You will never win that case

[scroob]

I was having a discussion with one of our regulars. Now as a background, I am an amateur coin collector and know a lot about collecting coins. This woman was telling me about her grandson who inherited a ton of coins from a deceased relative. He kept the coins in a closet. She tells me that one week his family invited a younger relative to their house, and this girl proceeded to take his entire collection and blow it at a market on junk food . The collection was worth several thousand dollars and the kid just blew it all spending it at face value. Now the woman tells me that she should have gone after the vendor for "not telling her family what the kid was doing."
Wait, what ?! The merchant was supposed to tell the family that their kid was spending valuable coins on junk? Are you kidding me? I told the woman "I sympathize with you, I really do. But you are wasting your time. You will never win that case. It was legal U.S. currency and he had every right to accept it."
Was it wrong of the merchant? Not really. If the kid wanted the junk so badly he was glad to accept any payment. All this really did was make one merchant a small fortune for praying on the naivete of a kid. The family should have gone after the girl for spending his coins. But they will NEVER win a case against the merchant for taking the coins. I side with the merchant on this one.

[Hyndis]

Are these US coins? If so, they are still legal tender. Yes, even if the coin was minted in 1890 or something, its still legal tender.

Merchant accepted the coins for face value, transaction was completed. The merchant also may not have even paid attention or even know what was going on. For a lot of coins, unless you know what you're looking for you will have no idea that a coin in your hand is actually worth 1000x its face value.

Go after the kid. Make her earn back an equivilient amount of money to rebuy a collection. Mowing lawns and going gruntwork around the house. That sort of thing.

Also if you have a serious coin collection, you need to lock that thing up!

My father collects coins. I'm not talking about US coins, I'm talking about Roman coins. From the Roman Empire.

Yeah, those are a little pricey!

[iradney]

If anything, they should go after the "younger relative". What the hell was she doing scratching around in an older boy's closet???
She needs to learn that stealing = wrong. VERY wrong.

[scroob]

Yes they were US coins, old and very valuable.

[draggar]

Yes, when I always took money I always checked each piece of paper and coin and compared it to the most recent coin collector's price guide.

Yeah, right.

That seriously sucks, though. I'd go after the sister.

I used to collect coins - I have a $2 bill with a red third print. I don't even know what I have now but I remember I had a fascination with steel pennies.

[scroob]

I mostly collect silver cause thats where the real money is right now. In fact, one coin I had went up 23 bucks in value in 2 weeks.

[bainsidhe]

Wow that sucks. But when did they find out about this little "incident?" If it was immediately after, the family might have gotten some of the coins back from the store (by exchanging them for "face value") or even from the bank.

Interesting story. Almost the exact same thing happened with my Mom. She used to tell me a story from when she was a child and her mother collected old coins. She and her sister "borrowed" some old coins and started buying candy and junk food at the local grocer. Now granted, the local grocer back then was MUCH smaller and he questioned why two young girls suddenly came into a windfall of old-looking coins. He also questioned the parents, which led to a raw behind on two little girls. It's wrong to steal, children.

[scroob]

Most bankers would know not to give them back at face. And I'm not gonna lie, if someone came in and spent some valuable coins like that at face, I am buying them for face out of my register and noone will get them back. Even if they came back asking for it, that is not going to happen.

[LillFilly]

The vendor probably never gave the coins a second look!

We had that at my mall, ironically. We would get calls for pissed-off parents yelling at the store. Why? Because their kids had been in there and spent several hundred dollars in cash that they'd apparently stolen from their parent's wallet/purse. Apparently whatever the kids had bought could not be refunded or it had been long enough for credit only and the parents figured it was somehow the store's fault for selling stuff to the kids. Heck, it's money, the store has no idea where it came from! I think it may have been video games, so yes, reasonable that hundreds would be spent and also, only refunds after the game's been opened.

[scroob]

Ooh that reminds me the coins were all encased in plastic, so the vendor would have had to notice them. Though that does not mean he actually realized how much they are worth.

[Polenicus]

Ooh that reminds me the coins were all encased in plastic, so the vendor would have had to notice them. Though that does not mean he actually realized how much they are worth.

Even so, the assertion that he should have 'contacted them' is insane. He couldn't have known who the girl was, who her parents were, or that she was not the proper owner of the coins, nor is he under any legal obligation to since she was using them as legal tender and not, say, selling them at a pawn shop.

I suspect he DID ask her if she was sure. Or possibly she took all the coins out of the plastic, thereby ruining their value ANYWAY.

[scroob]

I agree totally;in no way should he have to give/sell the coins back. And those coins were likely impossible to get out of the plastic cases, so they were likely still in UNC condition when he received them.
Hell if someone gave me a coin valuable enough, I'd probably quit the job right there and vanish into thin air with my riches.