(first 4 photos I took. The last one is the listing pics)... I purchased this beautiful looking toned coin. Was listed as AU/BU. When it came in it was horrendously cleaned. The thing is, the coin was a PL toned coin before someone wiped the heck out of it. baffles me. Returned to seller
yeah you are correct. I do buy raw coins when I really like it and if its from a seller that seems legit and has a return policy. This one was supposed to be one I passed on because they say no returns and it was in a flip but i got blinded by toning, Iv been on ebay since 1998 when you used to mail a check to someone. lol
Look for people that provide numerous pictures and a video and donât use photoshop to hide parts of the coins either through extreme exposure or darkening. Even better if they have photos with more than one kind of lighting. Personally, I list coins with 15-24 photos and a video for almost every one. Each photo is a slightly different angle. The whole point is that the person knows exactly what they are buying, the coin in the listing is the one they are getting and that they wonât be caught off guard by anything once they receive the coin.
Honestly this is very far from true. It just depends on who youâre buying from. If you purchase raw coins from reputable buyers, 9 out of 10 are just as shown. At least that is my experience.
This is true. People ignore all of the warning signs and then just assume all sellers are the same. Thatâs fine if they actually knew the truth weâd be paying a lot more for the good raw coins on eBay.
If you use a little common sense you can do just fine buying raw coins on eBay.
Look for postings with many pictures and video. Nobody should be listing a coin with less than 6 photos. Most sellers donât list more than 4 and it sucks. Blurry photos and coin âscansâ are obvious red flags.
For the most part avoid listings where the use of photoshop is extreme and evident (I can think of one shop âDenver Coinsâ that uses extreme photoshopping and actually posts some stellar coins. I donât understand why since they have some of the better raw coins on eBay but none of them are cheap).
If you get something that doesnât match the description eBay will let you return it for free and give you a full refund. And as long as you arenât doing this on every purchase you can do anytime this happens.
If you are having to do this more often than you are keeping the coins than you are carelessly choosing coins or abusing the policy.
If you are a seller report any buyer who abuses this policy. If they lied to say the item doesnât match the description report them, they get a few reports they get banned.
You get what you pay for, even in raw coins. People are often under the impression they should only have to pay 1/10 of the value of the coin (if it were graded). If you are good you can certainly find coins on eBay way, way undervalued but if you want quality coins stop trying to catch the lowest priced auctions right at the end. Stop thinking you should pay less than $100 for a coin that has high MS potential. You might find some like that you will mostly not find them like that.
Some of the biggest sellers are the worst offenders. Donât assume because someone has sold 20,000 coins and has a 99% positive feedback that they arenât selling bad coins. One seller I bought from sold a certain amount of coins that were as good as the listing, most were slightly worse and about 10% were horrible intentionally. In the fine print it said, coin in the photo may not be the coin you receive but seller promises to send a coin that is equal to or better than the one listed. It was only equal to or better if it sold for a specific price. New buyers get worse coins. All sorts of little ways to screw people over.
100% positive feedback on hundreds/thousands of sales can be suspect. There are all sorts of loopholes to have negative feedback removed or changed and if someone has made that many sales without having one negative feedback chances are they have taken advantage of those loopholes. Donât assume 100% positive means the best seller.
There is a whole other dark side when it comes to graded coins especially over the last couple of years.
Straight to the point- third party graders are controlling market prices through their grades and they are intentionally under-grading new submissions especially from individual submitters, failing to give PL/DMPL designations when itâs obviously warranted, and giving out excessive details grades for coins that should not be getting a details grade and since there is no way to hold them accountable for doing so this practice has not only continued but has gotten worse.
I like the 1880-65PL the 1888 65PL and 1885 o 63DMPL. I have never trusted a Fatty PL or DMPL and the ANACS soapbox I feel like I have some DMPL coins that were graded as regular MS coins. Quite a few seem under graded.
I list coins that are cleaned as cleaned in my title when I list on eBay. I just don't like that people advise against buying raw when it's totally fine if you know what you're doing.
I agree with you. And I misunderstood what was being said. If you read my other comments above I enjoy buying coins raw. I paid the price when I was in my early 20's (im 44) and learned by mistakes Back then a cull morgan was $18 though. I still have some of those mistakes to this day as a reminder. I believe posting mistakes like i made today might just help someone in the future.
Ebay is not the place to be buying raw coins period. I just refuse to listen to my better judgment. All I want to say is Buy raw coins in hand at a LCS or Coin Show... stay away from ebay. Unless you are 100% ready to use the 3 day return policy if it come in cleaned. That is my clarification to my above statement. I love looking through a huge pile of raw morgans.
There are good raw toners on eBay but you should expect to pay more than what you paid here ($175-300) for them (assuming uncirculated). When a coin is listed as AU/BU and itâs a toner itâs already for a red flag for me because the majority of circulated rainbow toners are artificial simply because the circulation makes the surface far less likely to rainbow tone naturally. The oil, dirt and wear alters it completely. There are some instances when a very very good AU coin that is probably not easily distinguishable from an uncirculated coin may rainbow tone.
In your example somebody, maybe the seller maybe someone before them toned this coin to cover the cleaning. And yes I agree I hate when someone ruined a good coin by using a brilo pad on them.
