Buy Of A Lifetime . My Lifetime Anyway

Let's leave Jake out it for now. I never intended this to be a personal attack. Remember the seller has no idea what his coins are worth. Just questioning the difference between a private buyer taking advantage of a naive seller, or a large company taking advantage of a naive seller.

Seller approaches buyer, states "I got some coins I inherited from my recently deceased relative. I hear you are a collector. Would you be interested in buying these from me?"

Buyer says, "Sure. let's take look!" Arranges to meet the seller, looks at the lot, knows what they are worth (give or take) and says to naive seller, "How much?"

Seller says, "I dunno, how's $700 sound?"

Buyer knows this is significantly below the actual value of the lot. Buyer has several options:

1. Jump on the offer, ethics aside. After all, I'm a collector. This is a great opportunity for me.

2. Say, "Gee, what you have here is worth more than twice that. How about I give you $1300 for the lot?" Still buying it at less than retail, but not gouging the seller, who, remember, knows nothing about what he has.

3. Advise the seller to take his lot to a coin dealer for an appraisal, get back to me with his offer, then we'll talk. Or steer him to appropriate web sites to determine what the stuff is worth so he can get a fair price.

Buyer exercises option 1. No effort at all to educate the seller on what he has. Buyer gets a great deal, with the opportunity to make a huge profit if he ever decides to sell; seller loses half of the inheritance the recently departed loved one expected him to get.

Now let's jump to scenario #2. Little old lady walks into hotel room because she saw an ad in the local paper saying "XXX Gold Buyers will be in town for a short time only, and we pay top dollar for your gold and silver" So she gets on the bus and goes to the Dew Drop Inn, goes to the table set up in the conference room, and says to Mr. XXX, "My husband passed away a few months ago. He didn't have a lot of life insurance, and his pension is not all that big. But he did leave this box of old silver dollars. I need the money to get my prescriptions filled. What are they worth?" Mr. XXX has a couple options as well, the only difference in option #1 above is he's not a collector, but a buyer. He takes option #1, offering half the value of the lot. Little old lady accepts, because she has no idea of the value, and the buyer did not take the opportunity to educate her. So the naive seller in this case ends up with half the money her dear departed loved one intended her to have.

So, in both scenarios, the seller lost half the value of their coins because they had no idea of the value. In both cases the sellers lost out on part of an inheritance.

So, what's the real difference ("He" threw out a number, "She" didn't isn't really much of a difference, since neither had a clue as to value)? In my opinion, nothing. But why is it okay for the buyer in the first scenario to buy the lot for less than half its value, and not okay for the buyer in the second one to do essentially the same thing? Because he's a collector? And the second guy is not? Just trying to see what others say when there are posts decrying the gold and silver buyers but lauding the individuals who do the exact same thing and the hypocrisy in that.

Wow ! for the short time I have been a member here I have never seen such a heated debate of what is right or wrong. particularly a spinoff conversation from the original post. I'll be watching and learning on this one.

What fun would things be if everyone agreed all the time lol.

One of the reasons I am almost 100% in agreement with everything Omahaorange (and aa couple of others) have said is in regards to the hypocrisy I am seeing here. Hypocrisy in terms of members here giving a collector the "atta boy" remarks we have seen here but who would turn around and blast a dealer, gold road show, or other buyer for being a scammer, lowballer, etc for doing the same deal.

Here's a recent thread where many are complaining about a Craigslist buyer offering 15x face fo 90% silver: https://goccf.com/t/116684&whichpage=1

Just taking the 59 silver dollars alone in this buy, that equates to $885 if bought at $15/each (which is a low offer to begin with). That's leaving out the rest of the silver, and the rest of the non-silver coins. The total lot was bought for $700 as described originally. So in one thread we have members giving high fives to the buyer, and in another thread members are blasting a guy for offering even less than what was paid here. Enjoy!

Then by this line of thinking, the hotel gold/silver guys are justified in buying at their prices? Check out the discussion in the link Coinhunter provided.

