Your final statement/opinion....about the "Hot" toned coin topic
Manorcourtman
Posts: 8,186 ✭✭✭✭✭
Only one per person no exceptions........after numerous threads......what is your final opinion? I think these boards finally outed a true "Coin Doctor." I always wondered what a "Coin Doctor" was but is this what the coin "posse" is looking for?
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Since I get only one post, I'll say it again. Watch the auctions. Watch the inventories. If you can't tell who is messing with coins, you just aren't watching closely enough.
Oops! Should have thought of something better to say...
Doggedly collecting coins of the Central American Republic.
Visit the Society of US Pattern Collectors at USPatterns.com.
Not only are some of the biggest coin doctors some of the most respected people in the biz but you're never going to even put a small dent in the AT coin business. There's too much money in it, there's too many people who are experts at it and their best work.....
WILL NEVER EVEN COME CLOSE TO BEING DETECTED.
Coin doctoring has been around for a very long time and it's not going to change.
I know of an early American coin on a web site this very moment offered for $225,000 that I have seen in hand which not only looks AT to me (and I'm not known to scream "AT!" at the drop of a hat), which has been described by Brandon as AT (not also another person prone to calling every coin AT) and which was brought to me by a Senior VP Numismatist (his title at the large company he works for) for the purpose of showing me a quarter of a million dollar AT coin in a non-third world holder.
I have seen a 1796 Quarter in a non-third world MS 65 holder that was to me clearly AT.
So, if there are guys who have no problem ATing coins that are worth 100K plus, their proteges are right behind them ATing coins of lesser value.
It isn't going to change because one small time coin doctor has been outed on a coin forum.
PCGS needs to step up and admit there is a problem, and their holder design is faulty. PCGS needs to at least reholder all early style holders at no cost to the coin owners, and weed out those submitted for reholder that PCGS now determines to be AT. This will not solve the problem of reholdered AT coins, but it is a start. For what PCGS charges for grading, they should be held accountable for damages due to AT being done while a coin is in their defective holders.
NGC is likely celebrating big time since this CU topic was brought to light.
<< <i>My final opinion: this will not be final. >>
I agree with the wannabe Chinaman!!
Apropos of the coin posse/aka caca: "The longer he spoke of his honor, the tighter I held to my purse."
Big stink over a little fish. The professional docs (and their clients) are laughing their as.es off all the way to the bank.
collections: Maryland related coins & exonumia, 7070 Type set, and Video Arcade Tokens.
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-Amanda
I'm a YN working on a type set!
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<< <i>Who are the professional docs? Why do people keep referring to them so vaugely? >>
Amanda, I hear many prominent and respected names "whispering" about this. My guess, which I said earlier today in THAT thread (I think it was THAT thread), is that they know that outing some really big names as coin doctors would have such an adverse effect on the entire industry that their own businesses would suffer greatly. So in some sense they are looking out for their own businesses by keeping their piehole shut.
<< <i>Who are the professional docs? Why do people keep referring to them so vaugely? >>
As you just found out they can be almost anyone. Sorry for the cheat post; I know my limit is ONE.
<< <i>
<< <i>Who are the professional docs? Why do people keep referring to them so vaugely? >>
Amanda, I hear many prominent and respected names "whispering" about this. My guess, which I said earlier today in THAT thread (I think it was THAT thread), is that they know that outing some really big names as coin doctors would have such an adverse effect on the entire industry that their own businesses would suffer greatly. So in some sense they are looking out for their own businesses by keeping their piehole shut. >>
Well said. So, the next time someone or someones say they are working to improve the integrity of the coin dealer world, say like the Coin Posse, our first question should be "how about outing the coin doctors and their methods? We understand you know who and how."
Apropos of the coin posse/aka caca: "The longer he spoke of his honor, the tighter I held to my purse."
<< <i>
<< <i>Who are the professional docs? Why do people keep referring to them so vaugely? >>
Amanda, I hear many prominent and respected names "whispering" about this. My guess, which I said earlier today in THAT thread (I think it was THAT thread), is that they know that outing some really big names as coin doctors would have such an adverse effect on the entire industry that their own businesses would suffer greatly. So in some sense they are looking out for their own businesses by keeping their piehole shut. >>
Well sure their businesses would suffer greatly. The whole hobby would suffer greatly for a while, but the market would balence out. Eventually.
