Brief trip to the local coin shop

[Weidel Legacy Collection]

I had a few minutes to kill this morning in between running errands, so I decided to duck into the local coin shop and look through their '50's - '60's proof sets.

 

I've been pretty fortunate in that they seem to get a number of sets through their shop on a regular basis and they've let me look through whatever they have every time. I've scored quite a few CAM and DCAM examples that have been slabbed by NGC. Today was another great day.

 

The lady I talked with (I think it was the owner's wife) opened a drawer and started pulling out one example for each date. I told her to just pull everything out as I wanted to look at all of them. All they had this time were early sets from the '60's with one SMS set. The first 3 or 4 were nothing special, but the 1960 (marked SD - Small Date - on the envelope) had a beautiful cameo half and spotless cent - so I set it aside. I went through about 20 more when I came to the last 5 - all were unopened 1961 sets! She remarked that it was pretty surprising that they were so old and still hadn't been opened yet. So, with my heart beating madly, I opened each one.

 

What did I find...nothing. But the free opportunity to look at sealed proof sets sure was fun. Sure, I felt guilty as hell opening those sets, but if she was going to let me, then I was going to do it - and we chatted while I opened them and looked at the contents with a glass. Being a nice guy, I added the nicest '61 set to the '60 and told her I'd take those two sets as I was running out of time.

 

The perfect end to my shopping experience: she charged me the Large Date CDN price for the '1960 set!

 

With the half out of the celephane it sure looks like a nice PF67 or 68 CAM, so its been added to my next pile of NGC submissions. The small date cent has a very nice shot at PF68 as its a nice clean example, so I'll probably send it in as well.

[Wihlborg]

Congrats! That half sounds great.

 

Good luck with the grades.

 

John

[Merc]

Sounds like fun. I don't go to my local dealer anymore since he tried to sell me an overgraded walker for $800. Looks like you have better luck.

[braddick]

Sounds like you had a great time. Nice hits too. My only question: did the woman who sold you the sets ring up the 60 Small Date as a Large Date on purpose- to give you a break in price- or on accident, looking up the sheet price and quoting the wrong one?

[Wihlborg]

RWW,

 

I have been thinking about your post and I wanted to add something that I did not think to put into my fist reply.

 

I just want to say that you are very lucky to have an honest local coin shop available for you to stop into when ever you have the time.

 

There are no true coin shops in my local area. There is one coin shop that I like very much about 60 miles away, but because of the distance and hassle of the traffic I don’t get there as often as I would if they were closer.

 

There is a lot to be said for a local coin shop where you can go and talk to a dealer who knows you.

 

You can look at coins that you may not be interested in at the time, but because you had the opportunely to see them they spark your interest.

 

You may stop by because you had nothing else to do, and wind up finding a little gem sitting in his case that you can’t live without.

 

It’s a shame that it seems there are fewer and fewer true coin shops every year.

 

John

[Weidel Legacy Collection]

Pat -

I don't know if she gave me the break on the '60-SD set on purpose or not. Its not like I bought a lot this time, and if she didn't look at the SD notation on the proof envelope she could easily have missed it. I know from talking with the owner (and the owner's mom!) that they turn proof sets over very quickly to wholesalers, so its very possible that she didn't know there is a difference. Regardless, I'm very happy with the results

 

John -

You are absolutely right about that - the convience of having a local shop within 10-15 minutes is tough to beat.

 

I'll admit that a lot of the coins they have are over-graded, but if you have a decent eye for the series you collect there are great opportunities. After looking at proofs I had about 10 minutes to look at the Jeff's he had in his display case to see what chances I had of scoring a full-step War nickel. They were all horribly over-graded and I gave up after looking at about 10 of the highest graded nickels he had.

[Hoot]

Roger - your trip sounds like fun and you are quite lucky to have gotten to open those sets. I have never had the opportunity to open such sets without buying them, as the dealers I've encountered say that there is a unique market in those unopened sets. Go figure - buying packages with coins, not coins. Talk about buying the holder and not the coin.

 

I also had a nice day yesterday at the local shop. Picked up 2 raw MS67 wartime nickels, one with 6 FS (a '44-D). I also picked up several MS66 and 65 pieces of various dates (some with >5 FS), including a very pretty 1938-S. Also grabbed an MS65 1916 that was graded 64 and a nice AU58 1929-S walker. All raw, the way I like to buy.

 

Isn't it a blast to go to the coin store? John - I'm sorry to hear you don't have a local shop! I'm pretty lucky to have a local shop, let alone such an excellent one (Williams Gallery). Montana in general, is not a place of great coin stores!

 

Hoot

[Tradedollarnut]

I'm a bit surprised at your actions. The lady went out of her way to allow you to view their items. She even naively allowed you to destroy value by opening 5 sealed sets in your quest to cherry pick them. And you respond by ripping the shop off by knowingly underpaying for the small date set?

 

It's one thing if the set wasn't marked and you cherrypicked it, it's quite another when it's marked and you allow her to misprice it. You should have informed her of her mistake and allowed her to price it correctly. After all, if the shop owner sees what happened upon reviewing the sales invoice, then your days of looking thru their sets are over. You should go back in and offer to pay the difference.... JMHO.

[Weidel Legacy Collection]

You know TDN, on hindsight, you are 100% correct.

 

I've always taught my kids to be honest in their transactions with other people/businesses, and the results of what I did are hypocritical. It would have been different if the set hadn't been labeled, but it was and I knew better.

 

So, when I get back from this week's business adventure on the road, I will be doing exactly as you suggest. I'll put a coda onto the end of this after I go back and talk with them...probably on Friday.

 

Thanks for your well-reasoned response and for not raking me over the coals...for what its worth, I've been thinking about this deal since I posted what happened, and wasn't too proud of how I behaved.

[Tradedollarnut]

[TomB]

To all involved.