This is from a post over at Reddit by poster brades:
The tubes are not sealed from the mint. They are sealed by APMEX. APMEX has staff that pick the best looking coins from tubes out of a monster box and then send them to third party grading companies in hopes they return them with a MS70 grade. They then package the remaining coins that they did not send to be graded in to mint tubes and sell them as raw ungraded coins. The Mint Direct sealed tubes simply mean APMEX has not had their staff go through each roll and pick out the best ones.
If you are purchasing a roll of coins and plan to get them graded it would be best to buy mint direct.
This is just a single example of what I’m certain are many.
Thanks for the explanation. Despite the detailed and appealing description of your monster box purchase, I have been less than thrilled with buying a box of silver/gold coins or jewels from ebay. This is despite having friends who sold lots of jewelry on that platform.
Maybe I will gain confidence, put my right foot in, and shake it all about.
Yea, picking out the good ones from a pile up silver coins.
Reminds me of the time many years ago when I taught First Grade. I was great friends with the school Secretary. Every few days she would package up the lunch money . I’m ashamed now to admit that she allowed me to pick through the quarters.
Remember those silver quarters? (I think they were). I collected and piled them for years. Can’t remember what I did with them.
You have there, what, a hundred dollars (face) of quarters selling for a bit south of $2300!! And over 1400 such bags have been sold, by just that one seller, so far!!
Probably should have posted this on the inflation thread.
Or on an “Our worthless currency” thread, if we had one.
Such offerings as that provide an alternative to my ASEs (American Silver Eagles). The only fault I have with that sale is the bag not being sold by weight. This because many of those old quarters, due to wear, probably have lost a small amount of their silver. And it is the silver for which you are paying.
ETA
On a personal note, the most recent silver find for me (and this was several years ago) was a silver dime. And I was so tickled! If I ever actually found a silver quarter it would be cause for serious celebration! I check almost all my change. But it is 2022, and by now nearly all the silver has, sadly, been removed from circulation.
Sure, I can understand your hesitation. It’s something I share. I don’t know what came over me, several years ago, sending some eBay seller in California (of all places) well over seven grand to buy a stupid ASE monster box having unknown provenance. I must have been having a senior moment!!
I went by the guy’s feedback: all positive. And I was drawn in by a credit card deal I had back then with Freedom Credit Union which gave me a 5% reward when using their card. That reward came to a tidy sum.
Can we just be honest? I was lucky. Period. I really had no clue what I was doing. It was a shot in the dark.
What bothers me now is the thought that, at today’s ridiculously elevated price for this same monster box, that it could be an equally good deal. I would never suggest anyone buy a box today for over double what I paid. Yet the notion gnaws at me that, even at today’s outrageous price, that same ASE monster box I bought could turn out to be a bargain.
Even knowing the prevalence of fraud, it’s still relatively unlikely you would’ve gotten screwed in that deal. You didnt get lucky, you avoided being unlucky.
Although if you havent opened your box, you still dont know what you actually received all those years ago… Schrodinger’s silver, so to speak.
Technically that is true. As a practical matter I’m putting my faith in all the positive feedback accumulated by my seller. I figure with so many sales some of his customers have opened their monster boxes by now. And if there were any hanky-panky I suspect it would have come to light.
Still, you’re right. There is no absolute guarantee until the box is opened. And candidly that might not happen until after I’m dead. At least I’ll be able to die happy!
Yeah, and they’re thinking the same thing about you and other purchasers.
Oddly, this reminds me of a habit of truckers in Canada in the 80s/90s. There aren’t a lot of divided highways in most of Canada. Consequently, when truckers attempted to pass on grades, they would each turn off their lights to make sure no one was climbing the other side of the hill … well, you see where I’m going.
. I’m ashamed now to admit that she allowed me to pick through the quarters.
think they were). I collected and piled them for years. Can’t remember what I did with them.
