Options
Coolest "Character" you have run across collecting.
planonit
Posts: 525 ✭✭
I am sure plenty of people can beat me but two off top of my head stick out.
1) Every known and then I accumulate rolls of common, worn Morgans and I sell them. I don't hoard bags full of Morgans.
Had a guy who wanted to buy from me. No issue. We struck a deal over the phone and the day I was to meet him he called and asked if I had anything "extra spicy". I obviously had no idea what he meant. He then started asking if I liked to target shoot. I do my fair share of hunting so I occasionally target shoot. This was just weird.
He then proceeded to explain to me that there were 20 million patriots down South ready to start and I quote "shootin' them up" and that he and a group of his friends were looking to get their hands on some guns as soon as possible. He was immediately nice enough to very matter-of-fact that he was a former felon so he could not buy them but his friends could.
I politely decline and said I had reconsidered selling the rolls.
2) This one blew me away because I was talking to a collector in Florida. He was clearly a well versed collector and we talked on and on about coins. He was a pretty big Trade Dollar guy and talked about how he had some hard to find chopmarks and whatnot.
Out of nowhere and I mean literally OUT OF NOWHERE he started talking about how the government was hiding facts about aliens and he always wondered what they were so worried about the public knowing. He asked me if I had ever had any experiences that might be extraterrestrials. My silence felt like an hour. I said uhh no but you ever uhhh well saw some lights in the woods once.
I could not get out of that conversation fast enough.
I have plans....sometimes
0
Comments
You seem to have run across the weirdest of the weird.
Hold on a minute, I have to go, I'm being abducted by aliens....again......
Planonit: I have run across many eccentrics and weirdos in my time in the coin biz........one incident was really weird, but not really appropriate to relate here.
You seem to have run across the weirdest of the weird.
Hold on a minute, I have to go, I'm being abducted by aliens....again......
Oh now you are teasing us. Is it a dirty story?
I was called to do an appraisal on a collection. I had known and dealt with the owner of the coins (and had sold him many of the coins) while he was alive.
After he passed away the family asked me to appraise his collection.
He had been dead several years at that time, and I was rather surprised that the local leader of the coin mafia had not already been called to disperse his collection, as it was unstated law back at that time that local material went through him and him only. If you disregarded that rule you were unofficially blacklisted from the group. Which meant that officially you were ostracized and put onto a numismatic leper colony (without tokens).
I was probably summoned because he had quite an extensive collection of die varieties and no one in the area had any real knowledge of such, except yours truly.
When I arrived to work on the collection, and it was a nice collection, it was immediately apparent to me that the grieving widow was grieving no longer and was, well.....quite lonely.
I know that doesn't relate directly to your question, but "kindof sortof" does.
I have another one that came to mind while typing this about an old-time dealer and deputy (former leader before he was deposed) in the coin mafia that I can in no way make suitable for this forum.
I'll just put it this way.
I was called to do an appraisal on a collection. I had known and dealt with the owner of the coins (and had sold him many of the coins) while he was alive.
After he passed away the family asked me to appraise his collection.
He had been dead several years at that time, and I was rather surprised that the local leader of the coin mafia had not already been called to disperse his collection, as it was unstated law back at that time that local material went through him and him only. If you disregarded that rule you were unofficially blacklisted from the group. Which meant that officially you were ostracized and put onto a numismatic leper colony (without tokens).
I was probably summoned because he had quite an extensive collection of die varieties and no one in the area had any real knowledge of such, except yours truly.
When I arrived to work on the collection, and it was a nice collection, it was immediately apparent to me that the grieving widow was grieving no longer and was, well.....quite lonely.
I know that doesn't relate directly to your question, but "kindof sortof" does.
I have another one that came to mind while typing this about an old-time dealer and deputy (former leader before he was deposed) in the coin mafia that I can in no way make suitable for this forum.
Wow.
There are soooooo many questions and snide comments I could make that I can't because they are not at all suitable for this forum either.
A fella came in one day and asked if they bought dental gold. (At the time, they did.)