In my little world, the people damaging the coins for profit are damaging the hobby and should be revealed.
The hobby is suffering now. The people that do this to coins on a professional scale need to be brought into the public consciousness.
Then perhaps we can begin to heal.
-Amanda
I'm a YN working on a type set!
My Buffalo Nickel Website Home of the Quirky Buffaloes Collection!
Proud member of the CUFYNA
Let's see LOTS more of it.
If the hobby convulses, so be it. It'll blow up some day in our faces anyway. Then, we'll remember this period years hence as the Era of the Coin Doctors, when (if?) the hobby figures out how to police this stuff, and recovers.
Here's a warning parable for coin collectors...
I wonder how loud the coin doctor would yell for justice???
How loud he would yell that there was a cover-up???
How he would look toward the other cops just standing by silently???
What he would think about those cops not willing to help???
I wonder who he would look down at the most- the offending cop or the other cops not willing to help???
Would he believe that the other cops were not just as guilty by default???
Didn't we lose a president who didn't realize that the cover up can be worse than the crime???
I wonder how those other cops feel right now???
Can ya feel it????
This revelation changes nothing! The hobby is the same as it was three weeks ago when that 1904-O Dollar was white. More silver coins with "one in a million" color will pour into the market and people will buy them. Mintmarks will be added to 1909 VDB Cents and removed from 1895 Dollars just as they have always been. People will continue to think they are getting real Morgans from eBay sellers in China for $2.50 each and they will search their pocket change for 1943 copper cents as they cherish their "platinum" plated State Quarters.
One guy, and a nice guy at that, has been ruined (or more to the point ruined himself) by this. Some of his customers may feel the burn and I am sure the three major grading services will be watching intently, but for most of us life will go on as it always has.
WNC Coins, LLC
1987-C Hendersonville Road
Asheville, NC 28803
wnccoins.com
<< <i>When buying a real nicely toned coin slabbed or not, actually LOOK at the COIN!!!
Crazy talk!
WNC Coins, LLC
1987-C Hendersonville Road
Asheville, NC 28803
wnccoins.com
<< <i>Final Statement:
This revelation changes nothing!
.....Snip.......
One guy, and a nice guy at that, has been ruined (or more to the point ruined himself) by this. Some of his customers may feel the burn and I am sure the three major grading services will be watching intently, but for most of us life will go on as it always has. >>
Apathetic?
Didn't wanna get me no trade
Never want to be like papa
Working for the boss every night and day
--"Happy", by the Rolling Stones (1972)
<< <i>I wonder what would happen if a cop hurt a "prominent well respected" coin doctors child, and all the other cops that knew about it kept their mouths closed and never let the "bad cop" come to justice.
I wonder how loud the coin doctor would yell for justice???
How loud he would yell that there was a cover-up???
How he would look toward the other cops just standing by silently???
What he would think about those cops not willing to help???
I wonder who he would look down at the most- the offending cop or the other cops not willing to help???
Would he believe that the other cops were not just as guilty by default???
Didn't we lose a president who didn't realize that the cover up can be worse than the crime???
I wonder how those other cops feel right now???
Can ya feel it???? >>
Hey JRocco... great post. Very diplomatic, well thought out. That's what they like around here. But would I be correct to understand and substitute your referring to cops as Dealers? And to give it the stman traslation..... there's a bunch of slime out there that act like our friends?
I know, I know, they're just looking after OUR best interest.
<< <i>Apathetic? >>
Duh!
WNC Coins, LLC
1987-C Hendersonville Road
Asheville, NC 28803
wnccoins.com
<< <i>
<< <i>I wonder what would happen if a cop hurt a "prominent well respected" coin doctors child, and all the other cops that knew about it kept their mouths closed and never let the "bad cop" come to justice.
I wonder how loud the coin doctor would yell for justice???
How loud he would yell that there was a cover-up???
How he would look toward the other cops just standing by silently???
What he would think about those cops not willing to help???
I wonder who he would look down at the most- the offending cop or the other cops not willing to help???
Would he believe that the other cops were not just as guilty by default???
Didn't we lose a president who didn't realize that the cover up can be worse than the crime???
I wonder how those other cops feel right now???
