What's bad about collectors selling coins to other collectors at coin shows?

[Leothelion]

Here's a topic I have never seen dicussed. Why not? What's all the uproar about? And what are the ramifications if you get caught?

 

Leo

[Wihlborg]

what are the ramifications if you get caught?

 

Death by stoning with Sacagawea Dollars.

 

Seriously, like most things in life there is a right way and a wrong way to sell a coin to another collector at a coin show. For instance, if the two collectors are standing in front of a dealer’s table blocking traffic while they are selling coins to one another, that is a wrong way and a dealer would have every right to be ticked off in my opinion.

 

After all, the dealer has paid to have table space to sell his coins while the collectors have not. It isn’t fair to the dealer to have collectors conducting business essentially in the same space he has paid for.

 

On the other hand, I see nothing wrong with two collectors moving to an unused corner of the room or some other area not being used by dealers to sell a coin or two to each other.

 

John

[michael]

coin conventions are for buying and selling to paid table holders

 

so you cant buy sell or solicit deals either way inside the convention hall

 

have some class or at least ethics and integrity and go outside the convention hall to do/find your deals

 

michael

[TomB]

The replies given are right on target. I will also add one of the bad things for me is that I will generally only sell coins to friends if I don't have a table at a show and, if selling to a friend, I generally either sell at my cost or at some small increment above cost. This really keeps the profit margin low on nice coins.

[Wihlborg]

Michael,

 

Were you referring to me in your post or just making a general statement?

 

John

[Leothelion]

Well, I'll have to admit that I have sold many a coins at coin shows, made contacts and have sold to them. But every once in awhile there's always that dealer who says you can't do that and tells you to go someplace else. From my standpoint, over the years, most dealers seldom carry what I collect. And because I collect a different breed, I seldom buy anything else as I would suppose that other collectors have done the same.

So many dealers have their money tied up in only a few denominations. If I don't see them selling what they have, why the heck should I or anyone else for that matter, buy that stuff. Many of these deallers run their tables like a coffee shop anyway, waiting for someone to drop by and buy something!

Sure they pay for a right to sell but if they're not packing what I'm after, then I had to take other avenues to build my collection. Without collectors these people would be in some other profession so they should show the collector the respect they deserve.

I have taken the time to attend the show, I have bought the raffle tickets and I buy other coins as well beside full strike Jefferson nickels. I pay to park and eat at these shows. I would be willing to pay a discounted fee at what I sell but otherwise the fees are too high and wouldn't help me at all, sorry!

There was a time when I retorted to a pushy dealer and gave him the option to make 20%, he declined saying he didn't deal in that stuff! HELLO! I had told the dealer to buy the coins from my collector friend and I'll buy them from him for 20% more! Perhaps he thought that was silly as he!! but he did pass up a great deal!

 

Leo

[IrishMike]

I don't see anything wrong with meeting up with someone you know at a show and transacting a deal without interupting a dealers business. I saw folks at FUN all over the place doing deals this way. In fact a dealer that shows at my local show was there. We shared a hamburger and the coins we had purchased and I ended up buying one from him. He was there to buy and did not have a table.

 

At this same local show a guy was asked to leave who was offering to sale coins without having gone to the expense and time of setting up a table. I think if you go to a show with the expectations of selling to the dealers perspective clients you are out of line.

[Gunsmoke]

I don't see anything wrong with it. I go to gun shows and collectors walk around with for sale signs attached to their rifles and guns so that other collectors know its for sale. No one complains about it.

 

Frankly, I don't think there is anything unethical about it and I would like to know, for the poster that stated it was, what code of standard it breaks or how it is unmoral?

[Leothelion]

In fact a dealer that shows at my local show was there. We shared a hamburger and the coins we had purchased and I ended up buying one from him. He was there to buy and did not have a table.

 

Yuk! What side of the burger were you eating on?

 

 

At this same local show a guy was asked to leave who was offering to sale coins without having gone to the expense and time of setting up a table.

 

That could of been me!! And if someone would of handed me a table, I wouldn't of mind setting it up.

 

 

I think if you go to a show with the expectations of selling to the dealers perspective clients you are out of line.

