Paul's blog

An unknown number of the new George Washington dollar coins, that went into circulation on February 15th, are lacking their edge inscriptions (which includes the phrase “In God We Trust” .. so the conspiracy theorists are having a field day with it!).

The first ones of the ‘error’ coins went for over $500 on eBay. Currently they are still going for anywhere between $70 and $300. (This article (link) quotes lower prices but I just checked eBay).

Now, here’s the thing that got me: LOTS of ‘smart’ people are now offering ‘UNOPENED rolls’ of 25 of these coins on eBay with the added description “ERRORS????”.

I think this is both clever and silly. Clever, because they just wait for a buyer dumb enough to fall for it, and then they simply go to the bank, buy a roll for $25 and send it to the buyer who paid God-knows-what for it. It’s silly, because everyone and his brother is doing this, so they can only hope to make, at most, a few bucks on the transaction. Sure, they can’t lose any money, but who cares about making a few bucks? It’s simply not worth the effort. I guess it takes the attitude of an entrepeneur (whether I make money or not, I can’t lose on this, so we do it…) to engage in these kinds of deals.

What’s really mind boggling, though, is the fact that people are indeed bidding on this! Even though they can avoid the S&H costs and profit margin, by going to their own bank and buy their own ‘UNOPENED roll .. ERRORS???”.

Anyway, I’m in the market for one of these coins. I bid $10.

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