An item in our paper this morning says that the president of the American Numismatic Association, H. Robert Campbell of Salt Lake City, is selling the new Sacagawea golden dollar for $2.00 each.
Can somebody explain to me why scalping sports tickets is illegal but scalping legal tender is not?
I don’t think ticket scalping- er, brokering is illegal, as long as you don’t do it right out front of the event. I have bought concert tickets from brokers for many years, and I’m kind of glad that I can get good seats for events without having to camp out in the ticket line all night.
(Leaps over the fence)
Of course, I understand that there are many people who can’t afford a $45 ticket when it’s being resold for $175, and that seems really unfair.
(Leaps back over the fence again)
But perhaps, these are pretty much the same people who couldn’t afford to take a day or more off work to camp out in a ticket line so they could get good seats for $45.
Maybe I’ll just sit on the fence for this one.
As for the guy selling Sackies for $2, can this be for real? Where do his “customers” live that they don’t have any banks? Is he shipping them over seas? Maybe the extra dollar is for p&h? I’ve got two rolls of Sackies here and they don’t feel so heavy that it would cost $50 to mail them some where.
I’m fairly sure the Sackie scalper is for real. It’s a wire story and it says he’s selling them out of his coin shop in Salt Lake City, so I assumed they were walk-in customers. Maybe not, though; I didn’t think of P&H.
For the same reason why selling heroin is illegal while selling asprin isn’t. There’s a law making it illegal.
The laws against scalping were passed to protect consumers at the outcry of consumers. It creates the greatest good for the greatest number by keeping ticket prices down.
There are fewer coin collectors to lobby for a law against selling coins for more than their value. Also, there are many more coins available, allowing consumers to shop around if they don’t like the price. Finally, collectors are crazy in the first place.
People are dumb enough to pay him $2 and he knows it.
I have a friend who was having a rummage sale and had a $2 bill. He put it in a ziplock and put a price of $3 on it.
It sold. 
This is exactly the type of ignorance Cecil is fighting against.
Geez, I bought a Sackie at my bank for the incredible price of… $1.00!
I wonder, did this dealer have them sealed in little carboard & plastic holders, thus making them “uncirculated”?
You are assuming that Sacajawea dollars are easily available. They are not, at least in my part of the country. I have asked several times at post offices and local banks, and each time I was told “we’re out of them.” I would estimate that I’ve asked twice a month since they were first announced to be available everywhere.
As far as selling the coins for more than $1.00, a person could defend that with the reasoning that one is buying a collectible item. Which is why old US coins in mint condition can sell at a price hundreds or thousands of times greater than their denomination.
I haven’t seen the story (is it available on-line?), but my conjecture is that he’s got higher grade examples (MS-60+) or perhaps proofs (though I’m not quite sure if they’re being produced in proof form yet).
Why should it be illegal to sell a coin above the legal tender redemption value? I’ve spent hundreds of dollars on a single coin before. Surely you wouldn’t argue that an 1804 silver dollar is worth a mere dollar (if so, you’d be ashamed of the folks who’ve shelled out in excess of $100,000 for one).
Numismatically yours
Arnold has it right. The Sacagawea dollars are more available in big cities where they are used in transit systems, etc. They can be hard to find in average sized towns, where the Susan B. Anthony didn’t go over too well 21 years ago. They were originally available only through Walmart store in the first months of this year, because the banks, in their wisdom, told the US Mint last year that they(the banks) didn’t want them!
Scalping event tickets in the US fall under the jurisdiction of the locale in which they are sold. In some places, it is illegal to sell them for more than face value. In some places it is illegal to resell them at all. Local laws govern.
I work in a coin shop. We have been selling the dollars for $1.50 each for a few months now. We buy them originally in a $2000 face value bag(as they are shipped from the mint). We paid more than the face value to purchase them. We break them down, repackage them and sell them singely and in rolls of $25 face value. We make a profit. If you are lucky enough to find a bank that has them, and will give you however many you want, God Bless!! If you are like most human beings, and need instant gratification, we got 'em!
The Mint will make them until the public is sick of them. Just wait. But in the meanwhile, just remember “Beanie Babies”.
