The Morality Of Cherrypicking

SuperDave you are correct a fancy 5 does not command a premium. In fact the reality is its harder to find a plain five in nice condition... This is a variety of RPD I have been chasing for several years.. The main indicator is the die chip above the T of cents. along with the shape of the 6 and 5 in the date. Its not a common or well know variety. I have only seen it in one reference book. But its one I did not have until yesterday.

I think this is a very good point regarding VAMs... How long would it take to attribute VAMs for several hundred Morgans, for somebody who isn't already expert in them? I mean, I've looked at images of some of the VAMs, and even with the little pointy arrows and XXX-factor magnification, I still can't tell the difference half the time. So if it were me, I'd have to seriously weigh the cost of those hours of searching, against the potential gain of however many VAMs I *might* find... and unless business was really bad, I would probably decide to just go ahead and sell the coin for a fair profit based on its more easily identified attributes.

I feel that you did the right thing. It was his choice to do business the way he did, and you profited from that business model, but you gave back as well. There will always be more sources of Mercs; you gave a guy a chance to do better for himself, and those are rare opportunities.

Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't cherry picking part of the thrill in looking at coins? There are only a few dealers that I buy from and if I come across something that should not be there I let them know, and because of their respect, they still sell it to me for that price. A few months ago I bought about 1000 wheat's and found a few semi key dates in about G4 condition. They could have taken them from me and easily put them in a display case but because of my love of Lincolns they were glad that I received it and not someone else.

I have only been to one coin show (which will shortly change, YAY) and remember how many people were there just to cherry pick. In fact, one guy I kind of shadowed for awhile and tried to see what he was doing. He would look through the entire inventory and usually end up buying a couple of coins and then tell the dealer what he bought and what he should be looking for in the future. All the dealers I watched were happy for the news and wanted to learn more.

Every shop you go into they specialize in one or a few coins but not everything. If they specialize in Morgans then look at Cents, if they specialize in Paper money then look at coins, no matter where you go there will be at least one great deal to find. And last of all, I do not feel sorry for a professional to have one or two coins fall through the crack when they are making a great profit in the first place.