We Are in Bizzarroworld 2 2

[VKurtB]

These things ebb and flow over time, but “they ain’t no ebbin’ lately”.

People now believe the worst coins are somehow valuable because they’re different. Yes, it’s been over 53 years since I was a beginner, but I NEVER BELIEVED THAT, … not ever. What, other than maybe YouRube, is causing this? Why are people so gullible? Have we gone too far down the rabbit hole of Internet Belief Syndrome to ever recover? What’s the answer? I can’t in good conscience advise anyone at the ANA to seek the Internet based collector, because many of them “don’t be right in da head”.

Re-education is an Orwellian scary word, chock with political dystopian features, but what’s the alternative? We can’t very well resort to censorship for supplying misinformation. Or can “THEY”? As in da gummint and Big Tech. They sure are making noises like it. Can anyone help me get some peace over the dire state of this frickin’ Internet? It’s a misinformation cesspool and nobody done poured any Rid-X down the commode in decades. “Iss all stanky and junk out there.”

I can go to a FUN or an ANA or a Long Beach or a Central States or a Whitman show and all there IS are people who either ARE numismatically educated, and erudite, or they’re seeking to be, even the locals that come out on the last day. But the ‘net??? So much willing willFUL ignorance! What can we do? 

[Just Bob]

What can we do?

It is only a drop in the bucket, I know, but, on this forum, we can continue to provide accurate information and guidance, and try to confront and correct misinformation and ignorance. 

The areas that needs to be addressed the most, Youtube, Facebook, Etsy, etc. are areas that are outside my realm. The only one I use is Youtube, and that is only to watch things like old Carol Burnette bloopers and other comedy videos. I wouldn't even know how to begin to make a video, but it seems like that may be what is needed. Maybe an abundance of accurate videos would help to counteract the ones that are full of error.

I definitely agree with you about the overabundance of willful ignorance, though. It gets downright discouraging sometimes.

[James Zyskowski]

What you are seeing is not only the rabbit hole syndrome but the “gunna own somebody,anybody especially if it’s for no particular reason other than meanness. Truly sad. I’m so sorry that this is happening. 

[GBrad]

On 7/16/2021 at 12:23 AM, Just Bob said:

I wouldn't even know how to begin to make a video, but it seems like that may be what is needed.

I am in the same boat with you Bob about making videos, I have no idea how but I'm sure one of my kids do..... but I am ready to learn how to do it and post some very relevant, true and factual material that new collectors, and old alike, can learn from and not be misled by all of the junk that is currently out there. 

[Oldhoopster]

I think its the same as it's always been, except today, it's much easier to get a question in front of a lot of eyeballs, and do it anonymously.  

Remember how hard it was getting numismatic info in the past. You had to make a conscience effort to find somebody who knew something, whether a LCS, show, or club.  Then you had to physically  show it to someone and listen to their response.  Effort was involved.

Now, you can surf the net while drinking an Iron City beer and watching the Kardashian's and quickly find a lot of info.  Some of it good and some junk.  Stumble onto a site like this, snap a quick pic with your phone, and you're in business.  No leaving the house, no having to search for somebody who might know coins, no having to stand face to face with someone telling you your coin is damaged.  

Also, if you pay attention to the "got these coins from grandpa's estate" questions, you'll occasionally see PMD in those groups.  Apparently, people were accumulating junk back then, but just stored things away if they couldn't find any information

Just my thoughts

 

 

[Morpheus1967]

On 7/16/2021 at 2:05 AM, Oldhoopster said:

I think its the same as it's always been, except today, it's much easier to get a question in front of a lot of eyeballs, and do it anonymously.  

Remember how hard it was getting numismatic info in the past. You had to make a conscience effort to find somebody who knew something, whether a LCS, show, or club.  Then you had to physically  show it to someone and listen to their response.  Effort was involved.

Now, you can surf the net while drinking an Iron City beer and watching the Kardashian's and quickly find a lot of info.  Some of it good and some junk.  Stumble onto a site like this, snap a quick pic with your phone, and you're in business.  No leaving the house, no having to search for somebody who might know coins, no having to stand face to face with someone telling you your coin is damaged.  

