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 Replies: 9 / Views: 720 |
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Valued Member
Italy
284 Posts |
Good morning forum!  This might be a weird question but how do you go about asking for buying advice? I always feel awkward about asking on a public forum. As an example, imagine I see a coin for direct sale. I want to ask more experience users what they think about it (authenticity, price, etc). Being paranoid though I wonder if doing that will either aggravate the seller (imagine disclosing a price that was given to you).. or bring attention to the coin which will lead to someone else buying it while I ponder about it. The second thing did actually happened to me in the past  Obviously with time one will build its own network of experienced collectors and ask for advice privately but while moving your first steps in this arena that is not possible. Would be nice if the forum would allow a sort of "timed secret" thread which only display to a limited set of users (mods, experts, etc) and become public only after like one week or something..  This would allow some peace of mind while still retaining the information on the forum for future reference. Would love to hear your thoughts or advice!  |
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
1460 Posts |
Possibly get some very good pictures of the coin, then post them without revealing the seller or his/her asking price; and just ask members what they would pay for said coin, or what they're opinon of a fair price would be for said coin... whether a seller or a purchaser.
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Valued Member
 Italy
284 Posts |
Thanks igwt79! Quote:
get some very good pictures of the coin, then post them without revealing the seller or his/her asking price This however gives away the same info anyway. E.g. there might be only a handful for sale at any given moment when we talk scarcer coins. |
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Moderator
 United States
94786 Posts |
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or bring attention to the coin which will lead to someone else buying it while I ponder about it. I used to worry about that as well, but here on CCF I haven't really seen that happen to our members. |
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Valued Member
Italy
284 Posts |
Nice knowing I am not alone Dearborn!
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Moderator
Australia
16806 Posts |
Your options are quite limited:
- Do what you've been doing, and post the link on an open forum and ask if it's genuine etc. This should get you a good answer, quickly, but does risk a forum lurker "sniping" your item.
- Use a closed or private forum (like the General Discussion forum here on CCF). This has the disadvantage of being a much smaller pool of experts who will see it, and perhaps a much slower response time, with not necessarily much greater protection from being sniped.
- Buy first, and ask questions about it later. This is of course sub-optimal, especially if the answer you get is "it's a scam, run away" - in which case, you might have trouble getting your money back.
- Take the discussion offline, and go to a coin club and ask their opinions. This of course works best when you have a coin club handy, and preferably you're already an active member of - which may not be an option for you.
In my experience, a legitimate seller is never, ever, going to complain about their coins being posted and discussed on a forum - any advertisement is good advertisement, so as long as the forum doesn't trash-talk them or their coin, they're happy.
If you're going to continue with Option 1 and are paranoid about lurker-sniping, then some tips may apply:
- Don't name the price the seller is offering. Ask the forum "what's your price".
- Don't name the seller, or post a direct link - make the lurkers Google for it. You can't stop other members googling and posting a link, however.
- Copy and save the pictures onto your device and download them onto the forum, rather than hotlink directly to the seller's pictures. This has the double benefit of (a) not tipping people off where the picture came from, and (b) keeping the forum discussion relevant and educational once the seller sells the coin and deletes the picture.
Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise, you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite. - C. S. Lewis
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Valued Member
Italy
284 Posts |
Thank you Sap! These are all great advices!  Using the "General Discussion" could be actually a great idea. Maybe with an FYI to moderators such as "please move this thread to the correct section after x days" .. or something similar  But probably this is mostly being paranoid for no reason  |
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Moderator
United States
187702 Posts |
Quote:
Using the "General Discussion" could be actually a great idea. Maybe with an FYI to moderators such as "please move this thread to the correct section after x days" .. or something similar You are free to use the "Report this Post to the Staff" link (lower right corner of each post) to let us know when you are ready to have it moved, that way you have control over its public access. |
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Valued Member
Italy
284 Posts |
Thanks jbuck! This sounds like a fun experiment! I will give it a try right now!
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Moderator
United States
187702 Posts |
My pleasure. |
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Replies: 9 / Views: 720 |
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Posted 08/03/2024 11:14 am
