gave me one of your wooden nickels that you use for a business card. I have some rare coins my grandmother left me.
Me: What sort of coins are they?
Lady: They're from all different countries. I don't really know what they are. But they're rare.
Me (out loud): Well, that shouldn't be a problem. I deal in world coins, as you probably noticed. I'm sure I can identify them for you.
Me (privately, in my head): You people slay me. If you don't even know what it IS, howinthehell do you know it is RARE?
They'll do it every time. You see this phenomenon a lot on eBay.
Her coins? Modern Great Britain decimal minors in circulated condition, a modern nonsilver Canadian quarter or two, and a modern Mexican coin or two. Maybe 15-20 pieces total. Which I drove 30 miles or so roundtrip, downtown, to see. In my large gasgulping van. S'OK, though, I had to go to the antique mall anyway.
All of her stuff was the sort of thing I sell in my 3/$1 bin after I have put them in 2x2s and attributed them. Loose, as-is, they were ten-cent coins. The most interesting thing she had was a Mauritius piece from 1950 (a 75c coin by Krause retail), and a 1982 (nonsilver) Mexican peso in EF, worth about two bucks. Oh, and a 1996 Jamaican $5 coin worth about $2.50 in UNC, but hers wasn't quite UNC.
I told her this and tried to break it to her gently that the best I could offer on such an assortment was four or five bucks for the lot. I'll give her credit- she took her dose of reality well. I do try to be diplomatic, 'cause you never know what delusions of grandeur were in some people's heads.
She probably would've sold them but I used my most charitable, "maybe you should hang on to these for a while" line. After all, I have a 12.5 lb sack of this kind of stuff (actually, with better stuff) that I haven't even looked at yet, that I bought from Ye Deade King in Charlotte. And I just this morning agreed to buy a 35-lb lot from the Shroomdude, from whom most of my bulk Darkside comes.
So I have no shortage of Darkside cherrypickin' fun in my future, when time allows.
I'm sure you dealers with a full time storefront deal with this sort of call all the time. Lots of bicentennial quarters and damaged clad coins that folks thought were "errors", eh? And Franklin Mint "Tractors Of America" collections and National Collectors Mint reproductions with "certificates of authenticity" and Chinese fakes. (I just saw eight or ten Chinese-made 1800 Bust dollars when I drove out the last time somebody called me.)
But I guess it's worth it, for those days when something cool comes in the door, huh. I do regret that aspect of my absentee seller status: I don't get much facetime with my customers or with folks who have coins for sale, unless they call me, and only one or two a month do. I do manage to see some mildly interesting things from time to time, and I think folks are often happy to find that I (the only thing vaguely resembling a brick and mortar coin dealer in probably a 50-75 mile radius) am a buyer of foreign coins, too.
Me: Hello?
Lady on phone: Hi, are you the coin guy from the antique mall? They gave me one of your wooden nickels that you use for a business card. I have some rare coins my grandmother left me.
Me: What sort of coins are they?
Lady: They're from all different countries. I don't really know what they are. But they're rare.
Me (out loud): Well, that shouldn't be a problem. I deal in world coins, as you probably noticed. I'm sure I can identify them for you.
Me (privately, in my head): You people slay me. If you don't even know what it IS, howinthehell do you know it is RARE?
They'll do it every time. You see this phenomenon a lot on eBay.
Her coins? Modern Great Britain decimal minors in circulated condition, a modern nonsilver Canadian quarter or two, and a modern Mexican coin or two. Maybe 15-20 pieces total. Which I drove 30 miles or so roundtrip, downtown, to see. In my large gasgulping van. S'OK, though, I had to go to the antique mall anyway.
All of her stuff was the sort of thing I sell in my 3/$1 bin after I have put them in 2x2s and attributed them. Loose, as-is, they were ten-cent coins. The most interesting thing she had was a Mauritius piece from 1950 (a 75c coin by Krause retail), and a 1982 (nonsilver) Mexican peso in EF, worth about two bucks. Oh, and a 1996 Jamaican $5 coin worth about $2.50 in UNC, but hers wasn't quite UNC.
I told her this and tried to break it to her gently that the best I could offer on such an assortment was four or five bucks for the lot. I'll give her credit- she took her dose of reality well. I do try to be diplomatic, 'cause you never know what delusions of grandeur were in some people's heads.
She probably would've sold them but I used my most charitable, "maybe you should hang on to these for a while" line. After all, I have a 12.5 lb sack of this kind of stuff (actually, with better stuff) that I haven't even looked at yet, that I bought from Ye Deade King in Charlotte. And I just this morning agreed to buy a 35-lb lot from the Shroomdude, from whom most of my bulk Darkside comes.
So I have no shortage of Darkside cherrypickin' fun in my future, when time allows.
I'm sure you dealers with a full time storefront deal with this sort of call all the time. Lots of bicentennial quarters and damaged clad coins that folks thought were "errors", eh? And Franklin Mint "Tractors Of America" collections and National Collectors Mint reproductions with "certificates of authenticity" and Chinese fakes. (I just saw eight or ten Chinese-made 1800 Bust dollars when I drove out the last time somebody called me.)
But I guess it's worth it, for those days when something cool comes in the door, huh. I do regret that aspect of my absentee seller status: I don't get much facetime with my customers or with folks who have coins for sale, unless they call me, and only one or two a month do. I do manage to see some mildly interesting things from time to time, and I think folks are often happy to find that I (the only thing vaguely resembling a brick and mortar coin dealer in probably a 50-75 mile radius) am a buyer of foreign coins, too.
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is that you end up being governed by inferiors. – Plato
(But I bet NYC has more than 1,000 smells. Our olfactory claim to fame is several paper mills and marsh gas from the Marshes of Glynn.)
Sounds like you could tighten up the questioning if you want to save on gas money. Most folks can make out the dates and that will be a good indication. Aluminum coins in circulated condition seem near worthless, as do common small coppers. Perhaps as a person that often digs coins out of the ground, perhaps the thrill of seeing a new "hoard" may be worth the price of a couple of gallons of gas.
<< <i>Perhaps as a person that often digs coins out of the ground, perhaps the thrill of seeing a new "hoard" may be worth the price of a couple of gallons of gas. >>
Indeed it is. And really I don't mind looking at what people have. It's fun, even when their holdings turn out to be of little or no monetary value.
I just had to have a laugh at her use of the word "rare". You have a nice point, though- I guess the definition of the term is rather fluid, varying from person to person.
Yep, that gets me interested! Good thing they included 'WOW' or I would have missed the listing entirely. I hope my $20 doesn't get outbid!
Why do I wish I could find these sellers and ring their scrawny necks? Is it just me?