Can ya feel it???? >>
Hey JRocco... great post. Very diplomatic, well thought out. That's what they like around here. But would I be correct to understand and substitute your referring to cops as Dealers? And to give it the stman traslation..... there's a bunch of slime out there that act like our friends?
I know, I know, they're just looking after OUR best interest. >>
Watch it, stman, the Lt is gonna take shot at you.
Check out my current listings: https://ebay.com/sch/khunt/m.html?_ipg=200&_sop=12&_rdc=1
<< <i> And nobody will know what is AT and what isn't, no matter what they may claim. >>
clw - you've hit the nail on the head. How can anybody determine something that hasn't ever been agreed upon definitively and never will be? Is Taco Bell napkin toning NT?...if not, how about original tab toning from a different type of paper holder?....if that's OK, how about a coin that was placed in an envelope decades ago and forgotten, only to tumble out in shades of brown, green and magenta? Get's a little trickier the farther you take the examples.
- PCGS, NGC, and the other TPGs are placed in a tenuous situation of having to draw that line in the sand where they 'deem' a coin to be AT, using their best educated guess. If they have sources for toned coins that have proved to be somewhat reliable in the past, I would expect that those submitters get the benefit of the doubt.
- MOC was only responding to the demands of the marketplace right now - people want coins with color - he just was incredibly careless ( substitute stupid) and afterwards dishonest, therefore exposed. The righteousness and indignance expressed by some makes me LMAO! As many others have related we ALL have AT coins in slabs (and there they will stay!) - does that make them any less enjoyable?
- To those who have been squawking about the damage done to the coins as well as the hobby, I would ask what is the purpose of NCS? Aren't they making a business out of doctoring coins? I called them once and asked just what they did to a coin to 'improve' (or rather, "conserve", sorry!) it, and I was laughed at, and told that those sorts of things can't be divulged! Don't they change the original sand and salt-water imparted finish on the coins from various shipwrecks? Doesn't nearly any coin that has been involved in a change of ownership become susceptible to changes in the cherished 'molecular integrity' of the surface, whether by a change of environment, exposure to moisture or daylight, storage methods, etc? And what about hobo nickels and counterstamped coin collectors - because of the terrible fate that befell those coins, they now have something to collect!
- As to those who look down at the collectors of 'more recently minted coins' ("Modern Crap") - the collectors of more current Kennedy halves, Sacs, SHQs, etc., can all make sure that their collections are original by pulling coins from mint bags, rolls, and unc/proof sets. Can ANY of the classic coin collectors say with 100% accuracy just where their coins have been? I would think that the number of 80-100+ year old coins with a verifiable provenance is so miniscule that it's negligible. Nobody knows what an owner did to his coins back (or before) the turn of the century (think King Farouk). However, I can say with 100% certainty that the SHQs in my collection are all original surface coins, for whatever that is worth.
- With the alleged prominent, professional coin doctors operating with the blessings of the TPGs, I look at this episode as a tempest in a teapot - small potatos compared to what evidently goes on in the industry. It's sort of like when you found out for the first time that there was no tooth fairy...we've all gotten over that, right? Didya really ever believe it?
- My personal motto of collecting is: if I'm gonna keep it, I crack it: if I'm gonna sell it, I slab it. Pretty much the way most collectors operate, I would think. I've withheld my thoughts on the entire fiasco until I could spend some time chewing on the matter at hand, the state of the hobby, the responses that I read, and the facts as I know them to be. There it is - my one and only response on the matter....I'll step down now.
Chuck
every treasure on Earth
to be young at heart?
And as rich as you are,
it's much better by far,
to be young at heart!
z
<< <i>Who are the professional docs? Why do people keep referring to them so vaugely?
-Amanda >>
"How much money do you make doctoring coins a year? The answer, over a half million dollars last year."
The reason people talk so vaguely and don't name names is because they are afraid that they will get beat up. Physically!
The quote is from an article written by Bob Campbell titled The Price of Color. It appeared in the July 14, 2006 CDN Monthly Supplement. If you haven't read it, do it!
Jerry
At the top of the food chain, expert dealers and pro graders that look at coins every single day are sometimes fooled by the top coin doctors. The average collector is less informed and looks at far fewer coins so has less of a chance. A novice will have almost no chance until he/she puts in some time looking at coins. It is often not a black and white issue, many times even top experts will say something like 80% chance of being original or 50% chance, or 20% chance. Keep in mind that the coin doctors are refining their arts each day, so what used to be good information and good diagnostics may be out of date.