Going to a yard sale is a different animal also. In that example, people put a price on items they don't want and it could be anything from clothes to dishes to furniture to cd's to books, etc. The original example is someone coming to another person who he knew was a collector. Maybe I am reading too much into it, but the fact that he came to that individual (versus a local coin shop for example) and was hoping for a fair offer from someone who knew about the subject than him. After all it was a collection of coins that he inherited from his uncle, and the OP did state that he was the only coin collector at work.

So anyway, again not calling out jakeman but I would be interested to see what others would have thought if the same individual brought these to a coin shop or travelling gold buyer outfit and was offered the same $700?

This isn't about Jake, other than he made the post spurring the discussion. In this situation, however, when you say he could have made a lower offer and didn't, are you implying that had he done so, and the seller takes that offer, that it's still okay? Knowing that the seller's price was well below market value? My point is, we are celebrating a "good deal" in this thread while in other threads we hammer the big buyers who do the exact same thing, offer made or not. This isn't about Jake, it's about whether the private buyer/collector has a responsibility to educate the seller (as so many have pointed out in the threads bashing the hotel guys) or is what the hotel guys do okay after all?




But we're not talking about Average Joe Blow. We are talking about one of us doing the same thing the traveling guys are doing, only we're doing it in the "interest" of collecting. Average Joe Blow probably doesn't care. After all, he's getting cash he didn't have before he walked into the room. A.J.B. probably doesn't get on an internet forum and complain about it, because he doesn't know any better. BUT there are many posts made by people just like us out there decrying the traveling buyers, stating how much they rip off the public, and how we need to stop these guys and educate the public so they don't get ripped off.

My point is we celebrate a private buyer paying well below the actual value to a seller who has no idea of it's value. But we'll call for the heads of the big buyers for doing the exact same thing. The fact that the co-worker threw out a number (again, not knowing what he was doing) is no different than the grandmother (who is also clueless about the value) taking the first offer from the guy in the hotel conference room.

The question is not whether Jake is right or wrong, but why it's okay to do this as a private buyer, in the name of "collecting", but not a large company in the interest of making a profit?

Okay , I read everyone's 2 cent's and the original post has been lost because there is too much emotion going on here. As I keep reading Jakeman406 post over and over because I have to keep reminding myself of what this is all about. " He did nothing wrong " it is not our job to judge his business transaction. Stick with the original post. A co-worker who's uncle left him coins in his will. I'll stop at this point ( if the co-worker really cared about his uncle or the sentimental gift he would have never approached jakeman)I'll move on. this is were opportunity then happened a guy who wanted fast cash and another who saw a fantastic deal.

I also don't want to hear about the co-worker maybe wasn't thinking straight because he was sad about his uncle or naive about the coins I say that's a bunch of bull ! How I got my coin collection was from my dad who passed away 4 months ago . I still have all of them and I didn't know squat about a coin other than how to spend it. It means a lot to me to keep it that I had to go out and educate myself and I was naive then still learning now. As for my follow up I say good for you Jakeman because if I were given your identical situation on how this happened I would have done the same thing.

In todays day and age, with 99% of the information readily available, and also armed with nothing more than a simple internet connection....

NO ONE, should EVER be made to feel guilty for purchasing ANYTHING! imho.


That being said.....


jakeman406, you should have never been made to feel the need to defend yourself here. You have my utmost respect for continuing to do so in spite of all this.

The way I see this,

The seller is happy,
The buyer is happy.

It's a "good" deal. PERIOD...end of discussion....



Now, if some here feel the need to discuss business practices of the "CASH FOR GOLD" places that have sprung up on every major corner in every city here?...

That's an completly DIFFERENT topic.


"apples and oranges"....



Start another thread about it maybe?


I've enjoyed reading this thread, and I can honestly see "both sides" of the coin here. This isn't the place for the debate though.


That's just my humble 2 cents...