Help for trade dollar purchase

coffeyce · July 20, 2008 12:14AM

I have decided to purchase my first trade dollar and dont want to loose my butt. I have had a gentleman offer to sell me the below coin for $99.

I know nothing about trade dollars and wanted to see if the forum had any good advice.

Broadstruck · July 20, 2008 12:17AM

It's HEAVILY HAIRLINES from a TORTUROUS CLEANING... maybe a Brilo pad

The price seems fair, but I'd rather collect $100 Bills then collect $100 T$ that are beat!

Tyler1924S · July 20, 2008 12:31AM

<< <i>I have decided to purchase my first trade dollar and dont want to loose my butt. I have had a gentleman offer to sell me the below coin for $99.

I know nothing about trade dollars and wanted to see if the forum had any good advice. >>

It has over 7 days left on ebay. $99.00 is the starting bid. It looks like someone used a wire brush on it.

TomB · July 20, 2008 12:32AM

If you think the coin looks problem-free to your eyes then I would suggest you immediately stop buying coins and learn quite a bit more because if you don't you may end up with terrific losses when you sell.

ebaytrader · July 20, 2008 12:35AM

<< <i>If you think the coin looks problem-free to your eyes then I would suggest you immediately stop buying coins and learn quite a bit more because if you don't you may end up with terrific losses when you sell. >>

Sage advice.

greghansen · July 20, 2008 12:56AM

With a little patience and perserverance you can find a nice original VF coin for very near that price. I would advise you not to give the current coin any consideration. It is an exceptionally ugly Trade Dollar IMO. If your looking for a type piece, you will be well served to buy an origianl trouble free VF-XF coin, and it will hold it's value quite easily.

copperfan · July 20, 2008 12:58AM

Pass. Some wonderful advice so far from some posters whose advice is usually spot on.

291fifth · July 20, 2008 12:59AM

Pass!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Broadstruck · July 20, 2008 1:01AM

There's no Free Lunch in Numismatics... just look at the auction to have Lunch with Jim of Heritage!

copperfan · July 20, 2008 1:05AM

for you Broadstruck.

Musky1011 · July 20, 2008 1:08AM

pass on it

I just purchased a nice VF35 from leeg1957 a forum member on ebay

he cracked it out of a pcgs slab and had it in his 7070 type set

For a price of $96.95 shipped
with 7 day return

I don't know how to link to auction

lkenefic · July 20, 2008 1:20AM

I agree with the above posters.... along TomB's advice, I'd take at least part of that $99 and buy an ANA grading guide. There's a nice section devoted to detecting cleaned and counterfeit coins. L

AUandAG · July 20, 2008 2:33AM

Please don't ever consider a damaged coin for your collection (unless it is unique or extemely rare).
This TD is not worth the opeing bid as the others have said. Those parallel scratches indicate that
the coin has been HARSHLY cleaned and thus it's value diminished greatly. Perhaps to the point of
melt value in my opinion.

Look for another.

bob

robkool · July 20, 2008 2:37AM

You defintely could find a nicer one & uncleaned T$ for a little more money...

ricko · July 20, 2008 2:41AM

Just affirming the majority opinion... a harshly cleaned coin... and not worth anything above melt. Cheers, RickO

coffeyce · July 20, 2008 3:03AM

well i could tell it wasnt prime condition but wanted to make sure I wasnt passing anything up due to the age and/or rareity of the coins. I have relativly no experience with trade dollars.

thanks for the help.

crypto79 · July 20, 2008 3:12AM

<< <i>I have decided to purchase my first trade dollar and dont want to loose my butt. I have had a gentleman offer to sell me the below coin for $99.

I know nothing about trade dollars and wanted to see if the forum had any good advice. >>

Hell if you don't mind a Trade dollar that had a ruff life for around $100, I have a 76cc Doubled die closing on ebay today. At least it's a cool mint and error
1876 cc DDR

MFH · July 20, 2008 3:22AM

<< <i>Just affirming the majority opinion... a harshly cleaned coin... and not worth anything above melt. Cheers, RickO >>

That sums it up nicely

adamlaneus · July 20, 2008 3:34AM

That is a scary coin. It will have a history of unfortunate owners.

One thing that i've found that works for me when purchasing a coin in a series I know little about...this is advice from the ignorant, so I suspect that professional graders will cringe...

Watch the auctions go by for two or three weeks before you do anything. For each coin you see go by, remember the following:
What was its assigned grade? What was the company doing the grading? What was the sales price?
What did you feel about the coins? Did you like the toning? Too dark? Too light? How did you feel about the luster? Was it damaged?
At first, your opinions will be vague, yet still valuable.
Later, as you have seen many, you will develop a sense of the usual condition of this coin as well as how they look when 'nice to your eye'.
Before long, you will develop a sense of "wow, that looks good for a 30" or "that 58 sure is on the worn side". They may not be professional grading-accurate answers, but they are true to you.
And assessing carefully how you feel about the coins is key to keeping you happy with your purchase over the long run.

This trade dollar was attacked by a green scrubby pad. It's one of the things you need to learn to avoid.

zeus135 · July 20, 2008 3:38AM

Pass on it. I suggest you advertise you're looking for one on the BST board.

Arizonadesertrat · July 20, 2008 3:59AM

Coffeyce,

All of the above comments are good advice. The initial post about the trade dollar indicates a lack of understanding of grading/surface evaluation in general---I say this because the problem with the trade dollar is glaring even to collectors who don't own one. Buying any coins (or collectibles, more generally) is never smart if you don't have a reasonable amount of knowledge. The current owner of the trade dollar is simply looking to dump a 'problem coin' on a numismatic neophyte.

Spend the $99 on books instead, and read them carefully. Three that come to my mind are: "The Official Guide to Coin Grading and Counterfeit Detection," The Coin Collector's Survival Manual," and "The Expert's Guide to Collecting and Investing in Rare Coins." All three can be purchased for less that the cost of the trade dollar.

Buying raw coins is a fool's game if you don't know what you are doing. Until you are up to speed, you would be much better off if you stick to PCGS/NGC graded coins (and even then, there are lots of these floating around that are not decent coins for their grades). If there are coin shops nearby, make an effort to get to know the dealers and then determine if one or more of them is trustworthy. Like coins, superb dealers are few and far between. The good dealers will take beginning collectors under their wings and show them examples of 'problem coins', and selections of coins in various grades. Learning to expertly evaluate coins is impossible unless you physically see LOTS of coins in hand.

If you still are hankering for a trade dollar, be sure to stay away from ebay.

Good luck.

Help for trade dollar purchase

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