I want to contribute my
Two Cents to this debate and I hope others will too- Ethics in this hobby is truly one of the most pressing issues and could well affect how this hobby continues on into the future...
Now a couple of points before I get into the crux of the debate:
1. Bob, the work you have done with
ebay has helped the hobby more than most people will ever realize, and you personally have probably saved new collectors hundreds of thousands of dollars from being stolen by scam artists... So believe me, my debating with you is simply my love for debate and (I hope) a strong argument which differs a bit from yours but I feel is every bit as valid...
2. I have absolutely no qualms with the OP's idea, I think it is quite industrious, and I think there is absolutely no ill will in the OP's action.
Ok...
I think the first thing set as a basis for all of this is that we are debating about a grey area. We all know what is clearly UNETHICAL- 'unsearched' mason jars, basement slabbing, resale of stolen goods, knowingly selling counterfeit pieces as genuine, tooling, ect, ect, ect. What we are really debating is fairly arbitrary.
I feel the true judgment of ethics in most cases should be INTENT. If someone goes into a situation with the INTENT to bamboozle, connive or otherwise take advantage of the other party, then there is a strong likelihood their actions will be unethical. However, if a person simply uses their knowledge of a particular field of specialty in order to cherrypick varieties from fellow dealers, or snipe out undergraded coins from
TPG slabs, I would argue they are not being 'unethical' but rather, intelligent.
Consider the following case studies: Each of the following is a situation I have encountered in buying and selling, and I have no qualms ethically about how I handled any of these situations.
1. I purchased a large world collection via a public auction (in person, seized property). Lot was accurately cataloged and viewed by numerous individuals and dealers. I had valued it up to $2,000, which what I was willing to pay. Very little action on the lot and I scooped it up for under $1000. Months later, in getting rid of the last odds and ends from that lot, I list a small Chinese piece from that lot which I knew nothing about and was hoping for $20-30. I netted over 1k. Ethically, am I in the wrong for not sending a residual check to the auction house?
2. I have unknowingly purchased 2 coins in mislabeled
TPG holders where the error was certainly in my favor. Both were from a major auction house who did the cataloging and listings, but because they parts of lots, did not included photos of the reverse of the slabs, which would have identified the errors... One was listed as an MS63 Canada Large Cent, and from the photos of the lot, appeared to be so. Upon receiving the lot, turns out ICG had mislabeled and the coin was actually a Newfoundland Large Cent (the obverses are the same). The other case, I purchased another lot from an auction house with an MS64 Canada 5 Cent silver... It had been labeled as a pointed leaves variety by NGC and thus sold as such. Upon examination in hand, I believed it to be a round leaves and sent it into PCGS for confirmation as a crossover, which it was. (There is a fairly significant value difference between the two). Am I unethical for not returning the entirety of the lots to the auction house to be re-auctioned off due to their lack of due diligence?
3. A handful of times I have purchased original bank rolls of certain wheat cents and memorial cents where there is an outrageous jump in value between, for example, MS65 and MS66, or MS66 and MS67. I have hit top of the population coins twice, which I then immediately consigned to sell and did turn a tidy profit. However, one must also remember, to hit these two coins, I probably submitted over the course of a few submissions 100+ others from these rolls which I either lost money on or was able to turn a tiny profit. Is it unethical of me to not send over a share of the profit I did turn to the dealers who originally sold me the rolls?
4. Within the last couple of months, I purchased the old, 'dead' inventory of a world dealer who had thrown this stuff into double row boxes in the late 1980's after he had had it for many years and had not sold. We worked out a very fair price we were both quite happy with for the inventory. After cataloging the entire lot, there were a couple of pieces which had appreciated in value quite significantly during the time they had been in there. In this instance, I DID mail a dealer an additional check, for one simple reason. When we were coming to terms on the price for this inventory, we based it off of a certain percentage of the value, as determined by the both of us. However, we were both ignorant to the items' current value, and we had agreed to a certain percentage of the retail value for the inventory. By not taking into account the much higher value of these coins, it was simply like those had been accounted for in the valuation, and a check which covered the percentage consistent with rest of the inventory was the correct move to make.
I hope some other people do chime in on this, and I also hope I am not regarded as unethical for frankly speaking on this grey area of the hobby. I know I consider myself to be quite ethical in all of my professional and personal dealings, and I am sure 99.9% of the members of CCF have the opinions of their own dealings and ethics.
(edited for missing word)
Posted 12/26/2014 8:42 pm