Also, if you pay attention to the "got these coins from grandpa's estate" questions, you'll occasionally see PMD in those groups.  Apparently, people were accumulating junk back then, but just stored things away if they couldn't find any information

Just my thoughts

 

 

This 100%.  

[Woods020]

This is exactly the purpose of the ANA and similar organizations. Individually we won’t be able to do much, but in an organized fashion the dues could be put to good use. And while the internet is full of misinformation it is here to stay as a primary tool for knowledge like it or not. So the ANA should be highly focused on putting out good information. Part of their mission should also be to point out that information should only be trusted by reputable sources. Some sort of campaign to that effect like learn facts not fiction but with a much better catch phrase. 
 

Second I think there needs to be credentials in some way that mean something. I recently asked about the ANA diploma program and it doesn’t seem widely utilized. However, I think there is benefit to having credentials such as “certified numismatist” and even additional credentials demonstrating mastery. This would achieve three goals in one in my opinion:

1. Anyone that wants to take this hobby seriously would be forced to study factual information and demonstrate proficiency.

 

2. If someone wants to just be a hobbyist no worries, but if you want to be in a position to be a dealer or give information as an “expert” you have something to back it up. Then those seeking information will seek it out from someone with the right skill set to give it. 
 

3. Some sort of oversight. If a credentialed individual puts out blatant misinformation there is recourse to getting stripped of those credentials. 
 

[Jason Abshier]

On 7/16/2021 at 2:05 AM, Oldhoopster said:

Iron City beer

🤮 Pittsburgh sewage beer 

[RWB]

This is how human civilization ends -- a whimper through layers of mediocrity, self-dealing, and lies.

[JKK]

One way would be to stop responding to argumentative ignoramuses once they have been told that their parking lot coin or their Jesus-shaped mint mark is PMD, gotten mad, been ridiculed, and then decided that they'll now have the only fun they are going to have here by trolling. We end up with very long threads whose very size might tend to confer at least some potential cred upon bull*spoon* in the eyes of the observing novice.

If someone would tell them, once, credibly, that it's nothing special, and no one kept dignifying the subsequent lack_of_teachability with continuing to engage, maybe they wouldn't keep trolling and drawing in the resident troll enablers who make sure to charge up the paddles to shock to life any such thread when it looks like it might finally stop wasting time. As it is, we serve them up weeks of juvenile fun spiking all the grumpy old fogies' BP while they keep posting pics that even they know are not worth the bits used to make the images. It's the social equivalent of a bratty kid who can't have his elders' approval, so he goes for their annoyance.

[Alex in PA.]

On 7/16/2021 at 11:43 AM, Jason Abshier said:

Pittsburgh sewage beer 

I never thought it was that good!    

[Alex in PA.]

On 7/16/2021 at 12:00 PM, JKK said:

One way would be to stop responding to argumentative ignoramuses once they have been told that their parking lot coin or their Jesus-shaped mint mark is PMD, gotten mad, been ridiculed, and then decided that they'll now have the only fun they are going to have here by trolling.

Posted by a person ATS: " And now Rubicon posts as Detector Kay who posted as Patelnumis who posted as Rocky100 who posted as Robylu52……"

[Jason Abshier]

On 7/16/2021 at 12:10 PM, Alex in PA. said:

I never thought it was that good!    

Iron city beer used to be okay back Then up until the late 90’s rumors were floating around they were weren’t paying their water bill hanging on bankruptcies and they were tapped into the river next to the sewage plant using river water 🤣 always wonder why I got headaches after drinking I.C

now a days I’m Team RWB . @RWBdrink RWB juice while you read some RWB book on coins and minting *warning ! After drinking so many RWBs you’ll start to notice every coin you see is a double die ! That’s only a short term side effect of RWB juice*

Edited July 16, 2021 by Jason Abshier

[RWB]

  "burp!"

[JKK]

On 7/16/2021 at 9:27 AM, Alex in PA. said:

Posted by a person ATS: " And now Rubicon posts as Detector Kay who posted as Patelnumis who posted as Rocky100 who posted as Robylu52……"

Don't forget masturbatory or dippy usernames like "coinz4u" or "KoinKapone" or "coinbadazz." Truth told, when I see one of those I already know what's coming.

