Why do people refuse to think logically about coins? 1 1

[Woods020]

A friend of my mothers just inherited a coin collection from her fathers recent passing. My mom had mentioned to her that I am into numismatics and said I would be happy to help them. This morning I get a text from her showing me one she is sure is “really rare”. Once she told me what it was I asked for a picture to start with. It took me 10 seconds from the time she sent it to me responding “sorry, it’s a Chinese counterfeit”. 
 

Then the real fun begins. “How do you know?”, “Are you sure?”, “I don’t think he would have had a counterfeit”, “Maybe I should get a professional opinion?”. Despite me showing many many issues on this terrible counterfeit compared to an original she still isn’t convinced. I explained this is a counterfeit seen frequently and the look is very recognizable. To not be insulting I told her a dealer relatively close she could take it to for a second opinion or I would submit it for her despite knowing without doubt this is a fake, and a bad one at that. 
 

I can understand hoping you have something really good, but at what point does reality outweigh delusions of grandeur?

[MarkFeld]

Because the desire/wish to have something valuable, can easily overcome facts, common sense and logic. 

[Woods020]

On 1/18/2022 at 9:45 AM, MarkFeld said:

Because the desire/wish to have something valuable, can easily overcome facts, common sense and logic. 

Completely agree. I can understand wanting to question it and be certain, but after pointing out two or three glaringly obvious issues on the counterfeit compared to original you would think they would accept that. But it seems sometimes there is nothing that will convince them. If it was questionable I could see wanting more info, but come on. Mam this thing is so obviously fake even a non collector can quickly see it. 

[GoldFinger1969]

On 1/18/2022 at 10:45 AM, MarkFeld said:

Because the desire/wish to have something valuable, can easily overcome facts, common sense and logic. 

Also, she may not have known that you and most collectors are de facto "experts" by way of studying coins, fakes, grading, etc.

They may literally think that a coin collector is like a baseball card collectors...we just buy 'em and save 'em and forget about 'em. 

[Woods020]

On 1/18/2022 at 9:53 AM, GoldFinger1969 said:

Also, she may not have known that you and most collectors are de facto "experts" by way of studying coins, fakes, grading, etc.

They may literally think that a coin collector is like a baseball card collectors...we just buy 'em and save 'em and forget about 'em. 

That’s fair. I don’t present myself as an expert, and in no way believe I am. I would quickly tell her I am no expert. I don’t blame her for questioning my knowledge, but she can see with her own eyes this is a bad fake. But to Mark’s point the desire of the jackpot outweighs and logic. It will just take time and a few opinions for it to sink in. 

Edited January 18, 2022 by Woods020

[Just Bob]

On 1/18/2022 at 9:51 AM, Woods020 said:

. Mam this thing is so obviously fake even a non collector can quickly see it. 

Not if the person passing the coin down was her father. Even a grown woman can still think that her father was infallible. And, if he was thought to be an expert collector, it will be hard to convince her that he could have been fooled by anyone or any coin.

[Woods020]

On 1/18/2022 at 9:56 AM, Just Bob said:

Not if the person passing the coin down was her father. Even a grown woman can still think that her father was infallible. And, if he was thought to be an expert collector, it will be hard to convince her that he could have been fooled by anyone or any coin.

I think this is a great point. And who knows her father may have known full well that it was a counterfeit and he kept it as a novelty. This situation is what got me to thinking about how best to prepare my collection. When he passed a month ago and she first mentioned his collection and the family being totally lost it concerned me. 
 

Note to collectors don’t assume your family knows your thoughts. Document well and call out what you took for granted as common knowledge. 

[Coinbuf]

When money is involved, even rather small amounts, hope overtakes reason and logic every time.   It is an emotional greed response and the same one that casinos and other gambling endeavors exploit.   It is also the same response you get when you know a coin will grade as MS63 but the owner is adamite that it is at least MS65.   Or that they have some amazing error and that by showing ten thousand photos of the non-error coin that somehow, he will be proven right, and his coin will magically become worth millions.   Many times, even after being proven wrong after getting results from a TPG submission the owner of such coins will simply say they were hosed in order to keep the dream alive.   The dream of finding, winning lots of money, or having something worth lots of money is a very powerful emotion.

