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Attn: Canadian Mace

Posted: Mon Dec 16, 2013 11:49 am
by Bill in Burl
Mace ... If that is your 1858 large cent on Ebay that you describe as "Mint Luster" and "Uncleaned" for a G-6 coin, then you need to work on your grading, what a cleaned coin looks like and understanding what mint luster really is. If it's not your coin up, then forget my comments. People on forums and Ebay buyers pay close attention to what the person is like, his expertise and honesty, from all available venues.

Re: Attn: Canadian Mace

Posted: Wed Dec 18, 2013 12:49 am
by verdigris
Got a link Bill? Couldn't find it.

Hopefully this plug'll be taken outta circulation darn quick and that'll be the end of the curse. :wink:

Yet again, 'tis the season to be selling coins not buying. God rest ye merry gentlemen.


Cheers

Re: Attn: Canadian Mace

Posted: Wed Dec 18, 2013 2:46 am
by Shylo
I have been buying like nobody's business in the past few days... finding some great deals too!

They are out there... esp. now that most people are saying they can't get it to the door in time for x-mas... I think fewer ppl are competing on certain items...

Re: Attn: Canadian Mace

Posted: Wed Dec 18, 2013 3:35 am
by Bill in Burl
Well, I hate to put up links to auctions, but I've made it one of my life missions to call attention to any vendor actions that can potentially harm a newbie or damage our hobby.. Here it is:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/1858-Canada-Vic ... 2586cdad2c

Re: Attn: Canadian Mace

Posted: Wed Dec 18, 2013 7:11 pm
by verdigris
Thanks Bill. I take it that's a VG that was cleaned at some time. Although maybe not recently.

Shylo you've been far luckier than I. I pretty much gave up on bidding the last week or so because everything I make a move on gets outbid - some as much as 50-100% above and beyond what I expect it to go for. I just put it down as "money is no object" Christmas madness and am waiting for all the Rockafellas to leave the market. But you seem to be a wise buyer with a good nose for deals. All the more power to you.

Cheers

Re: Attn: Canadian Mace

Posted: Mon Dec 23, 2013 8:34 pm
by CDNMace
Bill in Burl wrote:Mace ... If that is your 1858 large cent on Ebay that you describe as "Mint Luster" and "Uncleaned" for a G-6 coin, then you need to work on your grading, what a cleaned coin looks like and understanding what mint luster really is. If it's not your coin up, then forget my comments. People on forums and Ebay buyers pay close attention to what the person is like, his expertise and honesty, from all available venues.



Hi Bill,

While I've LONG appreciated your help with the large cents, I have; I don't, however, appreciate your attempt to publicly lecture me.

I had NO grade listed on that coin as you insinuated; and it did not appear in any fashion, to me, as cleaned, in any way. (No scratches, and if boiled or dipped, there would have been nothing left, and there was plenty). Especially under the loupe. With the abundance of crud on it, I would tend to think, as it did with a dealer I wholeheartedly trust, it was kept or stored for a very long time. The pictures were very clear.

I do not attempt to deceive people or bait and switch, ever! I've been taken several times myself. I steadfastly remain a collector, first. All else second. I wouldn't do it to someone else; and quite honestly, I fully resent your insinuation, as well as the 'artistic liberties' you took by adding descriptions on this post that were not there in the ad, and are still not there as all can see. "Mint red/Luster" (which there is on the coin) then redirecting potential bidders back to the photos with 'See photos' is hardly deceptive or misguided. But the way you wrote it, one would think I was calling something I just pulled out of the ground an MS67.

To say I was doing anything untoward or that would take advantage of someone is disgusting and completely unfounded. I will leave an apology up to your conscience.

In the future, if you have something you would like to say to me or have unsolicited advice you'd like to offer about something unrelated to this forum, or are merely attempting to be proactive, there is a private message medium available on here; or you could have contacted me via eBay.

Honesty: 100% rating. 14 day money back guarantee, for ANY reason. Expertise: If I'm even remotely unsure, for personal reasons or for sales reasons, I ask a lot of questions, here. If I can't get help here, I go to a dealer. Or both.

