Buyer Beware, The Flim Flam Man is alive and well on eBay.

There has been a lot of talk in the Journals lately about great buys on eBay. While this may be true for the knowledgeable collector eBay can be a dangerous market place for the novice or overly trusting.

In my area of collecting, US/Philippine coins, some of the claims of rarity and asking prices are borderline criminal.

For example one of the current eBay listings is a 1944 D Ten Centavos in NGC MS62 which is listed at a starting bid of $825.00. The coin is described as "NGC GRADED Rare Tuff Grade in MINT STATE MS62"

There is certainly nothing rare about the 1944 D Ten Centavos. 32,592,000 1944 D Ten Centavos were minted and BU rolls are readily available, at a modest cost, from dealers that specialize in U.S. Philippine coins. The only thing tough about finding a 1944 D Ten Centavos in MS62 is that nobody in their right mind would submit anything short of a GEM of this common coin to a third party grading service. According to the NGC population census a grade of MS62 would place this coin in the bottom 11% of NGC Certified 1944 D Ten Centavos.

In addition to the misleading description of this as a rare coin the $825.00 asking price is off the wall. The Allen catalog price for a 1944 D Ten Centavos is $3.50 in MS63 and $15.00 in MS65. I have a 1944 D Ten Centavos in the NGC Top Grade of MS66 that I purchased for $56.10. In reality a 1944 D Ten Centavos in NGC MS 62 is a five dollar coin in a twenty-five dollar holder.

Of course there is nothing wrong with a seller listing a common low value certified coin on eBay as long as the coin is not presented as rare and the asking price is at least close to fair market value. I phoned eBay this evening to discuss the ethics of this misleading listing. eBay customer service informed me that as long as the coin in question was as genuine NGC certified 1944 D Ten Centavos the seller did not violate eBay guidelines.

So BUYER BEWARE!!!

The coin pictured is my NGC MS66 1944 D Ten Centavos.

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