Hey Home Shopping Network

the wooden box gives it an extra $5.

I think listing it as a non-existent coin might have dropped the sale price a tad

...although the 1913 ASE IS one I am missing in my collection

(actual cost to bidder was $42 plus shipping)

None. They are bringing them in. You are looking at the high price as something that will drive someone away. Well, not if they actually buy it. They may be a bit upset they paid too much for it later, but ask this. How do they know to be upset if they did not do some research later on?

Oh, they just tried to sell it. Uh huh. And in selling it, they will learn more about the coins value. So either way, the person is likely to find a place like CCF, post, learn more and enter the hobby.

If you are saying people will look at the price of that and say you have to be kidding, no way am I getting into something where you have to pay 130 bucks for a coin, then they won't get into this hobby in any meaningful way regardless.

We all know that short of picking out coins from pocket change and sticking to circulated non silver coins, you are not going to be in this hobby for cheap. So I really don't see HSN driving anyone away from the hobby.

And using an auction that failed miserably due to a typo in the listing to declare the value of that coin is off base. You know darn good and well that would have sold for more than 35 bucks had it been listed correctly. And even that aside, I am sure I could manage to find some poor slob who put up their 09S VDB and for whatever reason it went for 150 bucks. Does that mean I can then say that is what it is worth? Pfffftttt, hardly.

My experience suggests this is not the case for many who have over paid for items such as this.

Over the last decade or so, a number of people at my workplace have learned that I am a coin collector. Many of these people have asked me questions about coins they have, including their value. I have been shown various coins (silver dollars, gold coins, Statehood Quarter sets, etc.) that came from these types of TV shows. When I've informed them of the current value of the coins they have, all have been very surprised at how much more they paid. In all cases, the individuals asked how they could "get rid of" the coins as they wanted nothing to do with them or future collecting.

Obviously, my experience is based on a small sample (maybe 15 to 20 folks) of the people who have bought coins from TV - but the consistent response I have received suggests to me that these shows do quite a bit of harm re: potential new collectors.

HSN (Mike) really tries to highlight the First Day of Issue (FDOI) and even brags that he invented it but to me, it doesn't really mean much. It has allowed him to create some sense of "rarity" with the coins but they are only "rare" because of a designation that HE created.

From his perspective, very creative marketing and frankly could be classfied as "genius". It has probably made him literally millions of dollars.

From my perspective, not interested (although I would have paid $35 bucks for the "1913" ).