In the LA area, I can get the gold plated $1 coins at my bank (First Federal). They limit sales to 5 at a time, and this seems to be a branchwide policy (bought them at more than one branch). Of course, there’s nothing stopping me from buying them at more than one branch the same day, if I’d really wanted them.
In another thread(don’t know how to link, too lazy to find it), someone said that the gold plating chips off easily. I concur.
Ticket scalping is totally legal in Arizona. You can stand right next to the ticket booth and sell your tickets for a million dollars each if you want.
Value is a notoriously slippery concept. I have a feeling that what the dude in Salt Lake is selling are brilliant, uncirculated dollar coins, not the ones you get in change at the Wal-Mart or whatever. To a coin collector, this is pretty obviously worth an extra dollar, or the dude would go out of business pronto. If you bought one of those coins from the dude in Salt Lake, then took it straight to the Post Office, and tried to buy $2 worth of stamps with it, you’d get laughed at. Why? Because the Post Office does not collect coins. They are interested in the coin only because the government has decreed that the coin is worth one dollar.
For that matter, why is a one-square-inch piece of sticky paper worth 33 cents? Because the Post Office says it is, and we trust the Post Office to deliver our mail. The sticky paper your three-year-old makes is not as precious to the P.O., but I know there’s no way I could buy your fridge doodles from you, even for tens of dollars.
Why is anything worth any amount of money at all? Because the seller thinks so, and the buyer agrees. As opinions of worth vary, so do selling prices. This explains Wall Street. According to Yahoo! as I type this, Microsoft stock is worth 61 and 7/8 dollars a share, down from a 52-week high of 119 and 15/16. This is because people feel that Microsoft’s not worth investing as much in as a while ago.
I think you have that a little bit backwards. The banks were upset that they couldn’t get them, as Walmart got the whole mint run for the first two months. Banks therefore didn’t have them for their customers who asked for them, and those customers were ticked off at the banks.
thirdwarning–I got it right.
When the US Mint last year decided to make the Sacagawea dollar, they went first to the bankers trade group. They basically said, what do you think about our upcoming product? The bankers, in their wisdom, and rembering the disaster of the SBA said “No” we don’t want it. They refused to help the Mint launch the new dollar.
So the Mint, using 20th century marketing techniques(a first for them) approached Walmart to help get the public to use the coin. The coin went over so well that people complained to their local bank. “Why can’t you get them?” Then the banks started complaining about their oxen getting gored! Tough nuggies, banks!!
…because by this time next year nobody will be able to get the new dollars, they’ll all be tucked away with the Susan B. Anthony coins in somebody’s coffee can.
The problem with this coin being accepted? Well, there’s no problem with getting it accepted; just circulate it. The problem lies in choice. As long as paper dollars are availible, 99% of people will want folding money.
The solution, simple as it seems, STOP PRINTING DOLLAR BILLS, just doesn’t occur to the Treasury Department.
We have redesigned $100, $50, $20, and now $10 and $5 bills. As the old bills go back to the Federal Reserve, they are removed from circulation. This means they get replaced with the new bills. The old designs are no longer made.
Now we have a dollar coin. The Treasury is spending tens of millions of dollars (new and redesigned) to promote it. This is unnesssary. All they have to do to get the public to accept it is to stop making one dollar bills!
Within two years, the dollar coin will be everywhere.
I envy Canada and England, they went about it the right way.
Sigh.
NickyLarson–I agree with your post wholeheartedly!
Except for this:
Go to a major metro area(LA, NY) ride the metro, and I’ll bet you can see them in abundant use and supply next year.
Actually, samclem, the only part of the transit system in NYC that uses dollar coins is the Long Island Rail Road, which dispenses the Suzy B.'s as change in their ticket vending machines. Much to many people’s surprise and chagrin, since the machines are confusing to use as well. The NYC subway and buses all work on a farecard and token system. Tokens, in fact, are being gradually phased out in favor of the MetroCard, though they refused to eliminate the tokens altogether when the cards first came out.
As for LA, as I understand it, it’s their metro system that doesn’t get abundant use.
Why do you have to be so knowledgeable, NL.
I was just repeating what I had heard/read from posters on this board and snopes board. I probably have just remembered what I wanted to.
I think the fare machines in the DC metro also give back SBA/SAC coins. I wonder about Chicago and a few others?