u/chancozay

this happened last saturday and i'm still heated about it.

at a regional show. see a nice looking 1916-D mercury dime at a table. priced at $900 which is on the low end for that coin which should've been my first red flag but i'm an optimist apparently.

i pick it up. something feels slightly off. the weight maybe? hard to explain. i ask the dealer "is this authentic?" he literally laughed and said "kid i've been doing this for 30 years. everything on my table is real."

i didn't buy it. something in my gut said walk away. went home and looked up that specific coin. checked the photos i took at the table against known examples. the mintmark positioning is wrong. not slightly wrong. WRONG wrong. it's a known fake style that's been circulating at shows for years.

compared my photos against the real thing

the differences are obvious once you know what to look for. and there's NO WAY a dealer with "30 years experience" doesn't know that. he either knew it was fake and was hoping someone wouldn't check. or he's been in the business 30 years and can't spot one of the most commonly faked coins in the hobby. neither option is good.

i thought about reporting him to the show organizers but what proof do i really have? a photo on my phone? he'll just say i'm wrong and it's my word against his 30 years.

this is why i have trust issues with dealers. and before the "most dealers are honest" crowd shows up — yeah most are. but the ones who aren't are COUNTING on you being too intimidated to question them. "i've been doing this for 30 years" is not authentication. it's a guilt trip designed to make you feel stupid for asking.

always ask. always check. if a dealer gets offended that you want to verify something that should tell you everything you need to know.

anyone else caught a dealer selling fakes? how did you handle it? because i'm still not sure i did the right thing by just walking away.

i don't want to be mean but i see 10 posts a day that are literally just "what is this coin" and it's a clearly readable date sitting right there on the coin. type the date and denomination into google. that's it. that's the whole process.

"is this 1944 wheat penny worth anything" i don't know man did you try the absolute bare minimum before posting? the answer is on the first google result. it's been on the first google result since google existed.

i get that beginners need help sometimes. genuinely. but there's a difference between "i need help identifying a worn foreign coin" and "i found a quarter that says 1998 on it is it rare." one is a reasonable question. the other is weaponized laziness.

like i genuinely want someone to show me the math on this. i've searched roughly 25,000 pennies. spent hours and hours at my kitchen table hunched over like a goblin sorting through bank rolls.

my finds: 80 wheat pennies. mostly 1940s-50s common stuff. few canadians. one 1909 philly that almost gave me a heart attack until i realized it's not the S VDB.

scanned everything with an app to check values

total value of 6 weeks of searching: maybe $15. i've spent more on gas driving to the bank than i've found in the rolls. my back hurts. my girlfriend thinks i've developed a gambling problem. the bank teller asked me if i'm doing an art project and i said yes because the truth is worse.

but every CRH post on here gets hundreds of upvotes and everyone talks about it like it's this amazing treasure hunt. am i just incredibly unlucky or are most people quietly finding nothing and only the big scores get posted? because i think there's a massive survivorship bias going on and nobody wants to admit that 95% of coin roll hunting is just sorting pennies for minimum wage.

someone convince me to keep going or tell me the truth. which is it.