charlotte gold coin sold for melt(actually less than)
jdimmick
Posts: 9,786 ✭✭✭✭✭
Here's one for ya:
About 18 months ago, a lady and her son come in to the shop with a few coins, three were gold.(they were her late husbands Two are just common libs, the other an 1840-c $5 (grades around original XF) , I tell them the two are common and give them a price, the other I explain is a charlotte and worth quite a bit.(they dont even know what that means, so i explain that) I offer to buy them including a 1500. offer for the charlotte by itself. They sell me the common libs, but hang on to the charlotte. So I place it in a 2x2 for them. Fast foward to last week":\
One of the owners of a local cash for gold buying firm comes into the shop with this same $5.00 charlotte coin this family brought in to me 18 months ago, still in the original 2x2 I packaged up for them, tells me he bought it over the counter at his store for 250.00. He was wanting to find out what it was worth , which now is closer to about 2k.
I hate this, as I would really have liked to have bought it originally, in fact if I had been crooked and offered gold price back then, I would have been able to buy it along with the other two, but being honest I lost a good coin.
About 18 months ago, a lady and her son come in to the shop with a few coins, three were gold.(they were her late husbands Two are just common libs, the other an 1840-c $5 (grades around original XF) , I tell them the two are common and give them a price, the other I explain is a charlotte and worth quite a bit.(they dont even know what that means, so i explain that) I offer to buy them including a 1500. offer for the charlotte by itself. They sell me the common libs, but hang on to the charlotte. So I place it in a 2x2 for them. Fast foward to last week":\
One of the owners of a local cash for gold buying firm comes into the shop with this same $5.00 charlotte coin this family brought in to me 18 months ago, still in the original 2x2 I packaged up for them, tells me he bought it over the counter at his store for 250.00. He was wanting to find out what it was worth , which now is closer to about 2k.
I hate this, as I would really have liked to have bought it originally, in fact if I had been crooked and offered gold price back then, I would have been able to buy it along with the other two, but being honest I lost a good coin.
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rainbowroosie April 1, 2003
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<< <i>Might it have been stolen from the family prior to the sale to the gold buying firm? You may want to get in touch with the family to see if they realize it is gone or if they have filed a police report already. >>
I hope it was lost or stolen and you find the owners.
It doesn't make sense to shop it around and sell it for less.
<< <i>Might it have been stolen from the family prior to the sale to the gold buying firm? You may want to get in touch with the family to see if they realize it is gone or if they have filed a police report already. >>
Or perhaps someone in the family was looking for a quick buck and sold the coin for the owners?
It does make no sense. Only explanation is the seller wasn't right in the head or the coin was stolen/switched/scammed from said owner.
Anyone offered $1500 is going to go back to that person before selling it for considerably less.
As Jim explained, this is one of the reasons many dealers low ball on big dollar coins. Once informed of their new treasure, they think you're out to rip them off, so off they
go for more offers. But what would usually happen is that Jim's offer of $1500 would be used for leverage against him. The next guy would offer $1600 as soon as they were made
aware of Jim's offer....and so on...and so on.
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<< <i> tells me he bought it over the counter at his store for 250.00. >>
He told you that, but is that really what happened? Do you trust dealer #2 in the story?
<< <i>It does make no sense. Only explanation is the seller wasn't right in the head or the coin was stolen/switched/scammed from said owner.
Anyone offered $1500 is going to go back to that person before selling it for considerably less. >>
Um... not necessarily. I'm "the coin guy" at my day job, and one day someone asked me the value of some American Arts gold medals that he had put away. I explained that they're worth basically gold value, and I told him what gold value was, and I gave him the name of a local store that I trusted, where he could walk in an walk out with that much cash in a half hour or less.
A few months later I asked him what he ended up doing. Turns out that he had some "come to my house an appraise my antiques" guy over, and that guy offered him about half spot value. So that's what he sold it for.
So no, not everyone would go back to the original offer.
jonathan
<< <i>
<< <i>It does make no sense. Only explanation is the seller wasn't right in the head or the coin was stolen/switched/scammed from said owner.
Anyone offered $1500 is going to go back to that person before selling it for considerably less. >>
Um... not necessarily. I'm "the coin guy" at my day job, and one day someone asked me the value of some American Arts gold medals that he had put away. I explained that they're worth basically gold value, and I told him what gold value was, and I gave him the name of a local store that I trusted, where he could walk in an walk out with that much cash in a half hour or less.
A few months later I asked him what he ended up doing. Turns out that he had some "come to my house an appraise my antiques" guy over, and that guy offered him about half spot value. So that's what he sold it for.
So no, not everyone would go back to the original offer.
jonathan >>
When people are told what something is worth, then they sell the item for way less than that, these stories remind me of the saying "You can't teach stupid."
An authorized PCGS dealer, and a contributor to the Red Book.
Yeah, this. Cash for gold is just a fence for burglars in most towns. That's where my parents' gold rings went after they were burglarized last summer.