Trust no one. Every one is a suspect. If a person were writing a mystery novel, who would make the most interesting and nefarious coin doctor? Think along those lines and it becomes scary. Use common sense and logic. Stay objective--don't let a monetary or time investment cloud your thinking.
Keep things in perspective. In the big wide world some expensive coins being fooled with are a minor, minor issue. This board is only read by maybe 3% of U. S. coin collectors. Someone outside of the hobby probably would not even be interested unless they collected something where similar monkey business goes on. Non collectors probably would start yawning if you tried to tell them the story in any detail.
Enjoy the hobby. Buy coins with discretionary money.
To ManoCoins.......I have to say that while I abhor your attempts to manipulate the coins so many of us have such great passion for.........It is apparent that when faced with the evidence of your cheating, you chose to acknowledge what you had done, rather than just cut and run..........It is clear that you have the "stuff" of a gentleman, not the cowardice of a charlatan.....
So may I suggest that before we convene the "Toned Sky is Falling Conference 2006", we collectors take into account that the hobby has sufferred set backs considerably more threatening than this, and yet remains the most popular hobby in the world.....
and Finally to ManoCoins, may I suggest that you contact David Hall and discuss with him to best way to utilize your knowledge in protecting future collectors from altered coins. Such a service will ease your conscience, serve your fellow numismatists, and remind people (and you) that you still have within you the integrity you are noted for.
Maybe its time for you to spend more time with the fruits and nuts on the Open Forum.....If we cant drive you to insanity no one can.......
In closing, two things to remember.....................................
1. Theres nothing you've done they dont already have a name for....................Your not the first, you wont be the last
2. Let him without sin cast the first stone......few of us could stand the test (just ask me about the wife and the Royal Marine)
Thank you, I have been wanting to share that for a couple of days
Check out my current listings: https://ebay.com/sch/khunt/m.html?_ipg=200&_sop=12&_rdc=1
I didn't think the whole MANOFCOINS fiasco would affect me. I was wrong; it has affected me.
After looking at the coin offerings on eBay and other websites tonight, my first in-depth viewing since the news broke, I find myself pained, saddened, and hollow inside as I look at coins that two days ago, would've made my heart beat fast with pleasure.
Call me naive if you wish, or even a bit too introspective on this issue, but I am deeply saddened at the realization that my passion and wonder for certain types of coins has been tainted. Even though I knew coin doctors existed, and even though I can recognize pretty well an AT coin from a NT coin, or dipped skin from original skin, my joy has still been affected.
Some of you on the forum know that I am a pharmacist by profession. Ethics in pharmacy is based entirely on acting in good faith for the patient. A few years back, some may recall that there was a pharmacist in Kansas City who diluted his patients' injectable cancer medications just to make extra money, millions in fact. Ultimately, he got caught. He was the worst villain the profession of pharmacy has ever known as many people died in a prolonged and painful manner because of his actions. It may sound extreme, but I see a parallel with manofcoins actions in the profession of numismatics. Although he didn't kill people for money like the pharmacist did, he did hurt coin collectors and coin dealers alike. Just as the public's trust in Pharmacists and the profession of Pharmacy was shaken, so too can manofcoins actions shake the very foundation of public trust in coin dealers and in the profession of Numismatics. The damage may be irreparable. Toned coins may take a tank and honest dealers and unsuspecting collectors may feel the real hurt in the end.
I am surprised that I find myself affected as much as I am. I hope he hasn't permanently dimmed the light that was my joy, my serenity, my sense of wonder, my fascination, and my connection to my youth from collecting. I know that's a heavy heap to throw onto one person's actions, but the fact is that he is the first coin doctor to get caught publicly and as a result, admit his deception. For me, he got caught, he lied about it, and then he ultimately came clean in my home, while I was reading a thread on a forum that I enjoy with all of my defenses down. It hurt to watch it unfold.
To Ira Stein and Laura Sperber, and all of those of you who choose not to forgive him, I salute you. Personal and spiritual redemption is for a higher power to decide, not the forum. Time to move on manofcoins and say goodbye. Closure within the circle of the forum would be helpful.
We all have made mistakes or regretful choices in life. How you choose to pick up the pieces from this and move on will say a lot about your sincerity.
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