[RWB]

Emotional connections are much stronger than we like to admit. The friend of your mother was only making a superficial reference to the fake coin. The coin was an emotional substitute for her father. Your factual response was perceived as a threat or repudiation of her father. The comment “I don’t think he would have had a counterfeit” is a clear, defensive response equivalent to her saying, "Who are you, stranger, to question MY father or attack his character?" For survivors of a decedent, this will gradually subside - especially if other fakes are not found.

One method to handle this is to deflect responsibility for buying the fake from "father" to "someone who cheated father." This points emotional animosity away from you and toward an invisible, but easily culpable, "person of low character." It also removes responsibility from the deceased father to a class or category of "others."

Edited January 18, 2022 by RWB

[Fenntucky Mike]

These instances I can understand some questioning/disbelief. A coin passed down from a collector whom in the recipients opinion knew what they were doing, and knew personally, is usually assumed to be authentic, without a doubt. Any opinion to the contrary is often met with great resistance.

I don't think non collectors understand how much junk we collect.  It's very possible that this was a known counterfeit to her father. 

People who "discover" a coin and refuse to accept good sound advice are the posts that leave me scratching my head

 

Edited January 18, 2022 by Fenntucky Mike
Grammar

[RWB]

On 1/18/2022 at 10:51 AM, Woods020 said:

But it seems sometimes there is nothing that will convince them.

This is evident in most "belief" structures and is endemic in extremist viewpoints of all kinds.

[RWB]

On 1/18/2022 at 11:04 AM, Fenntucky Mike said:

People who "discover" a coin and refuse to accept good sound advice are the posts that leave me scratching my head

That's one way to go bald fast ! 

[Woods020]

It does make me hate counterfeiters even more. The damage done is not only financial at the time of purchase, but can have ripple effects for future generations. Even if her father was fully aware and kept this to laugh at, without it being properly marked she now has the mental anguish of going through this process after a loss. Counterfeiters are really the scum of the earth in many ways. This is case in point of the importance of requiring proper identification of fakes. The line of where it should be required is debatable and not fully clear to me after much thought, but it is needed. 

[gmarguli]

Every couple months I get a call from someone who got my number off the PCGS/NGC dealer list. It is practically always a person who wants to submit common coins or a counterfeit. No matter how hard I explain that the AU clad Ikes they pulled from circulation are not worth more than face, they refuse to listen. No matter how many times I tell them that their 1776-dated dollar isn't real, they refuse to believe. 

If by chance they have something real, they will over value it by multiples of what it is really worth. That really worn common date Morgan dollar that came out of a slot machine must be worth several hundred dollars. After all, it's 130 years old. 

I will no longer deal with people who find my info on the dealer list.

[The Neophyte Numismatist]

This ties back to your post regarding preparing your collection for your heirs.

Facts are that even smart people are irrational.  Even collectors are guilty of seeing what they want to see… non-collectors do not have the same eyes and mix even more fiction than fact.  When sentimental emotions are included - the bias gets worse.

Buy graded coins…. For your sake… for your heirs sake.  Nothing is “foolproof”, so we all need to take the extra step to not leave coins to fools.  But, graded coins give the average person a much more stable footing in the hobby.

(note:  I realize that much of this collection may have been assembled before TPG was well established) 

Edited January 23, 2022 by The Neophyte Numismatist

[l.cutler]

I can understand someone not versed in numismatics being fooled by a coin like this, what really gets me is when someone has a normal quarter that clearly looks like it went through a garbage disposal and insists it's an error.

[GoldFinger1969]

I just found out that my father -- who suffers from occasional minor dementia/forgetfullness combined with an overwillingness to spend on things that aren't scams but just way overpriced -- spent a few thousand dollars in the last year or so on collector/presidential coin series that are mostly non-PMs and/or overpriced copper or silver. 

