Warning: Ebay, Other Sellers Abuse Of "Rare" And Other Terms

The best advice is just simply do your research before buying. Most of the terms you see in titles are just an attempt to get the item to show up in as many searches as possible. Check ebay completed listings and see what range things are selling in before making a purchase, DO NOT EVER order bullion from China, stick with reputable sellers and you should be fine.

A lot of scams are successful by playing on peoples greed. If it sounds to good to be true it almost certainly is.

Dont be scared of graded bullion either. If you dont care about the grade you can find lower grades selling the same as raw coins and you know you arent getting something with a filled core.

As far as potential market for resale, youll always have the metal content that has a lot of options for selling. ebay though will show if those particular things sell and at what price over melt. If you cant even find it on ebay theres a good chance theres not a lot of interest in it and youre walking the line if not entirely in a niche market. Again though you still have the metal so just dont pay a huge premium and it should work out okay.

Things worth paying a huge premium will have sales history for the most part unless its exceptionally rare which you see more in numismatics. Generally the first thing that happens when something catches a big premium for whatever reason is everyone starts flipping it on ebay to make their profit while they can.

I hear ya, kanga. Surprising having a "rare" piece close @ .01 w/local pick-up.
Currently 77,0000+ rare & 23,000 scarce. (coins&money)

Ill add one-

be careful with entry offers and payment terms. Everyone can decide how they wish to pay and how and why they pay. However, a good reputable dealer when they run an Ad, disclose what they are offering and have fine print saying if additional fees or surcharges exist for different payments.

I responded to an Ad from Westminster Mint out of Wisconsin, they run Ads in papers such as USA Today. I still have that specific Ad and many others in my files. When I attempted to pay by credit card, I was quoted a completely different price from the Ad. In fact, I started a thread on it that you can still see in this forum.

The Ad did NOT stipulate anything, whatsoever that there was a surcharge for credit cards or a different price even for using a credit card.

To me, thats not being upfront. As everyone knows, dealers offer several tiers of pricing, whether online or in Ads they run, depending on the method of payment.

But did Westminster Mint offer that? No they did not. IF they had put a notice of the surcharge in the Ad, I would have still bought the coins. They did not and I dont like being told that the advertised price would not be honored. At least put a line that says "call for terms, conditions apply."

So when you respond to an offer, make sure you are aware of the terms and conditions, know exactly what its going to cost you.