flea market coin guy story

mcmxi · July 28, 2008 3:10AM

I was coming home from Gulf Shores, AL and stopped at a flea market where there was an older coin guy there. I was looking through a few of the cases while he was looking at some coins for an older lady. I was shocked to hear him tell her to use a pencil eraser to clean up all of the silve coins she had. I quickly looked over and saw that she had a few peace and morgans along with a dozen or so barber halves and quarters. I probably was out of line but when she walked away I followed her out of earshot of the coin guy and asked her to please not to do that. I told her about acetone and that they were probably just fine as is and if they had any value the eraser would ruin it. She told me thanks and left. I returned to the dealer and asked to see a few coiins. They had for the most part all been erasered. That was unfortunate because I found a 1900-O VAM-15a that happened to be one of the worst of the bunch. I didn't say anything to the guy who was probably in his mid 80's about the eraser thing because I figured he would just think I was being rude. Anyways I hope he dosen't tell too many people this way to make their coins pretty..

copperfan · July 28, 2008 3:14AM

Thats a shame.

He thought you wanted nice clean coins for your collection.LOL

AlixTCat · July 28, 2008 3:23AM

I'll never forget my sisters teaching me this method of shining up coins. Luckily we only did it with pocket change, but there could have been something nice in that pocket change, we would not have known. Another method they taught me was lemon juice and salt to shine up "pennies" from our pocket. Again, who knows if I ruined something nice. We thought of it more as a science experiment and not ruining coins.

It's a shame this guy believes this is the way to treat coins. It is a worse shame that he is telling others to do it too. Maybe he'll die before too many nice coins get ruined. However, think of it like this... the more coins that get ruined, the more the coins you hold are going to be worth in the future.

Jonathan

PerryHall · July 28, 2008 4:14AM

Makes you wonder how a coin dealer that's this stupid could have stayed in business. Un-freakin-believable.

ricko · July 28, 2008 5:29AM

He stayed in business because he is selling to the uninformed.... lots of them out there.... Cheers, RickO

SeaEagleCoins · July 28, 2008 5:47AM

I recently had a similar thing happen...

A new collector has come by my table a few times looking for coins to fill a 7070...it came out in conversation that he has been doing business with a B&M somewhere in central NJ...

...seems that the kindly proprietor of this B&M advised this newbie that he should always take warm water and soap...make up a lather and gently rub the coin with this using his fingers...then rinse it under running water and then pat dry the coin with a towel... this would, according to the B&M dealer, remove any dirt, oils and fingerprints from the coin... and he should do this with every coin he buys before putting it in his 7070...

...I have tried EVERY way I can think of to convince this new collector that this was not very good advice he was given... but he refuses to believe me...

...his reasoning is... that he recently bought a toned coin from another dealer at this show where we met... seems that when he did the soap & water trick... the toning came off...

...at this rate I wonder if he will survive his indoctrination into our hobby...

...due to the greed and/or ignorance of many dealers...I wonder how many potential collectors this hobby has lost, that we'll never know or hear about...

nicetoning42107 · July 28, 2008 7:38AM

<< <i>I was coming home from Gulf Shores, AL and stopped at a flea market where there was an older coin guy there. I was looking through a few of the cases while he was looking at some coins for an older lady. I was shocked to hear him tell her to use a pencil eraser to clean up all of the silve coins she had. I quickly looked over and saw that she had a few peace and morgans along with a dozen or so barber halves and quarters. I probably was out of line but when she walked away I followed her out of earshot of the coin guy and asked her to please not to do that. I told her about acetone and that they were probably just fine as is and if they had any value the eraser would ruin it. She told me thanks and left. I returned to the dealer and asked to see a few coiins. They had for the most part all been erasered. That was unfortunate because I found a 1900-O VAM-15a that happened to be one of the worst of the bunch. I didn't say anything to the guy who was probably in his mid 80's about the eraser thing because I figured he would just think I was being rude. Anyways I hope he dosen't tell too many people this way to make their coins pretty.. >>

He thought by smearing an eraser across the surface of the coins, the coins would then be problem free. An erasered coin surely cannot have any mistakes.