Today, PCS Stamp & Coin -- whoever they are -- mailed him via FedX a Gem Proof 2021 ASE in a PCGS slab "signed" by Emily Damstra.  They also included a wooden coin box to store 3 slabs in some red velvet-like holders commemorating the design.  $270 or close to it for the coin and box, billed in 3 installments.  I can't tell if that price is for 3 coins to fill all 3 slab slots or if it's $270 for 1 coin and the box.

Either way, it's going back. 

[Woods020]

On 1/22/2022 at 1:01 AM, GoldFinger1969 said:

I just found out that my father -- who suffers from occasional minor dementia/forgetfullness combined with an overwillingness to spend on things that aren't scams but just way overpriced -- spent a few thousand dollars in the last year or so on collector/presidential coin series that are mostly non-PMs and/or overpriced copper or silver. 

Today, PCS Stamp & Coin -- whoever they are -- mailed him via FedX a Gem Proof 2021 ASE in a PCGS slab "signed" by Emily Damstra.  They also included a wooden coin box to store 3 slabs in some red velvet-like holders commemorating the design.  $270 or close to it for the coin and box, billed in 3 installments.  I can't tell if that price is for 3 coins to fill all 3 slab slots or if it's $270 for 1 coin and the box.

Either way, it's going back. 

Unfortunately this happens all too often. Many companies out there prey on older people making them think they are making a sound investment when in reality it’s a total overpriced rip off. Littleton is one of the worst in my opinion, and The Home Shopping Network seems to have a bunch of characters come through selling overpriced coins. 

[GoldFinger1969]

On 1/22/2022 at 1:28 PM, Woods020 said:

Unfortunately this happens all too often. Many companies out there prey on older people making them think they are making a sound investment when in reality it’s a total overpriced rip off. Littleton is one of the worst in my opinion, and The Home Shopping Network seems to have a bunch of characters come through selling overpriced coins. 

I wouldn't MIND an overpriced Morgan Silver Dollar or even Saint-Gaudens coin at a 30-35% premium....probably never make $$$ on it, but at least I/the family can enjoy it.  I don't need any more Donald Trump or Ronald Reagan commemorative BS given out at Christmas, and I like both guys.

My father did the same thing with collector plates like 25 years ago.  Thank God he didn't know about Ebay and Beannie Babies in the late-1990's.

[JKK]

This gets into what I call the Bampaw misconception. Many families have a coin collector, typically an older male, and to everyone else in the family he seems like this coin wizard. Bampaw knows amazing things and has amazing things. Then Bampaw passes on, and his family has the collection, which they have had 20-50 years to imagine is the equal of a lottery win. So they start to investigate it, and the hardest part is finding out that Bampaw was a coin person_of_limited_faculties. The first natural response is denial and maybe suspicion that maybe people have something to gain. So in essence, they just have to be told the same thing enough times, if necessary by a TPG, that in fact Bampaw didn't know that much and collected crappy cleaned junk with a nice sprinkling of replicas and phonies. And it sucks for you because you're the bearer of bad tidings--and didn't even get paid for that.

[Hoghead515]

In my opinion these crazy You Tube videos dont help getting peoples hopes up. And people dont take condition into consideration. Grandpas dateless buffalos are worth a fortune. 

[l.cutler]

On 1/23/2022 at 1:25 PM, Hoghead515 said:

In my opinion these crazy You Tube videos dont help getting peoples hopes up. And people dont take condition into consideration. Grandpas dateless buffalos are worth a fortune. 

Excellent point, they hype up the value and lead people to believe there are great rarities in every pile of pocket change!

