CUSTOMER OF THE WEEK/ PHONE CALL OF THE WEEK

By Tony Swicer

Over the past 5 years we have had a segment in my talks at the club meeting called “customer of the week” or “phone call of the week”. These are true stories of people who have called or come into the coin shop. I am not making any of these up. This is continued from the last journal. The following is a compellation of those stories.

1.    An officer from the ATF is running a drug seizure auction and he wants me to appraise the coins. I went down to the courthouse and the first thing I saw was fake California gold coins. Then, I looked at a fake Continental dollar, fake Morman gold, and fake Pandas. I said to the officer that most of this stuff was fake. He says, “well we are going to sell it anyway, after all its buyer beware”.

2.    A guy comes in with a jar full of pennies through quarters. He wants us to separate and roll them. I said “sorry”.

3.    I heard about MS-70 for cleaning coins”. I said the main purpose of any of these cleaners is to bring out the luster. If you use anything, use acetone and a cotton swab. He says, “I metal detect, that won’t hurt the coin will it?” I said that his coins were probably so far gone, it wouldn’t matter.

4.    A guy comes in, “I need some state quarters but I don’t remember which ones”

5.    A guy asks, “where are the holes in the book for the 2000 and 2001 Delaware quarter?”.

6.    A phone call, “do you buy coins?, Yes. Do you pay Red book?. What exactly do you have?  20 gold eagles. Ray says,” we are buying at $395 and selling at $415. The guy says how late are you open? He’s calling at 5:30 and we closed at 5PM.

7.    A lady comes in the shop and she looks at our scale and says, ”what do you weigh?” I said, “ 220 pounds, what do you weigh?”.       

Tony Swicer is a FUN Director and has given permission to use these statements. Will include some of these comments from Tony in the Journals.