Unfortunately, when buying coins on Ebay or any other electronic platform, the one major downside is that ability to hold and look at the coin.  The ability to see a coin with your eyes really determines whether or not you truly want to buy the coin.  Cartwheel luster, the "true" color of the coin, any wear or bag marks, toning and other reasons are all very important when buying a coin.  When buying raw coins through an electronic exchange, you have to depend upon the sellers honesty and ability to take extremely good photographs and not touch up those photographs, have correct lighting for proper color and to see any wear issues with the coin.  As a seller on Ebay, I can tell you it is very difficult to get the pictures you really want to show because of lighting and the cameras inability to see "stereoscopically" as we do with both of our eyes.  As a result, many pictures that I take can be close to the real image of the coin, but often lacks the true "eye appeal" that we obtain when looking at a coin.

The real downside to buying raw coins on Ebay is the what I call the subjective grading by many of the sellers.  Obviously, it is in their interest to grade High so you believe you are getting a much higher grade coin and the price goes up.  I can tell you from experience, over a period of six months, I bought Ten Thousand Dollars worth of Mint State raw coins from a person I thought was a reputable dealer on Ebay.  I sent them to be graded by one of the top grading companies and all of the coins came back not only graded much lower than he had stated, but most of them did not even come back as Mint State.  Many of the coins had been 'whizzed' or cleaned.  Needless to say, I had less than a thousand dollars worth of coins from this individual when I had paid TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS.  Obviously, this guy no longer sells on Ebay, but not only had I lost ten thousand dollars, so had many other unsuspecting buyers.

As a result, I went to ANA's grading classes and learned how to grade coins so I will no longer be ripped off.  But unless you can devote the time to learn how to grade coins, there is a high probability that you will buy a raw coin that is typically much lower in grade than represented by the seller.  I HIGHLY RECOMMEND that if you are buying coins through an electronic exchange, that you stick with coins graded by the top grading companies like NGC or PCGS.  You know that you are getting a quality coin at a reasonable price and that the grade stated on the front of the holder has a 99.9999% chance of always being that grade.  If you just like buying raw coins because of the "thrill" of potentially getting a high grade coin at a cheap price, remember this......the dealer would have already sent the coin to a grading service because he/she would then get top dollar for the coin.  He/She would not be selling it raw on Ebay just so they could sell a high dollar coin at a low dollar price.  It does not happen and it will not happen.  Take it from someone who paid a very steep price to learn this lesson.