One small gripe - Stop abusing my slabs!
BryceM
Posts: 11,857 ✭✭✭✭✭
So I'm puttering around at LB looking to sell a couple of duplicates from my collection.......
I stop at a dealer's table to show him a coin. I think it was a 1917 Type I SLQ. He pulled out his loupe to give it a quick once-over. I guess maybe I'm too impatient sometimes - the guy then takes a short eternity to tell me a little about his life story and oh, BTW, he isn't interested in the coin. OK, fine. But......
He held my coin in his hand THE WHOLE TIME while nervously tapping the metal edge of his loupe against the center obverse viewing portion of the slab over and Over and OVER. Come on! He probably hit it fifty times. By the time he was done it was visibly scuffed. I always polish up slabs before trying to photograph or sell them and I specifically remember cleaning up this one prior to taking it to the show. Between that and guys tossing them around like chips in a poker game, it's no wonder some of them look like they do.
I stop at a dealer's table to show him a coin. I think it was a 1917 Type I SLQ. He pulled out his loupe to give it a quick once-over. I guess maybe I'm too impatient sometimes - the guy then takes a short eternity to tell me a little about his life story and oh, BTW, he isn't interested in the coin. OK, fine. But......
He held my coin in his hand THE WHOLE TIME while nervously tapping the metal edge of his loupe against the center obverse viewing portion of the slab over and Over and OVER. Come on! He probably hit it fifty times. By the time he was done it was visibly scuffed. I always polish up slabs before trying to photograph or sell them and I specifically remember cleaning up this one prior to taking it to the show. Between that and guys tossing them around like chips in a poker game, it's no wonder some of them look like they do.
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I've always had pretty good experiences with dealers handling my coins. Of course, my coins were always in slabs too. One time a dealer dropped a coin I was showing him. I had just picked it up from PCGS who had graded it at the show for me and it went up a point and I was so happy I was showing it around. He dropped it, but it was clearly an accident. I shrugged it off. These things happen...that's why we put them in slabs.
<< <i>So I'm puttering around at LB looking to sell a couple of duplicates from my collection.......
I stop at a dealer's table to show him a coin. I think it was a 1917 Type I SLQ. He pulled out his loupe to give it a quick once-over. I guess maybe I'm too impatient sometimes - the guy then takes a short eternity to tell me a little about his life story and oh, BTW, he isn't interested in the coin. OK, fine. But......
He held my coin in his hand THE WHOLE TIME while nervously tapping the metal edge of his loupe against the center obverse viewing portion of the slab over and Over and OVER. Come on! He probably hit it fifty times. By the time he was done it was visibly scuffed. I always polish up slabs before trying to photograph or sell them and I specifically remember cleaning up this one prior to taking it to the show. Between that and guys tossing them around like chips in a poker game, it's no wonder some of them look like they do. >>
Maybe it's just me but, I would have asked for my coin back after about the 5th tap on the holder with the loupe(an indication he was not interested in buying the coin), and walked away.
<< <i>I always polish up slabs before trying to photograph or sell them and I specifically remember cleaning up this one prior to taking it to the show. Between that and guys tossing them around like chips in a poker game, it's no wonder some of them look like they do. >>
How do you polish the slabs? Can you take out scuffs?
He who knows he has enough is rich.
In honor of the memory of Cpl. Michael E. Thompson
you are obviously a kind person, perhaps too kind.
I agree with TomB re intentions, but ...only you can prevent slab scuffs!
Best wishes,
Eric
So don't think you're the only one who is bothered by the aesthetics!
<< <i>You'll laugh, but I routinely pay to re-slab a few coins every year for no other reason than the slabs were banged up before I bought them and annoy me.
So don't think you're the only one who is bothered by the aesthetics! >>
Many are. It's a PITA to have to have them reholdered; esp. if they are older ones that won't be replaced. Apparently since they are temporary owners, some dealers don't care. Amazing how some folks have never mastered common sense and courtesy.
I'm sure it was just an honest mistake, cuz he probably has one just like it.......
I have a fine friend who whenever he inspects a slab, he repeatedly wipes his thumb in a circular manner on the viewing area.
This is as if it wan't clean already, which it is, he can make it cleaner by smearing his man oils over the surface.
BTW, from Charmy's fantastic report:
This is fellow forum member Bryce M who stopped by my table a few times to look at some pretty red Indian cents. Bryce is one of the nicest guys, very patiently waited for me to finish with some other customers, and was very enjoyable to talk with. He eventually bought a beautiful red 1909 Indian cent.
And getting a green bean replaced on the replacement holder is a double PITA!!!
<< <i>You'll laugh, but I routinely pay to re-slab a few coins every year for no other reason than the slabs were banged up before I bought them and annoy me.