<< <i>... in fact if I had been crooked and offered gold price back then, I would have been able to buy it along with the other two, but being honest I lost a good coin. >>
But you have the respect of most who read this thread. Which IMO is worth more than that amount of money. My hat is off to you.
<< <i>hmmm your right guys, could have been stolen, jdimmick, please try and contact the family, maybe they had it stolen from them or a family member stole it and sold it for drugs, etc >>
If you still have their contact info I would tell them that someone brought in the coin you offered to buy for $1500 and said they bought it for $250.
If it wasn't stolen, I personally, as would you and the whole forum, would love to hear their reason for selling it for much much less.
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire
I dont have the families name or number(well actually I probably have thier name in one of the invoices since I bought the others) but it would be impossible to try and find it so far back. In 18 months, I could literally stack invoices about 4 feet high , and wouldnt begin to remember thier name.
I had wondered if possibly somebody had broke in their residence and stole this particular coin which accounts for the reason that it showed up at that place?
or if the son stole it from his mother , knowing he couldnt come back to me to sell and went somewhere else? (even if for a he11 of lot less)
I did do one thing, normally when I run big adds, I always put in commentary about the motel buyers practices, but this time I put in commentary regarding this situation as well as another where somebody sold a 73-cc arrows quarters in good for silver to one of these gold buying places. Basically mentioning if you have rare coins, these places are not the place to sell as they willonly pay melt and even then significantly lower than melt.
It seems odd, but there is a grain of truth to the statement, sometimes you can offer too much.
``https://ebay.us/m/KxolR5
Maybe the hotel/Cash4Gold buyers told the seller you were wrong and it was counterfeit but still made out of gold and then made a weight offer?
This stinks big time. I've had this happen before on buys, only to loose them when they go shopping around for offers at pawn shops when they "have" to have the money right then and they don't call you.
Too many positive BST transactions with too many members to list.
<< <i>I offer to buy them including a 1500. offer for the charlotte by itself. They sell me the common libs, but hang on to the charlotte. So I place it in a 2x2 for them. Fast foward to last week"
...
One of the owners of a local cash for gold buying firm comes into the shop with this same $5.00 charlotte coin this family brought in to me 18 months ago, still in the original 2x2 I packaged up for them, tells me he bought it over the counter at his store for 250.00. He was wanting to find out what it was worth , which now is closer to about 2k. >>
This I simply don't understand. Why would you accept $250 for a coin when you already had a standing offer of $1500 in place? This only makes sense if someone else actually sold the coin, who wasn't aware of the $1500 offer.
That is my vote. I wonder if he bought some magic beans on the way home?
doesn't end. Mention that regardless of persuasive low ball offers they might receive on the coin, you're still willing to pay $1500 even if others might think it's a fake/damaged/etc.
It took you decades of learning to spot good coins from bad coins. The new guys on the block can only tell if its gold. And that's all they want to pay for it to maximize their profits.
Highlight the fact that many/most other buyers would not have mentioned the rarity of the C mint coin and just paid gold for it....probably getting it with the orig deal on the cheap.
Make it easy for them to get back in contact with you. And just in case someone betters your offer down the road, suggest they call back to see if you could possibly increase
the offer if warranted. They should not feel the slightest embarrassment coming back later to accept the original offer, even if they took it elsewhere for offers. Just advise
them to keep your offer silent at least until another dealer first discloses their independent offer. This way the sellers can properly assess the worthiness of each dealer. It might
even be worth writing up a formal offer on a summary sheet that already has all of the above bullet points included. It won't be as easy to lose as a business card.
Nothing to lose here. It's good that you're spreading the word about these tactics. These ripped off sellers are your best advertisement to win over the $Cash4Gold guys.
It is a shame that being honest often works against legitimate buyers. It's why I've always said that some of the most successful dealers are also some of the biggest crooks.
How one goes from "I have a rare coin and someone offering me $1500" for it to selling it to a scammer for under melt is beyond me. That must be some good BS to convince someone not to take it back to the person for $1500.... but I guess maybe the scammer appeals to the conscience of the person and convinces them it is "really" fake.
<< <i>I once sold a coin on the BST for over 1000 dollars less than I could have sold it for. It wasn't about being stupid. And the coin ended up being in HA's next auction and the dealer did make a great profit (over 1k). Sometimes, sellers are in a bind and material possessions need to be sold off immediately to make a dire situation better. And even in my case, the dealer-buyer admitted I would likely get a lot more if I just consigned it through him to HA, alas I needed the money right then and there. And couldn't wait. So I let him reap his reward and I had what I wanted, cash in hand and him, a coin in hand that will do (did) him very well!
Another factor to keep in mind is whether or not the guy's check is good. An offer pay $X more than another offer is not much fun if you have chase the guy for two months to get paid, or if you end with nothing but the rubber check.
and no I actually offered the cash 4 gold guy 1800 since the market was a higher now, he refused to sell it.