Posted on 03/14/2014 6:16:29 AM PDT by ConservativeStatement
March. 14 (UPI) -- A Nevada man filed a criminal complaint alleging his niece stole and sold his $50,000 coin collection to reality TV's Pawn Stars, which then melted the gold down.
David Walters filed the complaint with the Clark County Justice Court on Nov. 27, and by time police notified the pawn shop on Dec. 5, the gold pieces had already been melted down, Radar Online reported.
(Excerpt) Read more at upi.com ...
Especially in Vegas.
Unless he had his collection professionally appraised, the victim of the theft can claim anything he likes about the supposed value of the coins. After the fact, common gold coins in beat-up condition (with no numismatic value at all) can suddenly and magically be transformed into rare ones in mint condition.
Their McReality show is a fraud anyway so why should something that looks shady be a big shock?
The recent story of the family that found $10M in coins on its property confirms your post. Everyone thought the couple was stupid to report the find... We later learned they had the coins for one year before the find became public. They were probably appraising the coins to determine value. If the coins were “scrape”, then they would have been quietly melted and sold. But it turned out the coins were very rare and worth more as antiquity. Thus the publicity even though they will pay much more in taxes....
LOL! People in Cali who find a bunch of them in old rusty cans. Would have been my guess. ;>}
If they are the bullion coins currently being minted and sold since 1986, then their value is essentially the gold alone. Same for silver bullion coins and bars.
If they are the coins once used and circulated as currency, their value is both their metal content and their numismatic value based on the year minted and their condition.
When talking about the $10,000,000 gold coin find in California, many Freepers were suggesting they should melt down the coins so they could avoid taxes. Of course the melt value was $50,000 or so, and they would have cleared $6,000,000 after taxes. In this case I believe Rick, the family is conservative and I think that they try to avoid the typical pawn shop sleaze.
IIRC, the expert ID'd the gold coin as an Omega Man fake.
He may have been going on "insurance value" which is generally far higher than real market value.
oops...
From the article it appears the coins were brought in at different times. It also appears like all the coins may not have been melted down. Evidently they didn’t trust the grader. The uncle probably bought these things over priced.
O no! You mean The “History Channel” might have to drop “Tales of the Occult” or some of the other hosshiite that has caused it to lose respect among anyone who went beyond 3rd Grade?
Anyone that pawns ANYTHING at that store is an idiot.
And the store owners are COUNTING on idiots desperate for a few bucks which is why they placed their pawn shop right in the ghetto not far from the casinos.
History Channel? Must be aliens.
He probably bought them from the Franklin Mint which consistently overvalues the worth of the crap they sell.
If the show is to be believed,(and therein lies the rub), Harrison bought an old Lincoln that the guy wanted 100,000 for.
They agreed on 90,000 if the shop paid him in gold. Harrison gave him 60 one ounce gold coins for the car as the price of gold that day was 1,500 per ounce. So, in that instance, Harrison figured that the coins were only worth their spot gold value.
Amen.
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