Decades ago Simon
Bendall explained to me the policy of Baldwin's in
London, with which I agree.
If a member of the public brings coins to a dealer, it is incumbent upon the dealer to offer a
fair wholesale price for them, including the
rarities which the seller may in many cases not have recognized.
If another dealer or supplier offered coins to Baldwin's, however, then Baldwin's was under no obligation to point out unrecognized
rarities, and their sole motive would be to acquire the coins for the lowest possible
price.
I personally feel that a COLLECTOR,
buying coins from a dealer or at
auction, is in a situation analogous to Baldwin's
buying from another dealer, and should
act the same way: don't point out unrecognized
rarities and pay as little as possible for coins you want.
In the case of an ignorant seller offering valuable items on
eBay, I think two considerations speak against notifying him of their apparent value. (1) Apart from ignorance, it may be greed which impels him to try
eBay; he's hoping to get a retail
price from collectors rather than the
wholesale price he knows a dealer would offer him. If he doesn't want to pay for expertise from a dealer, does he deserve to get it free from you? (2) In many cases other buyers too will notice the misattributed
rarity and it will accordingly fetch an appropriate
price in spite of the seller's ignorance.
Finding unrecognized rarites and
buying them for a fraction of their true value is, I believe, one of the two primary motives that generally lie behind the urge to collect. I, for one, am unwilling to renounce this satisfaction, and to replace it by another motivation, namely to make sure that dealers and auctioneers always get the full amount their items are worth and never sell items too cheaply!
