It's Time To Stop Purchasing Raw Coins From Local Coin Shops

Agreed, and I don't have a problem when a dealer isn't perfect on their grading but they're close and make honest attempts. In those cases though they'll be both high and low. When someone is always high it's intentional.




You're not at all, it happens a lot. You are also seeing why it works though as there's still enough people against the TPGs that they never send them in to find out the bad news.

Posted by Coinfrog:
"But there are some consistently reliable local and national dealers out there whose grades are consistently accurate even if their pricing is on the high side"

Well duhh, if you're a coin dealer how do you stay in business if you don't buy low and sell high? Of course they are going to overgrade and overprice, that's how they keep the lights on. I don't see how they can be expected to turn a profit otherwise. They aren't in business to sell coins for what they are worth unless they paid a lot less than that like the OP reported. YRMV.

Re coin shop raw coin grading -

I don't go to coin shop (or shows for that matter) primarily in "grazing mode."

I go with a particular item(s)in mind armed with two things - a listing of BIN sales from ebay for a particular coin in a particular grade

and

a print-out of grading criteria such as the NGC criteria.

A laptop or tablet with proper bookmarks is a useful tool as well.

If I find an example of the coin of interest, I ask the dealer to justify the grade and we discuss. "The Art of the Deal" comes to mind. If the dealer becomes belligerent at this point, and is unwilling to discuss, I simply move on.

I've been told, "Then, buy it off ebay." I reply, "Looks like I'll have to."

You write this as though an XF45 or an AU50 are concrete, absolute things. You can send the same to just about any TPG, and over the course of say 10 times, you will get variability. Show the same coin to 10 dealers or 10 collectors, and there will be variability. We are talking about something with is absolutely subjective.

You complain about the dealer not making concessions after the fact, but I highly doubt if you sent it in and got an AU55, you would have suddenly felt the need to make concessions on your end...

Oh so when things grade better that dealers buy they run back to customers to give them more money?...

That's not how that works at all though and never has. Unless some dealer really goes above and beyond for a long time customer none of them owe the dealers more money for something grading better. The dealer is the professional and decided to take the risk by not having the coin graded even though things like Seated dollars are the exact coins that should be essentially automatic to send in.

That's honestly a really bad argument to try to be making

I can't stop anyone from being stubborn, but that attitude is exactly why the things described in this thread keep being successful.

There's a lot more than just authentication when buying raw.

I've been working up in Pennsylvania for the last couple weeks. I came across a pawn shop with similar problems. My battery crapped out in one of my laptops and had to get a new one fast. A computer guy in town didn't have the model but recommended I call this local pawn shop. I ran up to his store to order the battery and was surprised to see 4 cases of coins and bills. He told me to come back and he would give me a bulk deal.

Made it back up there this afternoon and started asking him to pull certain coins. I got up to about 5 coins before he started asking what they were and started searching each of them for listing prices on ebay. He seemed irritated and told me he didn't know much about them. Some were old world coins- unslabbed shipwrecked 8 reales 4 reals, things of that nature. He had a 1/12 thaler from the 1600's that I didn't know anything about but looked cool and was prepared to make an offer. Then we got to the common date unslabbed Peace dollars and told him I pay $18 for them and he lost it. He went on a tangent and rambled on about how his dead brother screwed him over and how these coins were his retirement and started yelling at the guy who he hired to paint another sign on his building(he probably had at least 60 signs painted on it in the most random places already).

I thanked him for his time and told him I would come back when he was less stressed out. I started to walk to the door and he sat down and said we could do a deal now. I told him I was going fishing and walked out. The whole thing was crazy bizarre. I bet the guy hasn't sold a coin in years.