The Biggest Whopper A Coin Dealer Ever Made?

In my mind, you had no choices. There was what you did and nothing else.

You did the right thing. However I want to clarify a comment someone else made.

The law would never have been involved. Recieving a free "gift" in the mail is not illegal. Also darn hard to prove!

Again, I think you did the right thing but there was never any chance of you going to jail.

Well done, sir. Well done.

Thanks again folks. Along the lines of what an earlier poster mentioned was the handling of coins... putting their thumbprints on them, dropping them on the floor, or in some way messing up the coin. What REALLY irks me is when the experts at the COIN SHOP itself do it! I have a long-time coin shop buddy at the biggest coin dealer in my area. I had a valuable gold proof coin to be sent off for grading. To my (masked) horror, he was handling it with his fingers and thumb on its surface. I quietly murmured to him "fingerprints, fingerprints". Note that this guy, the nicest guy in the shop, was doing this and he had been there for years.

In a somewhat-related but different situation, when I had my big bad boat at the boatyard, you would not believe the indifference and sheer incompetence I saw. The worst guy there was either a crankster or glue-sniffer, he was bringing in my huge generator on a forklift into a shop that had a sharp incline at the entrance. a blind man could see that he was going in too low, the forks would hit the dirt incline. I held my voice, thinking that at the last second he would raise the forks. nope. of course he hit the hill with the forks, my generator went forward with the momentum and smacked onto the ground. I don't know, maybe he was a relative of the owner or something. At a previous boatyard, where I had a little more pull, I fired several employees (thru the owner tho) because of the unbelievable stupidity and incompetence of some of the employees, altho a few were really outstanding. the attitude was "it's not my boat". this was in a boatyard I spent over 50k in. Sorry to go off topic, but relating to coins, if you handle it with your thumbs or fingers on the surface, and not on the edge like you should do, or drop it on the floor instead of handling it over a towel or something, or do something equally or even more stupidly, well, it just galls me to no end. One thing that I have learned that many so-called "experts", whether in private or public entities, are just plain incompetent or unknowing. And I trust very few especially those in the government, especially the "experts"... and have enough reasons to.

Case in point, I wanted to set up a trust fund for my son, who has m.s. I was told by everyone there at my retirement workplace, who specializes in such things as retiring, INCLUDING THE MANAGER, told me that my salary, once I was, uh, "gone", could NOT be transferred to a trust fund, only to a person listed as my beneficiary. This was backed up by the retirement people I had gone on the phone with at the main retirement office. So, ON MY OWN, I got on the internet and searched and searched and found out that ALL of them were wrong! I even found the specific California law number for this change, which had been in effect for 2 years, in that the money could be made out to a trust fund.... after hearing from many that there was no way josie. So, it was done. My heart went out to the dozens if not hundreds of parents who had tried to do the same thing but accepted the wrong counsels.


How many beneficiary kids with disabilities got screwed out of potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars (my son is on disability and cannot have big assets to keep his medical going, and he did work hard until he had his 1st m.s. stroke). For most, it means the entire loss of their inheritance if they had one and they had to refuse any inheritance if they wanted to keep their medical benefits. Not to mention that I had already spent some $400 a month for almost 20 years for this beneficiary plan which would have also gone out the door and could not be stopped until I died because my retirement plan could not be changed... it was set in stone. How many were denied this because of the same "experts" I dealt with? How many kids were denied the future they deserved, how many parents lost many 10's of thousands they were paying for the plan? I tried to get a class-action suit going to notify retirees of this who had special-needs kids and a trust fund for them once the parents were dead, but was unable to find an attorney who would take it on.

My main point is this... whether it is coins, money, retirement choices, boatyards, etc., that, without any doubt, that YOU ARE ON YOUR OWN AND IT IS ULTIMATELY UP TO YOU TO TAKE CARE OF IT. now, if this means to ask the coin shop person to "please handle this coin only on the edge" and they are insulted by this, THEN LET THEM BE INSULTED. better that than to just stand by and HOPE that the person knows what they are doing, 90% of them do, it's just that I have a life-long history of dealing with nothing but the hopelessly incompetent remaining 10%. I have accepted this as part of my life, and always remain quiet and calm. I guess it also just goes down to the old adage, that "if you want something done right... do it yourself"... if you can that is.

Again, thanks for the comments guys... mike

4504 Mike....

There is no shortage of incompetence in the world. We get bombarded by it from all directions every day! We just have to rely on ourselves to filter everything out!

I'll add my voice to the others - you absolutely did the right thing.

I predict great things coming your way.

When I told a really senior retirement rep in Sacramento about the retirement issue, in that all of their employees told me (and everyone else in my situation) that the pensions could not be deposited into a special needs trust fund, and I had to have it corrected myself, as an individual, he replied to the effect of "Yah, we should set up a training session for that". Keep in mind that the section involved allowing it had already been in effect for over 2 years in my state... and they had yet to tell their employees?

I used to somewhat trust the government years ago. Now, I trust nobody in government regardless of party affiliation. I am convinced that 90% of them are either crooks or incompetent. I saw a real survey about the most corrupt cities in the USA and make a wild guess which city was at #1... yep, Washington D.C. Friends, we are NOBODY to the politicians... we actually mean absolutely NOTHING to them except for the lies we are told to get us to vote their way. It is the politicians who rule the people, not for the people to rule the politicians as it was originally intended to be.

Well, enough of the rant. What galls me is not only was something like $40k from me had gone out the door, but it would ave continued until I died. My kid would have, if it were not for my suspicious nature, had not seen a cent. Plus another $400 a month from me just going out the door and going nowhere except back to my retirement organization, who would have happily kept it... and also keep the massive amount of money which they would have been required to pay out. The deal that was made that I would pay out $400 a month until my death, and then my son would then be issued my retirement checks until his death. And I was helpless to stop it, even when I found out the truth... it would, and is, being taken out of my retirement until I was dead, even tho it would have not benefited anybody on my end.

To westernsky, your comment about incompetence is the rule in which I run my life by. How many of you were told "no" about something, by the so-called "experts", but then went to another person or supervisor or wrote and found out that you were absolutely right and they were absolutely wrong the whole time. To Ballyhoo and the others, who mentioned Karma and stuff like that, I have already taken care of that. Here is a picture of what I purchased a while back in an attempt to combat bad karma. No kidding. You would not believe the troubles and tribulations I had to go thru to acquire her in my desperation to combat the evil forces in this life. She resides in my van. And you know what... she works!

sorry about going off topic.