How to dig yourself into a black hole of no-escape buying great CAC coins.... — Welcome to the CAC Educational Forum

How to dig yourself into a black hole of no-escape buying great CAC coins....

edited May 2022 in History
What follows is a very strange and sad part of CAC's early history.

I thought it might be of interest to some of the younger folks, or even old folks who just didn't know about it at the time.

Hopefully some of you can add to the story. Here is what I know of it....(if you choose to share what you know of this, please refrain from using real name)

Not sure of the exact timeline any longer but it was maybe two years or so after CAC's inception.

A fellow with too much money and not a lot of numismatic experience got into the hobby and learned that CAC coins were considered by many to be the "cream". He reasoned that GOLD sticker CAC coins were basically the best you can get, and set out to corner the market on them.

Great idea for sure! BUT the fellow made a grave grave mistake: he basically tried to buy up every CACgoldie that was on the market with almost no regard to the price he paid.

He unwisely enlisted the help of basically any coin seller out there. So very soon he was buying from many many sources all with one thing in common: everyone knew the fellow would pay crazy high, completely unjustified premiums for ANY coin with a CAC gold sticker on it.

I know I was not alone in trying to damper this guys exuberance. Several dealers tried to make him understand his folly but to no avail. He would call me about once a week asking what new gold stickers I had located for him. "Just name your price", he would say.

I recall him saying one time, " THAT'S A LOT OF MONEY FOR THAT COIN!"

To which I replied, "Yeah you are right. But you're not buying COINS. Your buying STICKERS".

Of course his activity had a side effect that I believe to this day has skewed the CAC populations somewhat. Many coins that most folks would not normally consider valuable enough to warrant the expense of stickering got sent to CAC in the hopes of getting a CAC gold sticker to sell to the fellow. Especially rattlers and other early slabs.

One could scour a show and buy up all the rattlers like Proof 66 common date Franklins, MS 65 Mercury's, etc. then send those to CAC and offer the Goldies to the rich guy!

This went on for many months. Then it all came crashing down. At an East coast show some Dealer purchased a gold sticker coin with the intent to flip it to our "fellow". He made a comment to another show attendee; something to the effect of, "Wait until you see what the idiot will pay me for this coin...hahaha!"

Well the fellow was near enough to the transaction to overhear the banter about how foolish he was. And apparently it took that: seeing/hearing how others were talking about him, for it to finally sink in. Just buying the cream was going to be financially disastrous if one totally disregards the price paid for the cream.

That was it. The party was over. Shortly thereafter Heritage received a very large consignment of CAC Goldies and of course the vast majority of the coins were auctioned off for a small fraction of what the fellow paid for them.

This last bit is pure speculation on my part but I bet the fellow wants nothing to do with rare coins to this day!
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Comments

  • I believe that he might have a few more brothers out there.
  • edited May 2022
    Your thread title is misleading. He never bought great coins. He didn't buy coins at all. He bought holders. Poor bastard :'(
  • Gold CAC stickered coins are hot. Sounds like someone took advantage of the seller. 
  • I remember trying to convince him that 38-D buffs in ms65 gold cac weren’t great coins    I’m pretty certain he owned a coin dealership and had a pretty good understanding of the industry. He went In with his eyes wide open . 
  • edited May 2022

    What follows is a very strange and sad part of CAC's early history.

    I thought it might be of interest to some of the younger folks, or even old folks who just didn't know about it at the time.

    Hopefully some of you can add to the story. Here is what I know of it....(if you choose to share what you know of this, please refrain from using real name)

    Not sure of the exact timeline any longer but it was maybe two years or so after CAC's inception.

    A fellow with too much money and not a lot of numismatic experience got into the hobby and learned that CAC coins were considered by many to be the "cream". He reasoned that GOLD sticker CAC coins were basically the best you can get, and set out to corner the market on them.

    Great idea for sure! BUT the fellow made a grave grave mistake: he basically tried to buy up every CACgoldie that was on the market with almost no regard to the price he paid.

    He unwisely enlisted the help of basically any coin seller out there. So very soon he was buying from many many sources all with one thing in common: everyone knew the fellow would pay crazy high, completely unjustified premiums for ANY coin with a CAC gold sticker on it.

    I know I was not alone in trying to damper this guys exuberance. Several dealers tried to make him understand his folly but to no avail. He would call me about once a week asking what new gold stickers I had located for him. "Just name your price", he would say.

    I recall him saying one time, " THAT'S A LOT OF MONEY FOR THAT COIN!"

    To which I replied, "Yeah you are right. But you're not buying COINS. Your buying STICKERS".

    Of course his activity had a side effect that I believe to this day has skewed the CAC populations somewhat. Many coins that most folks would not normally consider valuable enough to warrant the expense of stickering got sent to CAC in the hopes of getting a CAC gold sticker to sell to the fellow. Especially rattlers and other early slabs.

    One could scour a show and buy up all the rattlers like Proof 66 common date Franklins, MS 65 Mercury's, etc. then send those to CAC and offer the Goldies to the rich guy!

