The personal side of a business transaction
BryceM
Posts: 11,850 ✭✭✭✭✭
So, action in my peace dollar collection has really slowed down recently. Mostly this is due to the fact that I'm now pushing up against the steep side of the rarity-price curve and funds have been tied up in other pursits. I'm also getting pretty picky when it comes to finding "the look". I browsed through the recent Heritage auction and didn't see too much that interested me. One or two were tempting, but prices for what I was looking for were pretty strong and I became the official underbidder on a couple.
Yesterday I found a coin on a random Internet dealer's site and thought it looked pretty tempting. It's from one of the sites that is mostly bullion-related with a handful of nicer slabbed coins here and there. Mostly the website is geared toward "investing". The photos were decent so I decided to take a chance. I called and of course was passed around from the receptionist to some nameless individual in the "back room", and then back to the receptionist. The person with his name on the website of course was not available. It was pretty obvious that the person I spoke with wasn't authorized to negotiate on price and didn't have the coin available for an in-hand description. Fair enough. You can't have everything right?
I decided to buy it based on the photos alone. They let me know it would ship after my check cleared. Sigh.
When I contrast this with the service I get from my favorite dealers (most of whom are very happy to send coins on approval), the whole experience left me feeling sort of hollow. It made me stop and remember how nice it is to be trusted and how nice it is to deal with great individuals. It's a shame that sometimes you have to reach out and get coins where you can find them.
Yesterday I found a coin on a random Internet dealer's site and thought it looked pretty tempting. It's from one of the sites that is mostly bullion-related with a handful of nicer slabbed coins here and there. Mostly the website is geared toward "investing". The photos were decent so I decided to take a chance. I called and of course was passed around from the receptionist to some nameless individual in the "back room", and then back to the receptionist. The person with his name on the website of course was not available. It was pretty obvious that the person I spoke with wasn't authorized to negotiate on price and didn't have the coin available for an in-hand description. Fair enough. You can't have everything right?
I decided to buy it based on the photos alone. They let me know it would ship after my check cleared. Sigh.
When I contrast this with the service I get from my favorite dealers (most of whom are very happy to send coins on approval), the whole experience left me feeling sort of hollow. It made me stop and remember how nice it is to be trusted and how nice it is to deal with great individuals. It's a shame that sometimes you have to reach out and get coins where you can find them.
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Comments
How 'bout the coin the regular dealer didn't have?
@ the Col,
Sure, I understand that. If I ran a coin shop I'd be all sorts of nervous about sending inventory out to unknown individuals. When I was new in the hobby it was like this continually. I'd sort of forgotten how nice it is to work with great dealers.
<< <i>@ TDN,
How 'bout the coin the regular dealer didn't have?
@ the Col,
Sure, I understand that. If I ran a coin shop I'd be all sorts of nervous about sending inventory out to unknown individuals. When I was new in the hobby it was like this continually. I'd sort of forgotten how nice it is to work with great dealers. >>
You tell your dealer where it is and let him make 5% negotiating for you. You never even have to deal with the other company.
<< <i>Honestly, I cannot think of any Peace dollar that I would not go through my regular dealer to acquire. >>
1964
<< <i>Maybe I'm nuts
I completely agree.
Conversely if negotiations are tense owning the coin afterwards kind of has a sour feel to it. I just sold a high $ coin on the BST(great transaction BTW) but when I bought it years ago I felt a bit sour about it and even though it was a high end coin that was one of the best around I never enjoyed it and was rather glad to let it go.
<< <i>... I tend to enjoy a coin more if I enjoyed buying it, like the seller, etc. >>
+1
<< <i>Maybe I'm nuts
Your not nuts... As just like women tend to remembers every stage of a relationship. Collectors are wired differently and remember every stage of a purchase when held in hand over the course of ownership. So every detail such as the initial moment of love at first sight and the follow up warm and fuzzy transaction are quite important!
I thought we needed to be dispassionate, unemotional creatures to avoid the pitfalls of the market.
Rationally, it makes no difference if we bought the precious in a dark alley from the devil himself or from a dealer who scoured the four corners of the earth for a decade to find it for us.
It's the same coin, right?