Ebay is Getting Better

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Posted By: TONY GALOVICH

I just read on a coin chat line that EBAY just instituted some GREAT new regulations for coins listed on ebay
Hopefully similar rules will be added for sportcards

Simply the new rules are as follows to list A graded coin:

Graded rare coins have to be from the Big 4 in the coin market ONLY,
NO grading service u never heard of

A full scan of the coin, front & back must be in the listing

ANY coin not certified by the Big 4 is considered RAW or uncertified & must be listed as such

If selling a raw coin:

The grade cannot be in the title, only in the listing
A grading company or price guide cannot be mentioned anywhere
A dollar value, even if a personal opinion cannot be included in the title or description

Maybe Ebay will do our hobby a favor & institute similar requirements for sportcards ASAP as it's desperately needed

These news rules will help clean up coin fraud on ebay, not eliminate it , but it is a major step in the right direction

Kudos to ebay, maybe they are listening to all the complaints from honest sellers

I plan on calling ebay & see if similar rules can be added to all sportcard listings

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Posted By: barrysloate

That is good news and my guess is these rules will be instituted for cards. Both the coin and card hobby have many similarities.

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Posted By: Matt

looks good - the question is, what happens if someone ignores those rules? I'm sure if someone points it out to ebay the auction woudl be taken down, but if they do it 2 or 3 times, will their account be banned? Otherwise, they don't rally have anything to lose by trying to 'sneak' auctions into the wrong category.

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Posted By: Marc S.

It basically implies that the coin-collecting public is too stupid to make educated decisions on their own, and that only the grading companies have any expertise. That bothers me -- especially given the rate of errors that grading companies make...in coins. Can you imagine how unfun our hobby would become if the only way that you could buy pre-war cards is if they were pre-holdered by PSA or SGC? I'm not even one of those hobby dinosaurs that hates grading, etc. -- I just think obligating sellers to push toward that end is not necessarily the best way to solve outstanding issues in this hobby.

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Posted By: Rob Dewolf

I just think obligating sellers to push toward that end is not necessarily the best way to solve outstanding issues in this hobby.

I don't think eBay's goal is to solve issues that plague our -- or the coin-collecting -- hobby. I think the company is trying to fix problems that plague its business.

Also, Tony's original post didn't say -- possibly because it hasn't been confirmed yet -- but I don't think the requirement is that all coins/cards be graded. Tony wrote:

Graded rare coins have to be from the Big 4 in the coin market ONLY,

... so I'm assuming this would apply to coins/cards with a value that reaches a certain level. In other words, a seller can still list a raw T206 common or one that is graded by XYZ Authenticators, but if he wants to list a T206 Plank, it needs to be graded by a legitimate service.

Though I'm not a huge fan of grading services, and some of eBay's business decisions make me scratch my head, I can appreciate that the company is moving forward in some way to improve its product.

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Posted By: TONY GALOVICH

I think ebay is not trying to get all coins graded, they could care less about that idea, they want to help their bottom line

But they want buyers who purchase a graded coin to get a real graded coin

I was just offerd a a 1888-P silver dollar for $9500 in a junk slab, but they used a PCGS price guide
only problem the coin is worth around $50

Many of us have been collecting for decades & know all the tricks
BUT there are many new collectors who know virtually zero & are easy marks if they buy graded cards from the "garbage" services

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Posted By: Marc S.

Yes, Ebay is not obligating anyone to get their coins graded. But it seems a little bizarre that raw coin dealers cannot assert their own grade if the card is raw. It's annoying for potential customers -- as they have to click-through to see if the coin is ultra-high grade, high grade, collecting grade, or full of scratches and divots.

Imagine in Ebay's pre-war category if you could only have a grade listed if the card was graded by PSA or SGC. There are many dozens of cards I wouldn't look at because of the annoyance factor.

As to Tony's latest point -- I have increasinly little sympathy for collectors who are willing to be newbies, stepping up and spending thousands of dollars on coins, cards or whatever collectible it is, without doing any due diligence on such investments. Yes -- there are always scum out there that try to take advantage of people...but there are an equal amount of fools that have seemingly large pots of money to expend, do no background research in the process, and then cry foul when they found out they were had.

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Posted By: Richard

The below excerpt is going to be the major problem as far as I'm concerned.

<If selling a raw coin:
<The grade cannot be in the title, only in the listing

Nobody wants to scour eBay for raw coins or cards, clicking on every single auction to try and find a raw uncirculated coin if the grade can't be listed in the title, only denoted in the body of the auction description?....WTF? Pure ignorance.

Unless this changes, I am finished, selling everything and getting out of both hobbies completely.

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Posted By: E, Daniel

there is a box you can check on ebay searches that will delve into the description for any particular word you're looking for...including unc, circulated, fine, etc....so you can still use a descriptor if you want!

Personally I think it's a great idea, saving me ridiculous time opening falsely titled auctions with a "66" in the header or a "Mint 9" in card auctions, only to find some idiot is making up his own grades that have nothing to do with reality.
Coins are an area where I will ABSOLUTELY only take the opinion of graders like NGC and PCGS in determining condition. How strong the stamping is, how much wear shows on raised areas, etc, etc, etc. I want experts who are comparing against hundreds and thousands of examples for the grading curve, not joe shmo who has owned and seen a dozen examples his entire life. Contrary to some opinions shared on this board regarding the horrors of grading on the coin hobby, I couldn't agree less with that analysis.


Daniel

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Posted By: Marc S.

doesn't Ebay's coin forums have categories that are subdivided by graded and non-graded (just like Ebay's sportscard categories). If that is the case, as long as you limit your searches to the graded coin category, you should largely be fine...

unless I am missing something....?

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Posted By: barrysloate

Daniel- I've been looking at coins regularly on ebay, even bought a 1796 large cent recently (raw) and I've wondered about some of the grading services. There is one called "red label" that looks really suspect, and some that look completely homemade. What about ANACS? I think they were around at the beginning- what do collectors think about their coins?

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Posted By: jay behrens

I don't see a problem with not allowing sellers to list a personal opinion of a grade for raw coins/cards. What this does is force the seller to give and accurate description of the item. If they don't, they will be looking at a lot of pissed off customers returning items because of poor scans and bad descriptions.

Jay

The richest person is not the one who has the most, but the one who needs the least.

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Posted By: Peck

Glad to see you posting! Remember you well from the early 1980's as one of the most honest dealers in the country. Never worried about shipping you cards when your buy ads were in SCD. Considered you in my top three buyers along with Bill Huggins and Bill Mastro.