[Alex in PA.]

On 7/16/2021 at 12:37 PM, Jason Abshier said:

Iron city beer used to be okay back Then up until the late 90’s

I never did drink Iron City at all.  I was a Genessee Beer man.  It was a product out of Rochester, NY and sure was good.  I like their 12 Horse Ale but something happened and they were out of business for a while.  When it came back it wasn't the same.  Now it's Mirror Pond Pale Ale out of the Deschutes Brewery in Oregon.  Not bad stuff.

[Jason Abshier]

On 7/16/2021 at 1:46 PM, Alex in PA. said:

Genessee Beer man

Drank a lot Genny cream ale and rolling rock and Pabst blue ribbon back in my reckless highschool party days 😉 

[Alex in PA.]

On 7/16/2021 at 1:50 PM, Jason Abshier said:

Genny cream ale

Good stuff!    

[Jason Abshier]

@Alex in PA. have you tried IPA ? lol! I can’t stand IPAs they taste like soap! It’s flashback reminder of my mother putting soap in my mouth when I said bad words which never did me any good anyways, my mother when she was mad used say hundred bad words in few seconds that would of made a church full of nuns pass out she literally cursed in devil tongue 

[JKK]

On 7/16/2021 at 10:46 AM, Alex in PA. said:

I never did drink Iron City at all.  I was a Genessee Beer man.  It was a product out of Rochester, NY and sure was good.  I like their 12 Horse Ale but something happened and they were out of business for a while.  When it came back it wasn't the same.  Now it's Mirror Pond Pale Ale out of the Deschutes Brewery in Oregon.  Not bad stuff.

If you can get anything by Ninkasi, give it a shot. I used to think that nothing good could come out of Eugene, but fair's fair. That stuff is consistently great. First tried it waiting for a metal show with a couple of old friends at the Hawthorne, over in east Portland.

[JKK]

On 7/16/2021 at 11:00 AM, Jason Abshier said:

@Alex in PA. have you tried IPA ? lol! I can’t stand IPAs they taste like soap! It’s flashback reminder of my mother putting soap in my mouth when I said bad words which never did me any good anyways, my mother when she was mad used say hundred bad words in few seconds that would of made a church full of nuns pass out she literally cursed in devil tongue 

I think that's a genetic thing, like with the many people to whom cilantro tastes like soap. I get it because for me, a number of veggies just don't taste like food to me. They taste like something I'd eat to avoid starving, but only then. For years I beat myself up over not liking them, then came to realize it was like ouzo/raki/arrack--they taste like Nyquil to me. Or black licorice, which they also taste like. And yet whole countries in the eastern Med drink that stuff in large quantities.

[Alex in PA.]

On 7/16/2021 at 2:00 PM, Jason Abshier said:

have you tried IPA

Probably but I got on this Mirror Pond Ale through some friends of mine in Alaska.  Real hard corps beer drinkers.  They made their own (ugh!).  Then they started making some kind of Alaskan Shine.  I wouldn't drink it cause I was afraid I'd go blind.   

[GBrad]

On 7/16/2021 at 11:43 AM, Jason Abshier said:

🤮 Pittsburgh sewage beer 

 

On 7/16/2021 at 12:10 PM, Alex in PA. said:

I never thought it was that good! 

Now hold on a minute...... This is the way I see it.... Ya buy a 6 pack of a good quality beer (a 12 pack for some which we used to call a "Twack" in college) and polish them off in a reasonable amount of time (AKA: very quickly).  After finishing off the good stuff, you normally really don't care what the other cheaper stuff you drink tastes like and the morning after usually brings on one of these.....

[Jason Abshier]

Probably the most horrible beer I’ve drank was Black label Canadian beer that’s was actually made by Pabst blue ribbon not sure if they make it anymore I really don’t care to even try it again … Years ago my buddies and I were to meet at my Deer camp for deer season just me , my dad , my 2 friends one buddy hold on I’ll bring the beer for everyone . No problem cool with us all he showed up with 2 (24 packs) said he got this awesome deal we drank it it was okay next day we were all sick in and out of the commode !!! Needless to say we never let him buy the beer again (he was a cheapo his wife used show up at his work every payday to get his pay check from him exactly at lunch time he would run out and give her the check, I actually pitied him for that but that was no excuse to buy cheap nasty beer!!!) 