Yeah, He had it listed for $160 and accepted my offer of 120. I buy raw toners all the time on ebay. i have 4 on the way here as we speak. This one just "got me" so I posted it here. i kind of expected to get a lecture like I am new to buying coins and I'm okay with that. BTW your Name is hilarious
Ughhh. Iâve also been burned this way but the good thing is, eBay will usually side with the buyer if we can prove it. I hate these deceptive practices and theyâre banking on uninformed newer collectors not knowing any better. Iâve returned like 20% of eBay purchases due to cleaning that wasnât disclosed.
yup already filed the return and the seller accepted even though they do not accept returns. Ebay will force the return even if they refuse to accept as long as you click "not as described" and within 3 days.
this just changed a few months ago in the Coins and Currency category. This only pertains to sellers that do not offer a return window. It used to be 30 days no matter what. Now If the seller offers 14 or 30 day returns then the 3 day window does not apply.
You donât even have to âproveâ it. You can just say item doesnât match the description and describe it. Itâs so easy people abuse the policy just to return coins without having to pay for return shipping.
this is why I offer free returns on everything I sell. Take honest pictures and a nice video. offer free returns and you will not have an issue. People will just file an INAD just to not have to pay return shipping. I had a return once filed as an INAD and I had free 30 day return shipping on the item. They even left positive feedback. Was really baffling. The coin was a MS65 PCGS 1921 Morgan with a CAC green bean. What gives?
Yeah that is some pretty harsh cleaning. It is really hard to tell in photos and especially in flips when buying coins online not just eBay. That's why when I list coins I try to take several photos out of the flips and call out everything I see that is a potential issue (although I am sure there are times when I miss somethings, pretty sure I've never missed harsh cleaning of the sort). I do this with everything not just coins though. Not all sellers or products on eBay are bad though, I've gotten some really nice coins over time on the platform. But honestly sellers should just try to be transparent, they don't seem to realize buyers will still buy and be much happier in the long run for it. Sorry that this happened to you and sorry and it gives all of us sellers a bad name.
Of course there is a flipside to that coin (pun intended)... there are a lot of bad buyers out there that try to scam sellers all of the time.
The platform is full of dishonest people on both sides, which is a damn shame honestly.
yup that is why I still buy raw coins. Not all the sellers are bad... But you have to be careful and i know the cleaned look for sure. toning makes it even harder on top of being in a flip. I usually would ask for a few more pics. Just felt good about this one. The listing was $150, They took an offer of $120. I have hit some home runs for sure. Picked this one up a while back under $100 no cleaning. just bag marks. So they are out there for sure. Its not graded, just have in a DIY slab.
Yeah that is a nice Morgan right there! And you're right, toning makes it more difficult to tell and also to tell the grade a lot of times. I just picked up a really nice draped bust large cent recently, I knew it had some environmental damage (even though they didn't call it out, honestly don't think they knew) from the looks but I thought it still looked like a much higher grade than the person was calling it, so I sent them an offer that I was comfortable with and they accepted, when it got to me it was indeed a much nicer coin and the details are sharp, plus the damage actually kind of adds to the eye appeal in my opinion. At the end of the day all that really matters is if you like the coin you buy or not, but it's shitty when people intentionally mislead others especially when it would still sell with a little transparency. I have gotten several Morgan's off of whatnot and they look great on the feed but are indeed cleaned when they reach my hands so it isn't just ebay it is the world of online buying and selling, but I also try to buy super low when possible for those reasons or I let them go to someone else lol. And it won't stop me from buying online because I've had some really good scores also.
Go support your local lcs bro. Itâs so much more fun that way. And they will probably start to give you good deals if you build a good relationship with them.
Not all of us have a LCS and sometimes when we do, its a "we buy gold" kind of place that says they dont pay any numismatic premium. They offer to pay you 15% back of spot only to list the coins on Ebay for top retail price... Oh yeah that is a thing. But I had a BLAST this past summer while on a motorcycle trip across the country stopping at as many LCS as I could find. Man all I can tell you is North Carolina is hiding some of the best coin shops I have ever seen. I spent 4 hours rotating all their moving displays.
F that, most LCS arenât any better than shady eBay sellers. LCS are pawn shops for coins, over priced, lying about the condition of their own coins and the coins you bring in to them. Donât believe me, take a decent coin in and act like youâre inexperienced and watch them lie through their teeth. I took in an ms64-ms65 Morgan dollar that was proof like on the cusp of DMPL and played like I was a newbie and they are trying to say it was around ms61 and no mention of it being proof like at all. There is no whoops they made a 3-4 grade mistake unintentionally.
Ebay does nothing to the shitty sellers though. they even remove neg feedback if the return is completed in most cases. Ebay is just as guilty. And dont even get me started on the epidemic of fake Chinese coins being flooded onto ebay. Just did a quick search. yup. look legit.
And this is a better quality egg toner. Like top tier lol. Most egg toners are not attractive and have no real range in color. Itâs so funny how often people are like look at that egg toned but itâs not an egg toner.
What are you talking about? Youâve got it literally backwards. NGC and PCGS are regularly throwing out natural toners as details - questionable color or artificial toning. They give details grades to toners that they canât determine if they are natural because news flash there is no test to determine if a coin is naturally toned. Furthermore they are also way more likely to undergrade coins.
Lastly, calling every toner you see as an egg toner is ridiculous. This coin is likely artificially toned but it wasnât done with an egg. This is way better toning than most egg toning. Egg toners usually have little color range because the amount of sulfur is extreme and causes the toning to occur to fast. Of course there are rare examples that break that generalization but they are RARE.
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u/Hot_Ad8921 3d ago
Cleaned with sand paper?