[Mohawk]

My fiancée and I are doomed to deal with this situation at some point.  For years, we've heard about this big collection of coins her grandfather built and what an astute buyer he was, all without actually seeing any of what he had built.  Her grandfather's been dead for years and her grandmother is kind of.....weird, for want of a better word, about these coins.  So, flash forward to about a year and a half ago.  Her grandmother is showing clear signs of dementia and decline, and my father-in-law was helping her with some things and in the midst of this, he managed to get some photos of this coin collection we'd heard so much about.  Lo and behold, we see mountains of junk silver, lots of Littleton packaging, Ziplocs full of Wheat cents......you know the kind of accumulation I'm speaking of.  So, it would appear that my fiancée's grandfather wasn't the astute collector that everyone assumed he was.  My fiancée, being a coin collector and being a part of the coin world for 13 years, was actually the first one to say that her grandfather had basically accumulated junk, with which I agreed completely.  But if we have to do anything with this accumulation before her grandmother dies, that's probably going to get ugly......I dread having to make her grandmother realize that her husband was in no way an astute collector, or even a collector.  He was a hoarder and accumulator.  That is the reality of the situation.  The good thing about this situation is that my father-in-law listened to us and he completely believes us and understands why what his father accumulated was junk.  He's a great guy....very mellow.  When we told him the true nature of this accumulation, he was just like "Well, he clearly didn't do his homework and just bought indiscriminately.  I think he just bought silver, despite what Mom thinks."  In this situation, I hope for two things.  1. That we have to deal with this accumulation after my fiancée's grandmother dies.  It'll make it a lot easier if we never have to explain to her that her husband was in no way an astute collector. 2. That my malignant narcissist of a mother-in-law just stays the hell out of it.  That woman can always make a bad situation even worse. 

Edited January 23, 2022 by Mohawk

[Mohawk]

On 1/23/2022 at 1:25 PM, Hoghead515 said:

In my opinion these crazy You Tube videos dont help getting peoples hopes up. And people dont take condition into consideration. Grandpas dateless buffalos are worth a fortune. 

Oh definitely, Hog.  You Tube is a plague on the hobby in that way.  Etsy also hurts because it is a platform for people to list up $50,000 parking lot errors.  People see those garbage listings and assume that their damaged, worthless coin is worth $50,000.

[Hoghead515]

On 1/23/2022 at 1:40 PM, Mohawk said:

Oh definitely, Hog.  You Tube is a plague on the hobby in that way.  Etsy also hurts because it is a platform for people to list up $50,000 parking lot errors.  People see those garbage listings and assume that their damaged, worthless coin is worth $50,000.

I agree. Every time I do a google search on a coin thats the first thing that pops up Esty adds for common junk with a $500,000 price tag. Google needs to do something about those adds being the first thing people see. Some people really believe that nonsense. 

Edited January 23, 2022 by Hoghead515

[GoldFinger1969]

On 1/22/2022 at 1:28 PM, Woods020 said:

Unfortunately this happens all too often. Many companies out there prey on older people making them think they are making a sound investment when in reality it’s a total overpriced rip off. Littleton is one of the worst in my opinion, and The Home Shopping Network seems to have a bunch of characters come through selling overpriced coins. 

Those multiple variations for the 2021 American Silver Eagle (I think there are 3 types ?) -- what do they retail for ?  Add in "Gem Proof" and the engravers signature.

Trying to figure out how much they marked up this stuff that my father was buying.

[tj96]

On 1/18/2022 at 11:16 AM, Woods020 said:

Why do people refuse to think logically about coins?

Do drug addicts think logically?   Coins are my drug. 

[Hoghead515]

On 1/25/2022 at 6:58 PM, tj96 said:

Do drug addicts think logically?   Coins are my drug. 

Same here. Lol.  Im flat broke. Down on my luck. Been sitting here thinking on how I can score a big GW for the collection. 

[Daltonista]

Having been in this situation maybe a half dozen times before -- doing a favor for a friend or relative by eyeballing, sorting, and advising on the disposition of (but never grading or "appraising") their inherited coins -- I've found that using words like "nice replica," or "collectible reproduction" is much less triggering.  Shattering the dreams and/or fantasies of friends and relatives is a sure way to fracture relationships, so I say let the people they eventually sell or consign the coins tell them what the coins are worth in the real world.

[tj96]

On 1/26/2022 at 2:08 PM, Hoghead515 said:

Same here. Lol.  Im flat broke. Down on my luck. Been sitting here thinking on how I can score a big GW for the collection. 

There's a song that goes something like that...

Money, I don't have any;

I'm down to my last penny....