Rookie Mistakes Stories

About 5 years ago, I bought what was advertised as a raw 1916-d Mercury in F-XF condition. The seller had a good feedback rating, so it never occurred to me that it might not be authentic. Over the past year, I've become much more serious about collecting and decided to send the mercury and some other coins in to PCGS for grading. By the time I did this, I had read about the proliferation of fakes and suspected that the coin was probably not genuine. Sure enough, it came back in a body bag that said "Not genuine-added mintmark." Fortunately, enough time had passed that I wasn't too upset about the money. The lesson for me was that I will probably never again buy another raw coin of significant value on ebay.

We are talking about 5 years ago, so I couldn't even nail down which of my many ebay transactions it was. I've chalked it up to experience and now would never buy a valuable coin on ebay unless it is in a slab from a reputable TPG. The only raw coins I'd consider buying now are lots of generic US silver coins. These are not sold for the value of a particular date, so fraud is less of a concern.

I was 7 and my dad had got a half dollar in his change at a toll at the shore and he gave it to me from memory it was a very shiny 1964.Spent it on a stupit toy car at the flea market.

Gosh darn Carl, you musta been a rich kid. When I was a kid in the fifties, other than ruining a penny now and than, we spent all our other coins (on those rare times when we had any) on gum, candy and comic books.

Hey, it's Chicago. Carl was probably in the mob when he was a kid.

I figured I would post a relatively recent ebay rookie mistake.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...120126694179

- Setting it at $1 starting bid with no reserve (when I only had one feedback)
- Not putting enough key search words in the title

The coin sold for about HALF market value.

Back in 1965, when I was 14, I was into roll-searching pennies. One day I got twenty dollars worth of pennies from the local bank (my hometown had a total of 1 bank and 2000 people, so it was pretty Mayberry-like.) After I got home, the bank called my folks, wanting to know what I wanted with so many pennies, and did they know I had them. My mom explained that I was just looking through them for my coin collection and promised I'd return them right away. I guess I caused a local, one-day penny shortage in town.

I was lucky, though, because I found a 1914-D in that lot of 2000 pennies. I was so proud of that coin that I carried it everywhere that summer. (You have to remember that a lot of 14 year-olds don't really worry about additional wear on their coins!) It was always in my pocket. I took the train from Streeter, Illinois to Houston, Texas to visit my aunt, uncle and cousins in the little town of Kountze, down in the Big Thicket area near the coast. I was there for two weeks, along with my 1914-D penney. On the morning I left Kountze, I was in a lot of pain with an ear infection, and was anxious to get home. I left that penney on the card table in my cousin's bedroom; it never crossed my fevered mind until I was safe at home in Illinois and recovering from that darned ear infection. We called my aunt, and yes, she remembered picking up the penney from the table. She spent it; probably on groceries or school supplies for my four cousins. I suppose someone in Kountze or a nearby town found it in change , and it's still in that lucky person's collection. At any rate, I hope it found a good home!