Thanks,

Steve

Re: Attn: Canadian Mace

Posted: Mon Dec 23, 2013 8:45 pm
by CDNMace
Ps... Merry Christmas.

Re: Attn: Canadian Mace

Posted: Tue Dec 24, 2013 4:54 am
by Bill in Burl
On every board on which I am/was a member, I try to help the beginning collector and ensure that newbies are not taken advantage of. I have greatly aided numerous folks on this and other boards ... I'm not an ogre. I want to have the hobby 'grow' and try to negate the loss of so many collectors over the last 20 or so years. If I hurt your feelings, I'm sorry ... but I'm from Oklahoma and we are brutely honest. I sent an email via Ebay to you commenting on the misleading auction and got no answer, so I put it on here, without providing a link .. just the description. When asked to put the link up, I did.

Take a look at the verbiage in your auction and then tell me if you were being totally honest. The truth hurts some times and I'm sorry that I ruffled your feathers. Take a look at the 14 bids that you received and tell me that a newbie didn't get had. No one in their right mind would pay $71 for that unless they were bidding on the words and not the coin.

Re: Attn: Canadian Mace

Posted: Tue Dec 24, 2013 1:29 pm
by CDNMace
Bill in Burl wrote:On every board on which I am/was a member, I try to help the beginning collector and ensure that newbies are not taken advantage of. I have greatly aided numerous folks on this and other boards ... I'm not an ogre. I want to have the hobby 'grow' and try to negate the loss of so many collectors over the last 20 or so years. If I hurt your feelings, I'm sorry ... but I'm from Oklahoma and we are brutely honest. I sent an email via Ebay to you commenting on the misleading auction and got no answer, so I put it on here, without providing a link .. just the description. When asked to put the link up, I did.

Take a look at the verbiage in your auction and then tell me if you were being totally honest. The truth hurts some times and I'm sorry that I ruffled your feathers. Take a look at the 14 bids that you received and tell me that a newbie didn't get had. No one in their right mind would pay $71 for that unless they were bidding on the words and not the coin.


Your continued insinuation that there was something untoward about the description I used compounds this. It is mind boggling. I'm uncertain what you are looking at? I received no message from you; so very clearly your claim to honesty is as manufactured as whatever it is you're seeing in the ad. Does a penny need to be completely black for it to qualify as uncleaned to you? Gees O'Pete?! It had crud all over it. I and a dealer who had nothing to do with the purchase drew the rational conclusion that it had been stored.

I'm not sure exactly what it is that you're 'getting out of this'; if it's some sort of narcissistic self-gratification, but your insinuations are insulting, and beyond comprehension. Anyone, and I mean anyone can see what you're saying just isn't there. Start with your implying that I stated a grade; and go from there. It's. just. not. there, Bill! Everyone can see that. I mean, that's just the starting block of this mystery.

You left out a third option on your omnipotent list of 'must-be's'... I paid $59 CDN in Windsor, ON. It sold to a person and was shipped to a remote part of Labrador. $6.55 USD shipping (to the penny, unlike SO many sellers who unscrupulously profit from shipping), total profit: $5.45 -- should cover the gas to the Post Office. Stop the press! Bill the Omnipotent has taken issue with something he sees as untoward (which actually isn't there, again, as all can see); so he's going to 'protect' newbies by muddying someone else's name.

Is this all because I didn't refer to you first?

I can only assume it's your ego that's attempting to ruin a guy, Bill. I had so much respect for you until I spotted this. So very much. You know this type of thing is fatal to someone who sells, even if it's simply to invest further in their own modest collection.

My conscience is clear. I hope you can live with yours. I can't drive this point home to you enough... I have been taken before, badly. I would never do that to someone else. Never! There is not a worse feeling in collecting than opening a package to realize that you've been duped.

I'll consider this matter at a close. You're a very strange man if this is what you do to people; but I'm not going to allow a stranger in Oklahoma to ruin my Christmas.

