Have You Ever Had A Coin Snatched Out Of Your Grasp?

Not a coin story but I was at a flea market and a dealer was selling pocket watches. I was miffed because I got there just after he put them out. One guy grabbed all but one. Another guy managed to get one out of the group. While he was examining the watch, the ohter customer yanked the watch right out of his hands and told him "I'm buying this one too." I would have went one upside his head. You don't do that at a flea market or any other venue. Unless of course it an 1893S Morgan. Just kidding. You can get hurt doing stuff like that. I've seen guys fight over flea market stuff. People get killed for the stupidest reasons. A pocket watch aint worth dying for.

I suppose online there is nothing that you can do. At a show or shop if I find a coin I want I tell the dealer and get them to put it in a pile. That was its reserved for you and any prying eyes cant nab it whilst its in the maybe pile.

Often I have had the winning bid on ebay in the last few seconds only to have it auto bidded by someone else. The one that really ticked me off was one coin that was won for an exceptionally low price, (well under my actual bid) that mysteriously disappeared in the mail and the seller refunded my full amount including postage after my inquiry immediately without question.

yes! all the time

when the seller suddenly realizes it's worth more
when a sniper comes along and comes in at the last second
when an auction competitor just cant stop raising his hand at a local auction, and the price gets stiffer by the second
when your wife decides to buy something else with your coin budget

One of my personal favorites was at a local auction and I won the bid. Imagine my surprise when the coins were handed to the person in front of me!!

All's well, that ends well. This just happens to be one of those moments where something better was a little further down the road.

I sent a reply "Ok, stuff happens...do you have anything comparable in your Capped Bust Half Dime line-up (perhaps a new arrival, not yet listed)?"

The seller followed up this morning with this message;

"I've checked our inventory and , unfortunately, we don't have anything comparable in an 1835 H10c. Are there any other dates you might have interest in?"

Then I closed this message with;

"Thanks anyway, I found another over the weekend.

Have a better day!"

I did not specify that I needed that particular date (1835), but I just let it go.

A customer in line at a bank a few in front of me returned a bag of coins including large dollar coins. By the time I met the teller, there was a stack of Ikes and a smaller stack of silver dollars by the tellers coin tray. I asked about both and the silver dollars had just been bought by one of the tellers.

I'm that sniper y'all are complaining about!

I started my ebay life purchasing items on my mom's account from a Japanese anime, Sailor Moon. For complicated red-tape reasons I won't bore anyone here with, SM items were removed from US shelves for years, to the extent that purchasing the English/Japanese dual audio track, 52-episode first season only on DVD could run you up to $800 if it wasn't bootleg; the final, never-broadcast-in-English fifth season could go for up to $1200*. The merch was even more ridiculous, in scope if not in price--I once got into a bidding war with someone, and the final price paid (by the other bidder) was $42. The item? A single Japanese-market trading card that wasn't even valid for gameplay in the US. When that's the market you're working in, you get to be aces at bidding with only two seconds to go.

On the flip side, I lose items on the Bay all the time because they end when I'm at work. There's nothing more maddening--especially when you gave a trusted friend your password so they could snipe for you, and they did it two seconds too soon/late, and your sniper got out-sniped.



*Sailor Moon in its entirety was 200 episodes long, and purchasing this in an American market would set you back about $3500 if you wanted only authentic, not-bootleg merch. Naruto--which was never restricted in the American market--was 220 episodes long, and nobody even bootlegs it because it's not worth it; you can buy all six seasons, each season in a nice box set with extra art and dual-track audio, for $19 each. Put into coin terms, a known-to-be-genuine Sailor Moon box set--even missing the box--would be an MS-65 1893-CC Morgan dollar, and one of the well-known, "reputable" bootlegs (the successful counterfeits, not the "we're not even trying anymore" bootleg sets like the one I own) would be a 1909-S VDB.