Awesome coin posted by The Wells Collection

[CSJournals-migration]

Hard to pay for

 

I bid on a fantastic coin the other day. Very surprised I won it and when I went to pay, Heritage told me that because it is over $2500 that I can only pay using my checking account.

 

I have purchased a handful of items from Heritage and I have never had any issues splitting up the purchase over multiple payment methods. They told that it is clearly in their terms and conditions. I told them that nobody reads those things.

 

After telling them what I would have to do to complete the transaction. Basically they would have to wait 30 or so days for me to come up with the cash, they told me they would make a one time courtesy and allow me to split up the payment.

 

I have never seen a company get in the way of someone who wants to pay. The fees they incur for credit cards is a price they pay to have the ability to take those cards. If they are not happy about the 2-5% the cards charge then just don't accept them at all. Limiting how much you can pay on a card is just going to hurt them in the long run.

 

So I will soon be getting an awesome coin in the mail. Probably shipped in a priority mail envelope with some scratchy cardboard attached to the coin. A simple bubble mailer would be better but those they would have to purchase. They are having none of that!

 

I also have spoken to them about their shipping practices and explained to them that nothing about how they ship could be deemed a best practice. They are simply too big to fail so why change anything.

 

See more journals by The Wells Collection

[Six Mile Rick]

UC --- SWEET!!! That would take me well over 2 payments.

 

Like ---- 10 payments or more please.

[coinsbygary]

I knew about the $2500 limit and to date I have never been over that limit. Then again it is extremely rare that I buy any coin for that amount of money. That said, there are a lot of coins through Heritage that I am eligible to buy using either PayPal or a credit card. In fact I have purchased several coins that I am happy with through Heritage in the last two months. I know you'll have to wait a spell to get that fine nickel, but oh the anticipation and the joy you will have when you see it in the hand. Congratulations!

Gary

[JTO]

I'm sorry to hear the you have that experience. Just to clear the air about what I am about to say: I do not now nor have I ever had any financial interest in or been a beneficiary of Heritage Auctions.

 

I started doing business with Heritage in the late 90s prior to their rise to be coming the giant of the auction industry. It used to be that the limit for credit cards was $10,000. At the same time they're buyer's premium was 15%. Now the credit card limit is, I thought, $1000 and the buyer's premium is 17.5%. I have to agree they are currently posting $9 billion in sales, that even if they only got 15%, means they have made over $1.3 billion. At some point it does just seemed to become greed.

 

With that said, my experiences with them have been almost uniformly positive. There quick to ship my items, by federal express, and responsive to all of my inquiries. I've recently consigned some items but I am having second thoughts about that 17.5% that they take off the top. When I do the math I may be able to do better selling them myself. There are world auction houses that have moved to 20%. If they get to that point I think they will lose their major client base. For the dealer there just will not be anymore money to be made, for the collector the prices start to become prohibitive or the consignor realize that they can sell their coins to a dealer for less than a 20% overhead. The comment "too big to fail" becomes what Fidelity became in the 90s which is too big to serve its client base.

 

Very Nice coin, congratulations! read the fine print...

 

 

John

[Electric Peak]

Yeah, the $2500 CC limit is annoying. I've had invoices north and south. If you are under the limit and try to pay by CC, they'll offer a 1% discount to pay by echeck. But my CC perks are better than 1%...

 

Gary mentioned the wait. It depends on the auction. I've had cases of waiting a week before getting the shipping notice, and cases of quicker service. Once I won a lot on a Friday and had the coin the following Monday. It was a north-of-the-CC-limit coin from a floor session. In my experience, the longer delays are for cheaper coins, and coins from internet (non-floor) sessions.

 

Nice coin... Enjoy!

 

Alan

[ArmyBud]

Wow....beautiful coin for 1951. Ultra Cameo Jeffersons are so rare in the 50's that you can expect to pay large $$s for any of them!! Only 3 of these have been graded PF68UC with only 1 higher (PCGS has only graded 1 with 0 higher!). A great find!! Enjoy....Now if I could only find a UC '58 Jefferson!!!

Bud

[Larz13]

Nice coin! I used to collect these and they are great and can be quite expensive. Sorry about the issue with HA--I have had some experience with them and all positive for the most part. My one thing that I ran into was when I was going to consign some coins to them and they pretty much aren't interested unless you are consigning over $5000. I went to Teletrade (at the time) and now GreatCollections.com has taken its place once it sold out to Stacks. They worked out fine for me. I have also had positive experiences with David Lawrence buying and selling too. All of these other auction houses have lower fees than HA.com, although if you are looking for really high end coins, HA seems to get more of them than the others.

 

I had thought that HA had a 3-payment plan at one point but I have never used it. You may have had to set that up prior to bidding, so it may not be of consequence here.

 

The coin will be well-worth waiting for. Congratulations.

[Nutmeg Coin]

Glad you are happy with the purchase. I always find it interesting the way big companies make their own rules and then make a big deal about how magnanimous and customer friendly they are being for making a one time exception with some other language fully justifying their right to do so. With so many people operating on credit in so many fields for the sake of financial flexibility, I would think that offering credit card terms, possibly on terms of an extra charge, would be advantageous for their business success.

[numisport]

Minor frost break on the jaw can barely be seen --- they almost all have that. Die polish is usually heavy on these too. This is a real condition rarity. Early proof Jeffersons this perfect with this much contrast are excessively rare. One lucky person you are !