Rodger Hamilton
Member
- Joined
- Jul 7, 2012
- Messages
- 18
Scam artists at best, and crooks at worst (if one considered less harmful then the other).
The fact is, these drops are marketed to the “wanna be” back yard refiner, because these “drops” could scarcely be regarded as “Future Valued Investments”.
There is absolutely no reason to melt pins into “drops” except to fool the uninitiated into thinking there is more value in that “drop”.
Play the devils advocate, why not sell the unmolested pins and save the trouble and expense of melting, gram for gram, both should be of equal value... right?
No... for 3 reasons
1) You have a chance of estimating the values of plated pins before bidding.
2) You have no chance of if estimating values in a melted “drop”.
3) The “drop” look a lot like a Solid Gold Button.
Any fool with a torch and a little practice can melt a bunch of pins into a button. Add a few deceptive descriptions for the original pins “mill spec”, “thick plated” etc... It begs the question... How do we know the pins were “hi-quality”? The truth is, you will never know.
It is not easy to “fake” pins, so the scammers do the next best thing. Melt a few genuine Gold Plated pins so they can add bits of junk metals to increase weight, then polish the button.
So there is your added value...
One seller has in his description “will fail the 10K test”. This is another deception because 1K will also fail the test, in fact, a piece of copper wire will also fail the 10K test. But while the statement is indeed true, “10-K” is not lost in the mind of the prospective buyer... it is a “hint” dropped by the scammer.
Because of that statement, the seller is perceived to be “honest”, but it is also intended to plant a number in the mind of the buyer. The human mind will “fill in” missing information, this trait makes us humans good at solving problems (but will also lead us down a foolish path, because Gold brings out the optimist in all of us).
The actual karat value of the button is a number between 0 and 9 (so now, the buyer has to make a decision, based on truthful, but counterproductive information). The button appears “golden”, so it's perhaps somewhere close to 9K but not more than 10K.
At best, he correctly guesses there is nothing of much value and moves on. At worst, he calculates up to 9k worth of value, considers his chances of out-bidding everyone else, and places a bid accordingly.
The bait is set, the lines are tight, the seller waits for the fish to bite.
The fact is, these drops are marketed to the “wanna be” back yard refiner, because these “drops” could scarcely be regarded as “Future Valued Investments”.
There is absolutely no reason to melt pins into “drops” except to fool the uninitiated into thinking there is more value in that “drop”.
Play the devils advocate, why not sell the unmolested pins and save the trouble and expense of melting, gram for gram, both should be of equal value... right?
No... for 3 reasons
1) You have a chance of estimating the values of plated pins before bidding.
2) You have no chance of if estimating values in a melted “drop”.
3) The “drop” look a lot like a Solid Gold Button.
Any fool with a torch and a little practice can melt a bunch of pins into a button. Add a few deceptive descriptions for the original pins “mill spec”, “thick plated” etc... It begs the question... How do we know the pins were “hi-quality”? The truth is, you will never know.
It is not easy to “fake” pins, so the scammers do the next best thing. Melt a few genuine Gold Plated pins so they can add bits of junk metals to increase weight, then polish the button.
So there is your added value...
One seller has in his description “will fail the 10K test”. This is another deception because 1K will also fail the test, in fact, a piece of copper wire will also fail the 10K test. But while the statement is indeed true, “10-K” is not lost in the mind of the prospective buyer... it is a “hint” dropped by the scammer.
Because of that statement, the seller is perceived to be “honest”, but it is also intended to plant a number in the mind of the buyer. The human mind will “fill in” missing information, this trait makes us humans good at solving problems (but will also lead us down a foolish path, because Gold brings out the optimist in all of us).
The actual karat value of the button is a number between 0 and 9 (so now, the buyer has to make a decision, based on truthful, but counterproductive information). The button appears “golden”, so it's perhaps somewhere close to 9K but not more than 10K.
At best, he correctly guesses there is nothing of much value and moves on. At worst, he calculates up to 9k worth of value, considers his chances of out-bidding everyone else, and places a bid accordingly.
The bait is set, the lines are tight, the seller waits for the fish to bite.