Merry Christmas to you all the same.

Steve

Re: Attn: Canadian Mace

Posted: Tue Dec 24, 2013 4:05 pm
by Bill in Burl
I think that you should kick back and enjoy the holidays, rather than spew threats at me. There was no malice whatsoever in what I posted .. it was just my opinion and I've had 3 emails already thanking me for it from other members. Please get over it ... you were calling a G-6 coin as something with red mint luster, but the only luster is from any one of 20 different cleaning products you can find under any sink. You didn't mention a grade on it and never claimed that you did ... I grade it a G-6. I didn't say that you cleaned it ... only that it had been cleaned harshly, hence the color and the lack of Vicky crud in the crevices. You said "weak strike" but it's just because everything is worn off. And, yes, I did send an email through Ebay to you .. if you didn't get it, it's Ebay's fault. It was no different than the 100+ emails that I send to Ebay vendors evry year telling them that their ads are entirely wrong or deceiving.

If I've upset you, I apologige again once more. Get over it.

Re: Attn: Canadian Mace

Posted: Tue Dec 24, 2013 5:01 pm
by CDNMace
Bill in Burl wrote:I think that you should kick back and enjoy the holidays, rather than spew threats at me. There was no malice whatsoever in what I posted .. it was just my opinion and I've had 3 emails already thanking me for it from other members. Please get over it ... you were calling a G-6 coin as something with red mint luster, but the only luster is from any one of 20 different cleaning products you can find under any sink. You didn't mention a grade on it and never claimed that you did ... I grade it a G-6. I didn't say that you cleaned it ... only that it had been cleaned harshly, hence the color and the lack of Vicky crud in the crevices. You said "weak strike" but it's just because everything is worn off. And, yes, I did send an email through Ebay to you .. if you didn't get it, it's Ebay's fault. It was no different than the 100+ emails that I send to Ebay vendors evry year telling them that their ads are entirely wrong or deceiving.

If I've upset you, I apologige again once more. Get over it.


Yes, your insinuations have upset me (read the things you've written), greatly -- And clearly. But the oddity continues. "Spewing threats"? I have done no such thing. I'll grant you, you lead me in emails 3-2. Mine however are along the lines of 'Bill means well, don't take it personally' kind of thing; the other not being so kind. Perhaps someone else you've offended int he past?

I appreciate your unsolicited looking out for people; it is admirable. But there was no malice or intended deception on my part. It may have been from my own inexperience; but make no mistake, I still don't believe there was.

There are some real parasites out there ruining what should be a fun hobby; and I, sir, am not one of them. I encourage you to read what you've written -- in particular when you chose to 'begrudgingly' post a link to my page -- your chosen verbiage. One may find that offensive given the circumstances that nothing deceptive was occurring. I think you were way out of line, across the board from go. So 'getting over it' will depend on the damage you intend to further cause me as I attempt to venture further into the hobby and trade.

I may 'get over it' when I feel your apology is sincere, and you concede you have been extremely out of line from the moment you posted this thread; and never contacted me directly to offer insight.

Be well.

Re: Attn: Canadian Mace

Posted: Tue Dec 24, 2013 5:20 pm
by Bill in Burl
I contacted you through Ebay the day that the coin went up. Then on Mon 16 Dec, I made a post on here (the first one) saying that, if this was your coin, then there were problems with the auction description. Two days later, you had not responded to either way that I had to contact you (Ebay & here). Then, a member requested a link to the auction and I posted it.

You ask me to reread MY posts .. I think that you should do the same. You say that your coin has "red, mint luster" and it's worn within an inch of being unreadable. Any coin below XF will have NO mint luster. You say "weak strike" when the entire coin is worn down to no more than a 'G' condition. In my initial post I told you to understand what mint luster meant, what a cleaned coin looked like, etc. It wasn't pointing fingers or damning you .. it was telling you that your auction description was wrong. I already apologized twice for a post I made only to protect other folks for an educational point of view. You take it as a personal attack .. it isn't. It's to tell you that, if you are going to sell on Ebay, watch the words and descriptions that you use. I would also advise you to find a different "expert dealer".... if you have a dealer that can't tell that the coin hasn't been cleaned then he doesn't know Canadian cents.

