Breaking News To Someone About A Coin They Own

Go the BBB and lawsuit route. But there is something else while you wait for your court date. Something very effective.
Picket in front of his shop, explaining to every potential customer what he did to your innocent mother.
See how many days of no business it takes to convince this DB to give you store credit.
If I lived near you I'd help with the demonstration. I know someone who did this and it took about 3 hours to get his money back.

Not offering this to be boastful in any sense of the word, but I am an author on the subject, am an ANA member and am on the national registry of speakers for Lincoln Cent die varieties. I have a numismatic biography that includes having written the foreword to Q. David Bowers' book on Lincoln cents as well as two titles of my own. I am also the current President of the Society of Lincoln Cent Collectors. Believe me, there's more I could list to impress a judge (or a dealer) into understanding that I very well know what I'm talking about.

If I can help with documenting this coin, explaining its merits, providing photographs, or any testimony to the effect, just let me know. Within reason I will provide anything I can offer pro-bono (basically meaning I can't cover travel expenses, but I can print photos, take photos, write letters, cover my end of mailing documents, coins, etc.)

Oh...and for the record, what this cat did was purely wrong in every sense of the word, and I would do anything I could to help anyone yank him out onto the carpet by his hair. And to think I was in defense of the idea that he might have done this without malicious intent. What's wrong with me?

So maybe he priced the coin $400 10-15 years ago when the discovery was first made?
Maybe it was at one point worth alot more then current prices, and just said a price off the top of his head?

I remeber when the State Quarter with the extra leaf in the corn was selling for $200+ on ebay
now you see um around $50bucks if not less

chances are not but it is a possiblity

well , she being a old lady does not want to do anything about it.
She said next time ill take my husband to do the selecting .

I offered to help her call visa and file a dispute , then even a small claims court claim if need be.

She just said it sounded like alot of work for just a couple hundred bucks and didnt want to be bothered with it

Now all this was done to help her, but I never mentiond it to the hubby .

I spoke with her in private when her hubby was not home the last few times. Hoping we could resolve it and not ruin his christmas present.Get a refund and maybe use it towards a real 55 dd in a lower grade maybe VG I see them on ebay for around the price.just so he atleast has the right coin to fill the spot in his book

the last thing I think he wants is a christmans present turing into a legal battle, before christman

I will wait till after christmas a day or so , when he officially opens the gift
I'll print up some pictures of what a 55 dd looks like and literature on the 55-d dd
and see what he wants to do.

I hate to see them get ripped off, but I dont want to twist their arm making things right if they dont want me to.

Ether way ill still report them to the BBB.

BTW this is not IMO a real coinshop ,more like a we buy gold /silver place that popped up as of recent
and just started buying diff types of coins and selling as a side buss.
my prediction is when silver and gold falls the shop will prob be gone when the webuy rush is over

Please try to remind her that she's not the only customer this guy has ripped off. People who are passive and do nothing actively hurt others because they did nothing.

That coin was NEVER worth anywhere close to that money, even when it was discovered. I was purchasing them 20 years ago for $5. If anything their value now is higher than it has ever been in the past. I passed over one just once at a show because the dealer had the coin marked at $50 - but not because it was a doubled die. He had it marked that high because in his opinion the 2x2 holdered coin was MS67RD....actually far from it, but the price had nothing to do with the fact that it was a decent doubled die.

I find in the neighborhood of 7 of those out of every 1,000 1955D cents searched. Comparatively, I fond about 10 examples of RPM#2 and 12 examples of RPM#4 in the same average number searched.

I have never found a 1955 DDO searching through 1955P cents and probably never will. I have also never found an example of 1955P-1DO-002.

So...relatively speaking, this doubled die is common, it has always been common, and it has never been valued in the hundreds of dollars save being in an MS68RD holder where it would be worth in the thousands, but not because of the doubled die.

Perhaps the name/location of the store should be posted here. Someone can give him a call as a heads up so that he is free to respond to the allegation in an open forum. In that manner, we wouldn't be calling him out as a possible fraud without giving him ample opportunity to post his side of the story. Might help get that lady a refund. Thoughts?

Perhaps to play devil's advocate, I think in order to judge the wrong here, you would need to know exactly what happened. You would need to determine whether the coin was already priced or if he gave her a price after stating her price range was $300-400. You would also need to know what exactly was said in the conversation. If I purchase a coin off ebay and bid way over it's market value, I can't later say to the seller, you defrauded me because I didn't now any better. IF the coin was already priced, I don't see it being fraud as you would have to prove intent to deceive, and having a stated price would make it really hard to prove that. If she did in fact rely on his expertise, then legally she may be able to recover on an implied warranty theory, but that would be hard to prove as well.

I'm not posting this to say I in any way agree with what happened, but the woman doesn't seem to care that much. I think it was great you informed her and tried to right the wrong, but at this point, if she's happy with it, and he husband is happy with it, I think you should let it go and let them enjoy the present.

I think you need to add a zero to the $50 price. You are thinking of the missing edge letter Washington dollars or the 1995 DDO cents. The extra leaf Wisconsin quarters are still quite costly.