Ouch, this musta hurt.
GoldenEyeNumismatics
Posts: 13,187 ✭✭✭
I was at a show recently, talking to a guy who had recently purchased a pair of better date Morgans. A 93-CC and a 86-O, both in upper AU. He's a very respectable guy, but these two coins were in WCG holders, both as MS65 (and they were OBVIOUSLY AU). I asked him the price and he gave me the standard price for AU58's.
I asked him why he had the coins in WCG holders. He responded saying that that was how he bought them. Who'd he get them from? I asked. Unfortunately, it was a little old lady that was not aware of the difference between WCG and a TPG, and therefore paid $200,000 for the pair. The dealer bought the two from the old lady for $3,000.
Poor, poor woman
I asked him why he had the coins in WCG holders. He responded saying that that was how he bought them. Who'd he get them from? I asked. Unfortunately, it was a little old lady that was not aware of the difference between WCG and a TPG, and therefore paid $200,000 for the pair. The dealer bought the two from the old lady for $3,000.
Poor, poor woman
0
Comments
[Edit to add: I would love to know who the scumbag "dealer" was who sold these to her for $200K.]
Doggedly collecting coins of the Central American Republic.
Visit the Society of US Pattern Collectors at USPatterns.com.
Anyone ever hear if a coin show actually limits coins to raw or "approved" TPG's?
"You Suck Award" - February, 2015
Discoverer of 1919 Mercury Dime DDO - FS-101
Doesn't everybody?
Doggedly collecting coins of the Central American Republic.
Visit the Society of US Pattern Collectors at USPatterns.com.
Stuart
Collect 18th & 19th Century US Type Coins, Silver Dollars, $20 Gold Double Eagles and World Crowns & Talers with High Eye Appeal
"Luck is what happens when Preparation meets Opportunity"
roadrunner
<< <i>Not buying it either... maybe $20,000... and even that would be hard for me to buy... but $200,000??? Nope... BS. >>
Don't believe it if you don't want to, but I guarantee it is true.
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
<< <i>Sorry, but I don't buy the l'il old lady story and $200K.
roadrunner >>
<< <i>And Coin Dealers have to wonder why they have a poor image with the public?
I couldnt live with myself knowin that I SCREWED over a little old lady like that.......
Frickin Dealers.....Thats why I stick to Ebay and fellow board members.......
TorinoCobra71
If you've ever had a freiend or family member living alone and dealing with these scammers you'll come to understand it. I have a freind who was living alone in MO, my high school physics teacher. He was retired and set to live the rest of his life out in his family home. A few pain pills to dull his mind (or the age may have done it by itself) and a couple of scam phone calls and he's now penniless in a rest home. I never saw it coming and by the time the victims come clean with their friends it is years later when the bills pile up and the scammer is gone. The cops have heard it so often they just shake their head.
Edited to add: It's usually not coins, its usually someething truly worthless like scam insurance or paper or just transfer your money into the proper accounts for investing for you.
--Jerry
Yes and then sell them a few months later at a big loss. Sorry-I don't buy this story.
It was right after a certain Stockton coin dealer folded and disappeared in one night. WITH all the customer coins and after having run a long and "successful" TV and in-house "investment advisor" play.
They GUARANTEED the ...greater... of 20% APR or CDN bid. In perpetuity.
Of course with horribly overgraded coins.
My appraisal was the highest at $9,000 and I was stretching. I did not know the cost.
The guy sorta slumped but recovered enuff to tell me I was the HIGH bidder.
He had $240,000 in them.
(incidentally, the subject coin emporium offered me $100 per coin to simply put their stuff in my flips.)
They were such good operators that they even stored bullion .... FOR FREE!!!
Guess where that went when they packed up.
I believe it.
Ain't many who read these forums. Publicwise.
<< <i>Believe it. I appraised a group of coins in 1981 or 2 for a corporate farm who had to have an annual appraisal for accounting purposes for the employee "retirement" fund.
It was right after a certain Stockton coin dealer folded and disappeared in one night. WITH all the customer coins and after having run a long and "successful" TV and in-house "investment advisor" play. >>
Yow. Just because WE have (for the most part) way too much sense and coin savvy to let this happen to us doesn't mean that it can't happen to people who don't know the coin market and get suckered by top-notch salessnakes.
Had a daily show on TV.
I lost many sales as I would not offer 20% per annum to customers.
Had one lady just 3 ....DAYS.... before they left.
She refused to buy my sovereigns at 170 (or so...gold was wild) and paid them 230 because of the guarantee.
Quite a mess in a short time.
They stole a BUNCH.
The "honest" (?) partner searched for the principal for years. Finally wound up dead. He was in the same complex that I was and kept me posted from time to time. He ...thought.... he was getting "close."
Apparently he was.
<< <i>Sorry, but I don't buy the l'il old lady story and $200K.
roadrunner >>
I don't either. How many little old ladies have $200thou laying around the house?
<< <i><< Not buying it either... maybe $20,000... and even that would be hard for me to buy... but $200,000??? Nope... BS. >>
Don't believe it if you don't want to, but I guarantee it is true. >>
The only way you could "guarantee" it's true is if you witnessed the transaction when the little old lady ponied up the $200K for the two coins. Now, you can guarantee it's true that somebody told you a story.
Russ, NCNE
Proof Morgans
MS65 gold
Telemarketed.
Not PCGS slabs.
<< <i>I don't either. How many little old ladies have $200thou laying around the house?
Quite a few. They are not the majority, but they are out there, and in more than tiny numbers. And many of them are widowed and whose husbands made the financial decisions when they were alive -- and who aren't used to making their own financial decisions.
My dad passed away in late 2005. He made all the investment decisions in the house -- not because he was ruling with an iron fist, but because he took an interest in it and my mom trusted him and never cared to learn about it. He left her in control of roughly $500,000 in liquid assets. She knows very little about investing. Fortunately, I do, and any time she has a question about anything related to money, finances, investing or taxes, she calls me and for the most part, she has me to advise her on how to invest wisely and relatively prudently.
I can easily imagine a lot of people out there like her, but perhaps a little more prone to trusting what they hear from people who could sell ice cubes to Eskimos -- and who don't have anyone close to them who can help them manage money.
Having said that, I'm sure a fair number of these stories are apocryphal. But I have ZERO doubt that some of them occurred.
So they do get what they deserve....in a way.
But I would bet that they do NOT have a bunch more stashed away to the point of being another Bill Gates with the coins only being a tiny portion.
I had a lady pawn TWO Mercedeses and lose BOTH and most everything else.
On what?
Sending money to a Filipino PRINCESS who was "unable" to get to the US.
Oldest trick in the book but she fell hook line and sinker.
They will not listen to anyone.
They get a phone call and HOPE they are gonna get a 2000% return on their money like the caller sez.