Experiences when trying to sell Old Coin

Recently while clearing my cupboard I came across collection of coins from various parts of the world including few British India Coins. With my current situation of being retired, no pensions and drying up of savings I thought it was a boon that I came across the coins. So I browsed the net visiting so many portals, and blogs so that I can ascertain the value of the coins in my possession. After many hours of reading about the coins in my possession I was still unsure of the value of the coins since  one portal would say the value is xxx whereas another portal would show that the coin is worth 100 time more. A popular portal Numista.com that caters to millions of coin collectors does not give the current value of the coins. 

During my search on Google I found lots of portals such as OLX, Quikr, Ebay Amazon and other ecommerce companies showing old coins and their values. So I checked OLX and to my surprise I saw an immense variation in price of the similar coin similar to what I saw in various coin portals. It was now I decided I would also put an advertisement on OLX and cite the price that comes to my head and see the outcome of the advertisement. So I photographed both sides of a 1/12 Anna coin of 1835 issued by East India and upload the same in my advertisement and cited that i am looking for Rs12 lacs for the same. To my utter surprise I started getting messages on my mail and on whatsapp from over 10 persons wanting to buy the coin at the price cited by me. .All the parties that responded were either from USA or Nigeria. I was thrilled and excited that it’s possible that I would be able to get this kind of money to tide me over the current financial conditions. I then thought if i could get so much for a single coin why not attempt to dispose off the other four British India coins ranging from 1874 to 1939 and so I put forth the same to couple of persons who had responded to my advertisement and to my utter surprise one person offered me Rs 20 lacs and the other Rs 22 lacs..I kept the discussions going on with both the parties who were from USA as to how the deal would be completed and the mode as to how I would hand over the coins within India since I will not be able to sell any coins over 100 years old out of India. Both of them responded and I would explain each of them below.

First person wanted me to courier the coins to his friend at Bangalore and he would then transfer fund to me. I insisted advance payment or a bank confirmation of the payment being made for which he said he would be transferring the funds into my bank immediately and he wanted me to give me details of my account and email address. Not wanting to give my normal bank details i sent across the details of an account not in use but active and my alternate email id to him. Within 20 minutes i got a response from him that he has transferred the money to the account and asked me to check my mail. Sure enough there was a mail from Bank of America stating that a transfer of Rs 20 lacs with transaction reference number being made by him and it also stated that the money is on hold for want of shipment receipt. This person wanted me to courier the coins to his friend at Bangalore immediately and send the courier slip to him so that he would instruct the bank to release the amount. The speed of the entire transaction and his hurry for me to courier the coins raised my antenna of a possible scam so I reread the mail in detail and I found a discrepancy the mail had come from a mail server usa.com and not from the bank domain. I then checked the veracity of the mail and found that it is a fake id.

The second person also from USA said he is collecting the coins for a museum there and he asked me if I have Neteller account and if i do not have it to download the app and register there. Well i did that and sent across the linked email id to the person and similarly within 30 minutes I had a notification on my mail saying that Rs 22 lacs has been transferred to my neteller account but the fund is on hold until I activate the account by clicking a link and pay Rs 6000 for the activation of the account. The moment i read the mail I understood it is a scam and I told the person with whom I was corresponding that the coins are not available.

Lessons learnt from this entire episode were greed does bring about unwanted problems. It was fortunate that I was able to see that both the mails were phishing as the addresses was not from the bank’s domain or Neteller’s domain instead from usa.com & gmail.com. I keep wondering as how many people in India have fallen prey to these con artists. All the persons involved in this scams generally call or message on whatsapp from +234 & +1 country codes (Nigeria or USA). 

Guidelines for common people selling old coins

•  Never believe the person who is offering to pay up huge amount without checking the item being sold.
• Never courier or hand over the coins before the money is realised. The con artist will give you bank confirmation and so forth but unless the money is in your account it is never sure you will receive the money. 
• In case a face to face meet is arranged never go alone and also never meet at isolated places. It would be nice if you go with two or three persons and always meet in a crowded place where people are milling around always.
• Never believe the advertisement or a person that gives you an inflated value of coin. It would be better if you can evaluate the coin you hold by numismatic clubs or serious coin collectors. It is always better to take second and third opinions as persons may try to down price the value so that they can relieve you of the coin
• In the event you have a very rare coin then it is better to sell the same through auction houses though there may be additional charges such as their commissions and taxes
• Coins that are more than 100 years old cannot be sold out of India without the permission of Archaeological Society of India.
• In case you are not getting good value for your coins retain your collection for it would surely appreciate over a period of time. 

Readers knowing some serious collectors please refer them to me as I have few coins to dispose. Please give your comments and suggestion