 

But you missed my point! These same dealers who take offense at someone stepping on their liberties DON'T CARE TO TAKE THE TIME, MEANS or make an EFFORT in stocking what many collectors collect! Locating a table with certified modern coins from 1970 and up is virtually impossible. Most of the crapp these dealers bring into a show is stuff grandma left the grandkids who in turn, sold so they can buy a pack of smokes! One of the telltale giveaways about some of these grandpa dealers is that all their coins look alike because they heard that brilliant coins sell better so they went and dipped all their coins! Ask them why their coins all look the same and see what kind of BS answer you get!

If dealers and collectors could bond together better and provided the neccessary

info of fellow collectors who collect the same, it's called getting involved, by the way, keeping track of names, phone numbers, dealers could very well find themselves learning and buying and selling the same coins and actually make a profit at the same time. But it's year after year with these same folks, alot of talk, show after show and they still don't have what I collect. There might be 2-3 dealers at a show who have albums of maderns or in boxes. But all they do to accomplish that is by taking a few coins from a roll, stapling them in 2x2s. Sometimes they might even tell you that they specially handpicked these coins themselves!

 

The hard fact is, if they don't have what I collect, I'm not wasting my money on anything else, so they lose out!

 

Leo

[Merc]

I was at a Clearwater FL show. Another collector showed me what he bought. One of the roving security guards saw us and scolded us for buying and selling coins! We quickly told him to get lost. No money was out, no offers were being made. It was just one collector showing a newp. We were out of the way and not even near a dealer table so nobody could complain that we were blocking up a table. That was very anoying.

[IrishMike]

K of J I didn't miss your point, it was just hard to find one. Sharing something is a commonly used phrase where I come from, in the course of human discourse and in literature, you must get out more.

 

Ok, done with the humor. Dealers pay a fee to set up a table, haul all their stuff to the show, spend time away from their families for 2-4 days and make a living at this. If shows allowed every Tom, and Harriet to just walk in and announce I am selling coins too, many would either stay away or go ballistic. I don't know what is hard to understand about this concept?

 

If you can't understand it, fry up some burgers and walk into McDonalds and try to start selling them. Let me know what happens.

[Wihlborg]

If you can't understand it, fry up some burgers and walk into McDonalds and try to start selling them. Let me know what happens

 

 

John

[jom]

don't see anything wrong with meeting up with someone you know at a show and transacting a deal without interupting a dealers business.

 

Agree. At Long Beach you can just wander over to the snack bar, buy a $5 Coke and trade/sell some coins. It is NO WHERE near any dealers so what's the big deal?

 

TomB is correct to but that just makes sense. I would NEVER sell a coin to someone at a show I didn't know before the show. Another words openly solicite material without paying a show fee. If I had talked to someone on this board, say Wilhborg, and we agreed that I'd buy his Buffalo set at 10 cents on the dollar, I think that'd be OK.

 

jom

[Leothelion]

If you can't understand it, fry up some burgers and walk into McDonalds and try to start selling them. Let me know what happens.

 

Who couldn't make a better burger? And if they carried the same mentality as many of these coin show dealers have, I could sell a few under their noses as well!

 

If shows allowed every Tom, and Harriet to just walk in and announce I am selling coins too, many would either stay away or go ballistic.

 

That's stretching it a bit don't you think? It's much more of a descreet problem as many have sold collector to collector at every show that ever was and that's hardly ever going to change. Let's try addressing the problem with a solution! Coin shows could simply set up a table where collectors could make their exchanges but for a small percentage or marginal fee not to exceed $2.00! But of course it could be higher.

I believe one of the problems inforcing such a policy is that these collectors also spend money at the show on other coins, raffles, etc. They also attract other collectors to the show with friends and family. So getting hissy fussy over the matter may chase them away.

Who hasn't invited a friend to a coin show wherever they are, to share their collections, to have lunch, to trade and sell! Whether it's at the show or outside

at a restaurant or at their places of stay. Coin shows attract collectors and collectors commingle!

Dealers were once collectors and it was the collectors who formed the clubs and certainly they were selling to each other before they had their first coin show.

So goes for these grading services, the collectors own them as well! They just don't make good housekeepers!

 

Leo