Looking For Coin Collectors For A Story

Which newspaper?

I am guessing WSJ=Wall Street Journal

Thanks Bob! Susan was so nice and patient...

Sorry to barge in this community as a coin ignorant. Because this is a story for individual investors, I want to find some real-person examples to show how to avoid being stung.

Well, I will start off with some of my tips. I will only buy from an online dealer(non-Ebay) if someone I know vouches for them or I do business with them at a coinshow first. Sitting down and talking to a dealer at a show will give you quite a bit of insight into how they run their business, their grading standards, the quality of coins they carry, etc. I have never and will never do online business with a coin company that I am not familar with, no matter how good the deal. I also will not implicitly purchase from a dealer that advertises in coin publications, no matter how big the ad spread. Sometimes in the coin business, smaller and more personal service is the best way to go.

Saiyo,

The best advice I can give is to read some of the topics on this web site. There are a lot of topics that discuss weather a coin is counterfeit or not. In those topics members discuss their methods for spotting fakes, and how to spot a shady dealer. You can probably pick up on a lot tips the quickest this way.

As for people buying coins, all I can say is do your research before you buy anything. If buying online, always check out the seller and his feedback. If I am buying on ebay, I look at the feedback to see how much they have, whether it is positive or not, and also to see if they have multiple sales to one or more people. Many new shady ebayers buy and sell items to a secondary ebay account or accomplices to try and boost their feedback score, this will show as multiple sales to one person. If they have a feed back of only 30, and 10 of those sales are to one person, then you know to be careful.

When researching a coin it is easy to find pictures of authentic coins online. I always look them up and compare the small details. This may be time consuming, but when you are potentially going to spend thousands of dollars on the coin, it's worth the effort.

Some guy named Qiuxia Yuan in Hong Kong. It would be difficult for me to tell you how to contact him again.

I don't think I can legally sell one, but I can charge you for the shipping.

Send me your address and I'll send one out. I'm terrible about going to the post office so it might take me a bit.

I've been collecting coins off and on since I was 8. I know at least one thing about coin investing, you need to be REALLY knowledgeable in order to not lose out, and the only real way to get that knowledge is to work at it for many years, in which case you become a collector and usually no longer are looking at coins at an investment. So to make a long story short, investing in coins usually doesn't work out because once you gain the knowledge and become a collector you never want to sell anything you own.