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Invoice on overpriced Walkers
logger7
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A dealer showed me this invoice from 40 years ago that came in to his shop with some cleaned Walkers in a display case today.
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No charge for the deluxe holder, no charge for shipping ??
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Just wow!
Brutal. These business practices definitely harm the reputation of the hobby.
There were (still are) a lot of coin boiler rooms on Long Island.
ANA 50+ year/Life Member (now "Emeritus")
Author: 3rd Edition of the SampleSlabs book, https://sampleslabs.info/
And stock boiler rooms like the movie of the same name. From the frying pan into the fire.
That's why I collected stamps instead of coins back then.
Just wait until buyers of the TV hucksters try to sell their coins in a few years. They will be in for a surprise.
Yikes!
That kind of money could’ve bought some real good coins back in 1986.
That is sad.
Interesting - Wonder what his profit on that deal was? Keystone markup.
Just playing Devil's Advocate a bit here, but do we know for certain that in the near four-decades since the invoice that these are the actual coins that were sold and shipped? Might they have been either switched out or even cleaned by their owner in the intervening years?
In honor of the memory of Cpl. Michael E. Thompson
This industry is loaded with crooks/unscrupulous humans... has been for ever
Money involved there will always be victims and criminals.
I was thinking the same thing. If course it’s just as likely the buyer got scre***d
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Wow! That was a bad one. I always tell people today, never buy coins rom the TV. They are not the investment, they are touted to be.
Not a Reasonable Invoice , or Never Recouping Investment ... sheeeeesh!
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Even if the coins had been gem P mint Walkers would have been worth a fraction of that. Oops, it does say "MS65" on the invoice, even so. I dealt with a different boiler room on Long Island in the 90s "Numisgroup" which sold raw coins as of a high grade (which they weren't). Wall Street Journal page 2 loss leader ad. A number of the people went to jail.
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All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
Ouch!! Could’ve bought key dates with that money instead!! Back when people had to know how to grade in order to survive, As TPGS Were just starting to appear on the horizon.
Sometimes, it’s better to be LUCKY than good. 🍀 🍺👍
My Full Walker Registry Set (1916-1947):
https://www.ngccoin.com/registry/competitive-sets/16292/
$2000 then is like $5700 now.
More likely.
Any chance those coins grade ms67 now?
They were all cleaned. And why would someone switch out bad coins for good ones?
People do it all the time in Mint or proof sets, for example. People have even pulled it off in slabs.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
There were some crazy high prices back then for gem common coins. Owners would still be buried. No telling what those coins looked like when they were sold. They may have been cleaned by the owner along the line.
You’re right. They currently would be worth a fraction, maybe even back then.
But the market prices back then could have been more in line with the invoice.
The book A Mercenary’s Guide to the Rare Coin Market was written in 1987 and the prices for common Morgan’s discussed in the book were 5x what they currently are. And more.
Assuming the coins were actually gem and the owner cleaned them.
Anyone have a Greysheet from 1986?
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Wow. The person that sold them should be in prison.
Ive seen similar type invoices come in shop from companies on various type , silver dollars etc, where the person paid exorbant prices for misrepresented stuff.
I might add, one of those might have been this same company as name rings a bell
That is like 8 million dollars inflation adjusted.
If put in the S&P with dividend reinvestment the $2150 would be worth over $120,000.
Ms65 walkers in the 80's were trading at $500 at one point perhaps... i dont have a sheet- but Ive heard the stories
Just checked an April 1986 Greysheet and the 1941 to 1945 P mints in MS-65 were bid $425 each (MS-63 at $95 with no MS-64 column). Jumped to $450 in May.
The most I recall getting was between $200 to $300 to dealers or auctions for a very few. These prices and bids were for raw coins. I think they went up further at first as PCGS coins became available. They had just started in early 1986.
As far as the coins in the OP, I suspect they were sold that way. While not impossible that the new owner cleaned them, they were not as likely to tone in that type of holder giving them a "reason" to do so.
Add in the fact of seeing bad stuff like this at time and since, it seems likely that's how the company made its money.
"To Be Esteemed Be Useful" - 1792 Birch Cent --- "I personally think we developed language because of our deep need to complain." - Lily Tomlin
As it has been, so it will be if the TV coin hucksters of today continue with their deceitful ways. They were hawking date run of like 20 or 25 1970's or newer SMS Government Mint Sets at 1K and the guru chief huckster lets it slide in there that 'the coin dealers buy them this way so they can break out the coins and sell them individually for 3x's the $ we're asking for today', hahahah
An interesting snippet of history. Education is key in 2025, just as it was in 1986, 1947, 1908 and beyond.
I was just getting “serious” with collecting walkers around 1986 or so. It didn’t take long to realize gem late date walkers were both abundant and overpriced, relative to the legitimately scarce early dates. Yes the short set of late dates was popular, but with mint state rolls still turning up, it seemed crazy to be paying ~$500 for these, when I could get the early dates in XF/AU for the same money.
Buyer beware and do your homework. I remember that craziness back in the late 80’s, early 90’s when the “Wall Street “ investors pushed prices to the Stratosphere. I waited until 2001 and purchased this raw short set of gems for $650. which I thought was reasonable at the time. I unfortunately didn’t buy the other 2 set of comparable quality.
Yes. Investment groups drove crazy valuations in the late 1980s although 1986 is before the peak. Gem Walkers and Gem Morgans along with classic commems were probably the worst.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
Super big picture overview. Sobering isn’t it.?
Many lost money went bankrupt (cc debt) during that peak period. What I really liked after the crash (newbie set up on the bourse) was I could buy material I could not have previously afforded.
If you look at the period after the crash reached bottom it hasn’t done much has it? Just work your angle, buy low / sell high. Don’t let them talk you down (bourse room hustlers).