(12/24/08 Update) Sadly I just went back and checked on one of these bullion dealers who was selling large quantity of 2008 silver eagles and other platinum and gold coins (you have to have gold fever to bid on his stuff), out of a six-day period, he had ended 21 bids out of 91 bids early when the highest bid for the item did not meet his expectations.  Most of the canceled items seemed to be 2008 unc. silver eagle, any of them that did not receive at least a $17 highest bid was being canceled.  Sadly he still had a 100% rating since when he canceled a listing, no bidders can give him a negative rating.  I do not know how he kept getting away with this unfair practice.  To me he should be kicked out of eBay.

(12/10/08) Recently, the coin market especially coins that have anything to do with platinum, gold or silver, whether in proof or uncirculated conditions, with or without professional grading, were extremely HOT.  With the uncertainty of the economy and the expected large injection of 500 billion to a trillion dollars of U.S. currency by the President-elected Obama into the U.S. economy in months to come, many collectors or investors had turned to bullion coins (platinum, gold and silver).  All of a sudden, all bullion were selling with very high premiums.  There seem to be a feeding frenzy out there.  All of a sudden, everything that was made of bullion was in high demand.  I had never seen anything like it in the 20+ years I had dealt with bullion or coins.  Previously, one would expect to pay $ 1.25 to $ 2.00 over silver spot for a common date silver eagle.  May be no more than a 5 to 10% premium for a 1/10 oz. gold or platimum eagle.  All of a sudden I saw people who were willing to pay $6-8 over spot for a silver eagle, over $100 for a $ 5 gold eagle (1/10 oz.) and up to $140 for a 1/10 oz platinum eagle when both gold and platinum were around or below the $800 per oz price ranges.  Both 2008 silver eagle in unc.or proof were going higher and higher especially the later one.  It simply did not make any sense whatsoever.  It seems to me the 1993, 1994 and 1995 proof silver eagle will be much better buys at this time comparing to the 2008 silver proof eagle.  There is simply no logic out there.

However, the "RED ALERT" I would like to bring up here is this:

In the past, I had never have any of my bids on any coins being ended early.  Recently, several of my bids on some of the listed coins were ended early by a few dealers.  Out of curiosity, I checked on those dealers' listings (by using Advanced Search, then the dealer's name and then asked to see all previous listings) and to my surprise I had found some of these dealers had ended many of their listings (many for bullion items and some for silver dollars, graded or ungraded).  Not surprisingly, many of these canceled listings had already received more than one bid but was ended early.  Of course, according to eBay rule, the dealer might have the right to end a listing that has at least more than 12 hours to go.  However, since they ended them early I could no longer be able to check when the original end time was and if such cancellation was indeed more than 12 hours.  I checked with one dealer and he told me he was ready to mail out some of his 1/10 oz platinum eagle but he got robbed therefore it forced him to cancel.  Well if that was the case I could truly understand and would really feel for him.  The only problem was many of these listed bullion coins had a very low starting bid and I do not know how he would be willing to take such a risk (they could lose money on some of them).  The most strange thing was I only saw those 1/10 oz platinum eagles that did not reach very high prices being canceled but not those that were listed at the same time but reached much higher prices.  Also strange was that there were also some 2008 (I believe) unc. silver eagles were being canceled because their bid prices were also not as high as others that received higher bid prices.  He did not tell me his silver eagles also got robbed.   I am not trying to accuse of any of these dealers for being dishonest because strangely enough most of them had a 100% rating.  However, this problem did not seem to happen to me only.  Another coin collector who happened to write me and I mentioned this to him and he told me that he recently had similar experience.  He won a 2006w burnised silver eagle in a very good price and the dealer had accepted his offer but only canceled the sale because the dealer told him the coin simply had too many spots for him to send it to him.  I had never heard that excuse before.

I wonder if this might have happened to any of other coin collectors/investors out there recently, if it did, please write me and let me know and I would mention them here.

Another thing I would like to mention is that I had almost given up in collecting silver eagles and for that matter U.S. silver coins because I am having troubles in finding problem-free silver eagles or silver coins.  I recently won a U.S. silver commemorative coin, graded MS69 by PCGS only to find it had finger prints on it.  I had checked with the dealer before I bid and had requested for a problem free coin but yet I had to return the coin to him.  It is almost impossible to find a problem free 1996 silver eagle and even some of the burnished or proof silver eagles sold by the mint were not problem free.  Therefore, if you bid on any coins offered by any dealers who do not offer money back or who is using stock photos, you better ask as many questions as possible before bidding on their coins.  Luckily, most U.S. coin dealers are honest especially those who are collectors themselves but please be very careful with those dealers who are listing large quantity of coins, who use stock photos for their listings or those who post very fuzzy pictures of their listed coins.  What I hate the most is when I ask them if the coin listed by them is problem free (especially no toning and no spots) and some of their favorite responses would be "yes, they were graded MS 69 by XXXX, therefore they must be good" or "what do you expect, if it is problem free it would be a MS70".  Don't bid on any coins listed by these dealers who would give you this type of responses because those professional grades do not mean they are problem free and you cannot trust their gradings until you can examine the coin yourself.  Therefore, buyer beware.

I hope this will help some of you in avoiding some of the headaches I had faced so far.

Thanks.

Wildgoat2005

12/10/08