Re: Attn: Canadian Mace

Posted: Tue Dec 24, 2013 10:13 pm
by CDNMace
I went looking for 'deals' tonight... I would encourage you to check out, right now (12-24-13... 10:12PM EST) the things in the queue in auctions ending. Especially large cents. Remarkably misleading. I have become a fish scale hunter... but have the general queue open.

Let's 'reset', you and I, and call it a wash then. If that's apropos with you?

Re: Attn: Canadian Mace

Posted: Wed Dec 25, 2013 7:02 am
by Bill in Burl
As I posted before, I was only trying to tell you that the description that you gave was incorrect ... you put things in there that couldn't possibly be true. I'm not omnipotent nor am I narcissistic (by the way narcissistic self-gratification is a double negative since narcisism is already self-gratification) and I wasn't displaying an "ego attempting to ruin a guy". The same as I helped you out when you started posting here ... I was trying to educate you into some of the things to look for when collecting large cents, but now as a seller. I will help any collector who needs it, but I have little patience for vendors who misrepresent their wares. I mentioned before that I sent around 100 emails to Ebay sellers every year to try to help them get things right, including many who have put a scarce item up for sale and don't know their true value/worth... the same as I do for dealers at coin shows so they can get more $$ for their things.

As long as we are "resetting things", here are a few educational pointers for your auction. You said that the coin had an abundance of crud, so that you thought that it was uncleaned. An uncleaned coin will have soft crud in the hard-to-get-at places (the inside of the 8's, 9's & 5's, as well as the crannies/corners of the serifs of the letters and the bends/crevices in the vines and stems). The only crud that was on your coin was corrosion/black with a green tinge in the fields where the person who cleaned the coin couldn't get it off because the bronze had physically changed chemical composition. The coin was not cleaned recently, but still had been harshly cleaned .. my guess is that it was a buried coin and someone tried to get as much as he/she could so that the coin could be ID'd. Any coin less than XF can not have any red/mint luster remining and less than 10% of the XF cents will have anything except a chocalate brown appearance ... a nice patina. Any oxidizing chemical will remove the brown patina and turn it orangey-red in differing degrees. Any number of household cleaning agents will do the same thing ... acetone is the only cleaner that I know of that won't adversely affect the surface patina and, even then, using it on less than VF coins MAY alter the surface with enough exposure. And, wear is wear, with a "weak strike' being impossible to detect on a less than VF coin... the middle of the coin will wear the worst, as well as the points with the highest relief in the design.

For a short Ebay primer if you are looking for "deals" Make your Ebay search function for "newly listed" and check the "description" box when you do so (rather than just title only) .. make sure that you check frequently during the Sunday PM (and Wed too), because that's when most auctions start and the BIN's will be gone otherwise by the time that you look Mon or Tues. If there are only certain dates that you are looking for, then refine your search like (1858, 1859, 1859/8, 1881) large (cent, cents) (Canada, Canadian) and you will get only '59 and '81 Canadian large cents show up. Then eliminate all of the white noise than shows up by eliminating any auction that has cd, dvd, album, postcard, etc .. as well as any country that seems to hog the search (British, England, Gerrnay, France, etc). For your new endeavor with fishscales, try to put silver, fishscale and "5 cents" (using the quotation marks) and only those auctions that have the two words '5 cents' in that order will show up. Using the parens will get you ANY of the words that you put down within the parentheses and the quotation marks will get you only those words in that specific order. Be sure to eliminate any of the words/countries that show up as you refine the search .. it may take you 5-6 tries to get it right, eliminating the chaff.

Good luck on your searches.

Re: Attn: Canadian Mace

Posted: Mon Dec 30, 2013 12:09 am
by CDNMace
All sound advice, as usual. Cheers, Bill.