@Alex in PA. I know what you mean about those “Corp” drinkers my oldest son is a Staff sergeant E-6 in Marine Corp when ever he comes home to visit or deer hunt with me he drinks like a case beer a day !!! Next morning get up early and run it off … My wife told me have talk with him about his drinking “I’m like what do you want me to say to him ?” Quit drinking ? Cut down ? He wasn’t like that before he went into the Marine Corps oh well he’s responsible not driving around getting DUIs or fights or anything like that 

[James Zyskowski]

Personally I would like to thank him for his service. Secondly thank you for drinking responsibility (not driving or fighting and please shooting with care). Just like running you will hopefully slow down with time. 

[JKK]

Maybe this thread has unwittingly provided the example.

Let's say that brand new user MegaCoinGhod has just posted a dryer quarter and wants to know what mint error this is. Three regulars point out that it's a dryer quarter, has PMD, and is worth $0.25. MegaCoinGhod, who doesn't know PMD from PMS, disagrees and begins arguing. In the evident belief that posting a couple dozen different photos will alter physical reality, he bombs the thread with zoomed-in photos of the PMD he considers a Great Rarity. He insinuates that we are all Big Meanies who pick on the Poor Noob because we get our rocas off on bullying and are playa hatahs. Now and then, to throw us all off, he posts a complete sentence with actual punctuation. Everyone with common sense checks out, but there are always a couple people with less than optimal common sense and/or who serve as troll thread paramedics, and pretty soon the thread is at 100+ posts of flaming silliness, all over a maudit damaged quarter.

In this thread, we talked about misinformation for a little bit, then segued into something most of us can get behind: beer. The thread is essentially jacked, but not in a bad way. What if people did this when threads turned completely stupid? If not beer, than something else. Pretty soon we'd all be paying attention to each other, none to MegaCoinGhod who might eventually fatigue of taking new and sharper photos of craptacular coins, and he wouldn't be getting the trolling results he craves. Pretty sure we've got a couple of heavy drinkers here who could be very proactive and start discussions of Scotch, wines, marionberry mead, whatever. There are many topics: food, travel, etc. Stupid threads don't deserve basic dignity, and trolls don't deserve buffet passes.

[Jason Abshier]

Sorry topic went off to beer 🍺 . You are correct a lot of these newer folks are seeing stuff on Facebook , YouTube channels about error coins they believe every PMD damaged coin is an error, if that were the case we’d all have a collection of parking lot error coins so easy to find . I don’t know why a lot of these newer folks are trying to get into error coins (that’s a deep numismatic field that take some serious book or online studying outside of general numismatic collecting) instead they should just start collecting some basic coins and sit back don’t ask too many question and learn something by “reading” … When I was boy my grandfather was a collector he took me to coin shows he had three rules !  
 

1) don’t touch anything!

2) keep your mouth shut when I’m speaking to dealers or looking at coins (basically I kept quiet whole time he was at the show)

3) stay by his side at all times do not even walk 5 feet from him … those were back in days when we got our butts whooped in public nobody batted an eye either it was common 

my grandfather was a good WW2 vet he’s the one who got me started in coin collection 

[DWLange]

NGC receives large numbers of such "wishful thinking" coins every day. I hit the "sorry" button until my fingers are blistered, but there seems to be no end in sight. Since I'm not privy to the submitters' identities, I have no way of knowing whether it's the same folks each time or a new crop of the benighted.

[Jason Abshier]

On 7/16/2021 at 4:48 PM, DWLange said:

I have no way of knowing whether it's the same folks each time or a new crop of the benighted.

I often wondered if it was same person like disgruntled member comes in here to stir the pot for kicks and giggles 

[James Zyskowski]

They are looking for a way to make an easy buck,those who fall for internet offerings and advice.The area of concern is just how is a newbie supposed to act. What is an acceptable question?  This forum sez newbie. That in and of itself opens the door to anyone and therefore the very nature of newbies questions being innocent or the start of a train wreck.