He then left the shop and went out to his car. The parking lot was in full view below the elevated storefront, so the people in the coin shop were watching as the guy went into a toolbox and got out a pair of pliers, then bent over the woman in the passenger seat, inserted the pliers into her mouth, yanked out a gold tooth, and brought the bloody prize back into the coin shop to sell.
Collector since 1976. On the CU forums here since 2001.
Coin collecting seems to attract a fair share of conspiracy theorists... and they seem to fiercely believe in those myths.... I have run into several....the 911 nuts, the alien nuts and recently the 'martial law' idiots. Now, I just walk away...no use trying to talk sense to these idiots. Cheers, RickO
There is a guy who comes into the B&M here who claims to be a psychic. He says a 9/11 type tragedy will happen this month (he's been saying that for months). He also says Obama will be the last President of the USA, because there will be no more elections and UN troops are already here hiding in plain sight ready to take the country. He went on to say "I know I've cried 'wolf' in the past (nothing he's 'predicted' has come true so far), but others are having the same visions so they must be true."
I can't imagine what it's like to live in a world of gloom and doom like that.
The court jester does not play, but gently pulls the strings…
Of course most of us are a might dorky as well.
People who accumulate metal often understand the nature of economic activity better than most and either believe everyone should have some wealth in metal as insurance or don't believe an economic system founded on waste is sustainable.
Coin collecting seems to attract a fair share of conspiracy theorists... and they seem to fiercely believe in those myths.... I have run into several....the 911 nuts, the alien nuts and recently the 'martial law' idiots. Now, I just walk away...no use trying to talk sense to these idiots. Cheers, RickO
There is a guy who comes into the B&M here who claims to be a psychic. He says a 9/11 type tragedy will happen this month (he's been saying that for months). He also says Obama will be the last President of the USA, because there will be no more elections and UN troops are already here hiding in plain sight ready to take the country. He went on to say "I know I've cried 'wolf' in the past (nothing he's 'predicted' has come true so far), but others are having the same visions so they must be true."
I can't imagine what it's like to live in a world of gloom and doom like that.
is this guy's name baba vanga by any chance?
Great stuff. I don't have any to add, but sure hope to read more responses.
My YouTube Channel
Didn't see this personally, but it was told to me by the folks in a coin shop where I used to help out:
A fella came in one day and asked if they bought dental gold. (At the time, they did.)
He then left the shop and went out to his car. The parking lot was in full view below the elevated storefront, so the people in the coin shop were watching as the guy went into a toolbox and got out a pair of pliers, then bent over the woman in the passenger seat, inserted the pliers into her mouth, yanked out a gold tooth, and brought the bloody prize back into the coin shop to sell.
Dayum!
My YouTube Channel
A lady sat down and looked at some things. She asked to look at a circulated $100 brown-seal 1929 Federal Reserve Bank Note (Kansas City).
It was a note worth perhaps $120 at the time. And then for no particular reason she started telling me that when she was a child, the government had abducted her because of her DNA. They had taken some of that DNA and done experiments on it. But she escaped and they were still looking for her to this day. She was dead serious.
Then she talked about her collecting interests, which was mostly "beelz" as she pronounced it. It took me a moment to figure out that she meant "bills" (currency).
Se went on to say that the particular note she was looking at had secret messages just for her, and secret codes in the serial number.
Perhaps the strangest thing was, she did buy that 1929 $100 note for $120.
I had a table at a gun show one time. No guns, just some ordinary "junk" silver, currency, etc.
A lady sat down and looked at some things. She asked to look at a circulated $100 brown-seal 1929 Federal Reserve Bank Note (Kansas City).
It was a note worth perhaps $120 at the time. And then for no particular reason she started telling me that when she was a child, the government had abducted her because of her DNA. They had taken some of that DNA and done experiments on it. But she escaped and they were still looking for her to this day. She was dead serious.
Then she talked about her collecting interests, which was mostly "beelz" as she pronounced it. It took me a moment to figure out that she meant "bills" (currency).
Se went on to say that the particular note she was looking at had secret messages just for her, and secret codes in the serial number.
Perhaps the strangest thing was, she did buy that 1929 $100 note for $120.
When they're ah-buyin', you just keep ah-smilin'