Buying Coins On Ebay

[quote]Originally posted by gbb357

I have been having a lot of problems buying coins on ebay and receiving damaged coins without disclosure in the listings. Rim dings, cracks, scratches, etc... Is this just my misfortune or are you having as much of a problem as I am?

I also posted to coin grading. Thanks!

That is a BIG problem with ebay, alot of the coins on there is the coins people have already tried to get graded and have failed the test or coins they know will not make the cut so they sell them on ebay to recoop their money. The only thing that can possibly help is to only buy from people with clear pictures and good feedback and a golden return policy like was said before. Some people will refund S&H if you are disatisfied in the coin because they know the coin they are sending is a good coin. I myself only buy slabbed coins from the top 3 companies (PCGS,NGC,ANACS) because my grading skills are not fully developed yet and for the simple fact its just hard to tell what a coin actually looks like from a picture and it is impossible with a fuzzy picture like some ebay sellers use, so I stay away from them all together.

gbb, first, welcome to the forum! We have a lot of experienced eBayers here who are more than happy to give you good advice.

From what you state and the manner in which you state it, I presume you're relatively new to ebay, at least for buying coins. ebay offers a lot of pitfalls for new coin buyers. You have already been given some good advice: ensure the seller has a return policy (few offer refunds on S&H); check his/her feedback (more on this in a moment); nice clear images of both obverse and reverse and, if a peculiar or variety coin (say, an 1890CC "tail-bar" Morgan), detailed images of that part of the coin; clear description of the coin. Avoid auctions with vague descriptions (e.g., "You be the judge."; "See image.") or which don't say anything about the coin except it's date and denomination.

And as also mentioned, until your grading skills are honed for the type or series coins in which you are interested, buy only slabbed coins and those from ONLY ANACS, PCGS, or NGC. This cannot be emphasized enough: any other grading company's slabs (examples: NNC, NTC, ACG, CCGS, PGS, SGS, and a couple dozen more) are at best inaccurate, at worst are fraudulent. Stay away from high-graded and/or high value raw coins, especially the rarer coins such as 1889CC Morgans; they are most likely problem coins (cleaned, damaged, or otherwise ungradable). If they were so valuable, they would have been already graded and encapsulated to protect their value.

On feedback, don't go by the feedback percentage; a 99.7% positive score on 4000 transactions is very bad indeed. READ the negative, neutral, and "mutually withdrawn feedback" which can be obtained without a lot of scrolling at ToolHaus: http://www.toolhaus.org/cgi-bin/negs . Also, usually the seller's responses to negative feedback will indicate his/her character. In many instances, negative comments can be read between the lines in positive feedback.

Avoid "estate sales" like the plague; similarly, watch out for coin sellers who "don't know anything about coins". Avoid "private" auctions in which the seller's feedback or the bidder's ID is hidden; the seller has something to hide. Avoid sales from foreign dealers until you've built up some experience and can differentiate between legitimate and fraudulent sellers.

For me, if I see a coin I want, either slabbed or raw, and it is likely to get into several zeros behind the dollar sign and the seller's information (above) looks good, but I don't know him, I send him an email asking specific questions about the coin, e.g. for a raw coin, "I like this coin, but I can't tell for certain if it's been cleaned or not. If I win it, I plan to submit it to PCGS to be graded. If PCGS will not grade it due to problems, will you accept the coin in return?". This question, if answered honestly by the seller, has saved me a lot of grief and a LOT of money.

All of us eBayers (I've got seven years behind me) have been burned at one time or another. It's part of the learning process. So, don't bid on high value unauthenticated coins unless you have money to lose. And no matter how good the images might be, it is still almost impossible to adequately evaluate a coin without having it in hand.

I (along with many on this forum) could write several books on ebay buying and selling, but this will have to do for now. In summary, education and experience is the key to ebay success.

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Originally posted by nds76

I'm kinda frustrated with shipping charges. For example if I pay let's say $5.00 shipping for a roll of wheat cents that costs $3.99, $8.99 really isn't worth it to me to buy the roll.

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That's a problem with most any low-cost item: shipping charges. The Postal Service, UPS, and FedEx charge by weight, not the value of the parcel contents. A roll of cents weighs about five ounces, so postage alone will cost a minimum of $1.35 for First Class; more like 7 ounces ($1.83) once packaging weight is added. Add another 65 cents for a cheap bubble-wrap envelope, 40 cents for a Safe-T-Mailer to keep the contents from sliding around, 65 cents for Delivery Confirmation and you're up to $3.53 shipping costs, at least for the materials and shipping methods I use. These are minimum prices; a Walmart mailing box instead of a mailing envelope is gonna cost $1 to $2 and packing materials will add even more weight. So, $5 for shipping a roll of cents isn't necessarily unreasonable. Nevertheless, from time to time, I receive a complaint from a buyer who asks why I charge $2.25 to ship a single coin when postage was only 80 cents; they don't realize that postage is only ONE of the costs to ship a parcel. And I don't add in the $7.50 gas cost to me for a round trip to the post office.

I very recently bought several non-coin items which cost less than ten bucks each, but it cost me another $7.40 to $10 to get them shipped to me. I needed the items, so I had no problem paying the shipping costs; it would have cost me a LOT more in gas to drive to Phoenix to shop around for the same items.

Moral of the story: if something is wanted badly enough, one is willing to pay the shipping costs. If it's not wanted that badly, don't buy it.