So don't think you're the only one who is bothered by the aesthetics![/q Is it possible to remove the scuffs yourself if not too deep? And will PCGS replace for free a slab that has debris either imbedded in the plastic or inside, as in lint, flakes, etc? I have all of the above in various forms!
I polish every slab that has a scuff or scratch and can usually remove all but the toughest. Then I shoot images. When done the coin goes in a snug, clear, archival-quality, protective sleeve...the ones often used for baseball cards. Perfect fit.
Lance.
Similarly, just about any slab you buy out of a major auction gets banged up pretty badly as well with so many people flipping through the boxes of slabs during lot viewing and not really treating them gently. Those same boxes being shipped back and forth across the country rattling together probably doesn't help either. I almost never get a nice pristine looking slab from an auction win where there was in person lot viewing available.
Michael Kittle Rare Coins --- 1908-S Indian Head Cent Grading Set --- No. 1 1909 Mint Set --- Kittlecoins on Facebook --- Long Beach Table 448
<< <i> Between that and guys tossing them around like chips in a poker game, it's no wonder some of them look like they do. >>
This little trend chaps me too...nothing quite like some goofy twerp skipping a freshly reholdered coin across the case, with a passive agressive comment like "nice coin..."
Oh well, no sense getting steamed up about it I guess. It's their scene, the world these guys live in, I couldn't do it.
Me, I'd never take it any further than a little stink eye and walk away...but I'd like to be nearby when some hot head flips out over it one of these days !
Respect is respect. Whether in this hobby or in general public.
A little bit of rudeness.... goes a long way.
Hope that dealer (and others) read this forum, they might learn a thing that will help them.
http://www.coinshop.com
He was seeing you as completion wanting to sell coins so he was trying to lessen the value of your product.
They should stop and think of where their revenues come from, and what it is to have repeat business, before acting like a pompous ass.
I have seen slabs mishandled and it truly is difficult to witness
Experience the World through Numismatics...it's more than you can imagine.
Looking for Top Pop Mercury Dime Varieties & High Grade Mercury Dime Toners.
<< <i>I would have CLEARLY expressed my displeasure after the first tap! >>
Agree and most collectors would also say something. Not sure why the OP just sat there and watched this idiot damage his slab.
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
Once he started tapping it took me a bit to even figure out where the noise was coming from. It took a few more taps to register what this, shall we say, person was actually doing. It took a couple more taps for me to get over the fact that a dealer could be doing this. I then made a quick mental calculation. It was a coin I had already emotionally parted with. I didn't figure he'd actually crack the slab open. I figured it would probably sell somewhere on the bourse that day either way, slightly scuffed or not. It wasn't a six figure coin - just a nice-for-grade, PCGS MS64FH CAC 1917 type I SLQ. 80% of the dealers I met seemed to be buying stickers anyway.
I eventually did something like point at the loupe and throw him a dirty look. His intellect finally rose to the occasion and he took the hint. I took the coin back and walked away without saying another word. If he had done that to a valued coin from my core collection I'd have gone instantly ballistic for sure. Overall it was mostly just amusing to watch such a display of utter thoughtlessness.
into his showcase from about 18" to 20" inches high and I remember his pissed
look on his face that he was'nt happy to be there, but gheez why take it out on
the coins, that was at Long Beach about 12 years ago, I just cringed and thought
that theres nothing they have that I want to see or buy.
Steve
I would just take it out of his grasp and say thanks.
When I used to go to most postcard shows in the infancy of my 1939 New York World's Fair odyssey I wasted..spent some time learning and collecting paper - postcards. Now I collect building fragments, art, Bel Geddes cars and candid Kodachrome from '39. Anyway, there was an older man, the "man with the shaky hands." Mind you, these dealers had many, many thousands of cards each and sleeves were generally not used as they added bulk in volume, requiring two station wagons instead of one to get to the show and back for the dealers. No matter how early I went this man was in front of me. People would line up to view the boxes. Every time this man was in front of me. There I would stand in mute horror as this gent tried to get cards already jammed into boxes in and out, all the while giving the appearance of a 5.6 on the Richter. He never went for the scarce cards but that might have been easier to watch than seeing the cards handled like this, the corners...seeing the good card quivering and the potential damage were enough to create a need for Xanax. It was at this time I developed a love for hard loaders. Statistically, odds were the card(s) you wanted would escape unscathed, but you just never knew. There was another dealer who deliberatelt would manhandle the cards as you tried to pay for them He was fond of writing the price on the card in very hard pencil. He had a sign up - "Not responsible for hurt feelings." I miss those days.
Eric
<< <i>You need to learn how to polish with various grit sand papers and finish with rubbing compounds. Much cheaper than reslabbing. >>
I agree. But it doesn't take an elephant gun. Just a little plastic polish and elbow grease.
Lance.