    This went on for many months. Then it all came crashing down. At an East coast show some Dealer purchased a gold sticker coin with the intent to flip it to our "fellow". He made a comment to another show attendee; something to the effect of, "Wait until you see what the idiot will pay me for this coin...hahaha!"

    Well the fellow was near enough to the transaction to overhear the banter about how foolish he was. And apparently it took that: seeing/hearing how others were talking about him, for it to finally sink in. Just buying the cream was going to be financially disastrous if one totally disregards the price paid for the cream.

    That was it. The party was over. Shortly thereafter Heritage received a very large consignment of CAC Goldies and of course the vast majority of the coins were auctioned off for a small fraction of what the fellow paid for them.

    This last bit is pure speculation on my part but I bet the fellow wants nothing to do with rare coins to this day!

    i found about this collector’s misfortune at the Baltimore show and tried to buy as many of his non-great coins as possible at the Heritage auction immediately afterwards. I ended up winning probably close to 70% of his consignment. I would have preferred to have advised him to slow down and not dump so many of his CAC goldies at one time but I was too late.

    His mistake was dumping them all in one consignment. His other mistake was enlisting too many dealers to buy them on his behalf. They ended up bidding and outbidding each other for the CAC goldies.

    I ended up with well over 60 gold CAC stickered old slabs from his huge Heritage consignment at a very reasonable price. Years later, I realized that it was one of my best purchases because many of them were the scarce NGC 2.0 slabs and PCGS doily slabs.

  • edited May 2022
    Realone said:
    I believe that he might have a few more brothers out there.
    Glad that he is not my brother, or even a distant cousin!  Wow!
  • Interesting post script to this story. i discovered that two slabs of his consignment were NGC white label slabs but looked different from each other. That led to the re-discovery of the NGC 2.1 vs 2.0 slab!!

    This collector may have had the somewhat of the right idea but was nearly 10 years too early.

  • This collector gave me the idea of starting my second round push into collecting old slabs especially the black NGC slabs so had he stuck it out he would have been the big winner not the big loser.



  • If he would’ve held until now and consigned to GC instead of HA, he probably would’ve made his money back (most likely plus some).
  • This only supports Laura Legend’s argument that buying and selling a coin and/or coin collection is best suited for long term holding periods of 5 year or more. Not a guarantee but it sure helps!
  • oreville said:

    This only supports Laura Legend’s argument that buying and selling a coin and/or coin collection is best suited for long term holding periods of 5 year or more. Not a guarantee but it sure helps!

    Agreed. To this day I do not understand why deep pocket collectors sell their registry sets within 6 months after they complete them (the Kustasi $10 Indian and Saint sets come to mind). Even if the thrill of the chase ends, I would have held on to the scarcer coins as longer term investments, but that's just me.
  • oreville said:

    This only supports Laura Legend’s argument that buying and selling a coin and/or coin collection is best suited for long term holding periods of 5 year or more. Not a guarantee but it sure helps!

    Agreed. To this day I do not understand why deep pocket collectors sell their registry sets within 6 months after they complete them (the Kustasi $10 Indian and Saint sets come to mind). Even if the thrill of the chase ends, I would have held on to the scarcer coins as longer term investments, but that's just me.
    You are not alone. My average holdings exceed 20 years so fresh they smack your face!! LOL.

  • Viewing my bank vault is like visiting a museum without any entrance fees so I save on the entrance fees!
  • Plus no security guards yelling at you not to touch!!
  • oreville said:

    Plus no security guards yelling at you not to touch!!

    So you are the Tyrant! :D
  • oreville said:

    Plus no security guards yelling at you not to touch!!

    So you are the Tyrant! :D
    Not me as I rather stay below the radar.
  • oreville said:
    Viewing my bank vault is like visiting a museum without any entrance fees so I save on the entrance fees!
     I used to have a similar situation with firearms .   Several friends of mine also were able to put together nice collections housed in their private vault man caves .  It really is something.    Something I would love to do on a larger scale with coins .   Guns , Gold , Silver , Single Malt Scotch and fine tobacco .
     A muscle car or two and some motorcycles parked inside too ….

    ok I’ll stop .  Man can dream and have goals no??!!! 🤓😉🤓😎

  • oreville said:

    Viewing my bank vault is like visiting a museum without any entrance fees so I save on the entrance fees!

     I used to have a similar situation with firearms .   Several friends of mine also were able to put together nice collections housed in their private vault man caves .  It really is something.    Something I would love to do on a larger scale with coins .   Guns , Gold , Silver , Single Malt Scotch and fine tobacco .
     A muscle car or two and some motorcycles parked inside too ….

    ok I’ll stop .  Man can dream and have goals no??!!! 🤓😉🤓😎

    LOL
  • We all love stickered coins (for a price) ... just don't forget NGC's rare "star" rating. Quality is right up there.
  • We all love stickered coins (for a price) ... just don't forget NGC's rare "star" rating. Quality is right up there.

    Sorry, that has not been my experience. But once in a while NGC gets it right.

    I have a few of the NGC starred graded slabs only because they are collectible slabs especially when they are stickered.
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