Buy Of A Lifetime . My Lifetime Anyway

What is the moral "right" thing to do in this situation? Especially as a dealer what is the right thing to do? If you need to buy coins at 50% FMV to turn a profit that feeds your family, is that right? If you can't survive without paying at or below 50% FMV does that make you an immoral dealer?

On the other hand, what will happen after you pay 10% FMV? You'll make bank on that purchase. You've initially made your customer happy. That customer will either remain happy and forget about his assumed windfall, or find out from a third party that you paid him only 10% of FMV and he'll feel cheated. Now you have an enemy and a black mark on your history as a dealer. It could end up being common knowledge that you ripped this guy off which will send your business under. As a one time occurrence that's unlikely, but if it's your business philosophy you won't last long.

As a buyer that intends to sell you must pay at a certain percent below FMV to turn a profit. You have to account for the risk of over grading, resale time, capital being locked up, spot price fluctuations, and many other things. You also have to create a business that's sustainable which includes creating a reputation that people can count on you for your honesty. In my opinion, without these ingredients you won't survive.

In the end people will sell for a fraction of FMV because they don't want to pay the cost of selling or the cost of having capital tied up when they'd rather spend the money on other things. If you're honest they'll say you gave them a fair deal.

If you're referring to me, you are way off base. I've been called a lot of things, but never been mistaken for a "liberal". I'm as conservative as a gray three-piece suit.

And I thought I was pretty clear it's not "morality" I'm spouting, but the hypocritical nature of the posts. In fact, I think I said I would have done the same thing. I just would not have posted bragging about it. My entry into the discussion was prompted by the many posts high-fiving and fist-bumping the deal, when elsewhere on this board there are numerous threads condemning the guys who travel the country setting up in hotel rooms buying gold and silver, complete with comments about how we have to educate the public so they don't fall for these schemes. So my question is, what's the difference? And the argument that the seller "threw out a number" doesn't really cover the educating the public aspect, does it? So my question really is, is it right some of the time, all of the time, none of the time, or only for certain buyers?

I agree with Omaha. If a dealer or hotel buyer or anything similar had offered $700 for the collection, many here would be screaming bloody murder and going on and on about that outfit taking advantage of someone. Sure the seller has a responsibility to know the value of his goods, and made an offer. However as someone who has worked in a shop, I can tell you that we had people tell us what they were hoping to get for something and then were quite surprised when we offered more. We strongly believed in giving a very fair buy price upfront regardless of what the seller was hoping to get. Oh well...

Here is something for you all, if a neighbor and lets say she is 80 years old hands you a bag full of $20 saints and tells you there are 30 of them and wants $700 for it all:

1. Tell her how much they are worth
2. Do what jakeman did and buy it, afterall, she made the offer.

WHAT SAYETH YOU ALL?

That's not an apples to apples comparison. Roll hunting is buying rolls/boxes from a bank at face value with an unknown factor as far as what you may get. You may score big or you may get skunked. That's half the fun of doing it. With this deal, it was known quantities of silver dollars, halves, etc.

I want to make it clear that this is not a personal attack on jakeman by any means. However, when presented with a deal like this we have two choices. Take the deal as it is knowing that you paid well below fair market value or make a fair offer. I believe in duty to act, so if the deal was presented to me, I would have been inclined to offer more.

With that said, I agree with Omahaorange's point about the hypocrisy we are seeing in this thread. If a dealer made this deal, people would be blasting the dealer for being unfair but instead of that the majority of replies are of the "way to go" variety. That's a double standard no matter how anyone tries to spin it.

Jake, this isn't about you, per say. You just happened to be the unlucky sap who made the original post. Whether you melt these in your basement, or lovingly feed and clothe them, is really irrelevant to the discussion. Don't take it personally.

I was simply curious about what others would say when comparing this deal to the evil Cash4Gold guys, who are continuously slammed on this and other message boards. This is qualified by posters in those threads claiming we need to educate the public, even enact laws, so these guys will go away. What I found from many of the respondents is that, since you are a collector, it's okay to "rip 'em off", but somebody out to make a profit then that's pure evil. We justify that argument by "we need to educate the public so they get a fair deal" from those guys, then justify your purchase by saying, oh, well, he should have known and set a higher asking price. See what I'm asking?

I said before, I would have jumped on the deal as well. I am a collector as well, I have only sold/traded coins twice. But I have also posted in those other threads that we are not the coin police, and it is not our responsibility to protect those sellers from the other guys. We can try educate the public, but if they still choose to sell to those guys because it's quick cash, so be it. The big buyers, pawn shops, etc are doing the same thing we are, just for different ends. We want to shut down the big guys, but it's okay for us to do the same thing?




Not quite the same thing. Coinhunter explained it so I won't repeat it, but finding silver in a roll of coins is no different then finding a quarter lying in the parking lot.

I am not sure what I would have done given that I have yet to be in a situation like that. I think I would have been hesitant only because of the age-old adage "if it sounds too good..". Then again it may just be my cynical nature but my initial reaction to the OP's story is that those cons are hot, hot, HOT!! Might just be the sketchy nature of some of my former co-workers but I am sure that if the OP got that vibe he would have walked away from the deal. Only so much you can read into something without knowing anything about any of the people involved.

Personally, my only other concern would be what happens if/when this guy learns how much these were worth assuming he didn't already know. It could cause for some awkward days at the office.

However, he really could have just had no interest in keeping the coins at all and knew you were a collector and didn't really care what they were worth. I have seen situations like that before where people make "deals" that they would normally never make because they knew the receiving party would enjoy the item that much more than anyone else.

While I think you make some good points, don't forget that it was Jake's coworker who made the $700 offer, not Jake himself.

Coworker - "I don't know what to do with these coins"
Jake - "Can I buy them from you? How does $700 sound?"
Coworker - "Sure! You got a deal!"

^ I could see someone taking advantage of another person, if this is what went down but that does not appear to be the case. Jake's coworker was the one who made the offer first, not the other way around. But Jake, I do want to know, did your coworker know that these coins are worth much more than $700?