Category Archives: Uncategorized

Coin Prices: Part II

Posted on by The Old Wolf

In a recent article, I mentioned a set of coins offered by PCS Stamps and Coins, and showed how much of a markup these people were getting.

Since their ads keep popping up on my mobile phone, I thought I’d add just one more example of how putting lipstick on a pig can bamboozle the ill-informed.

Today’s offering: A complete date set of the Peace Dollar, in protective plastic capsules and a handsome cabinet. Price: $848.00

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Complete 10-coin set, with cabinet

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United States Peace Dollar

No question, the set is very pretty. But:

Per the advertisement, these coins are offered in “gently circulated condition.” This is essentially a meaningless statement for collectors; let’s look at the average dealer asking price for a similar set as presented by the Professional Coin Grading Service:

grading

Note that these are average dealer asking prices for PCGS-graded coins; buyers of this set have no guarantee that these coins have been graded by anyone.

The price for a set of coins in 40-grade (Extra Fine) is $442, and the odds that you’ll get a set of coins in this condition are vanishingly small. So you’re paying at least twice the price of these items for the bonus of a cheap cabinet from China and a few plastic capsules.

If you’re thinking this is a good investment, it’s not. You could assemble the same set for much, much less by visiting different coin stores online or in person, armed with the PCGS grading and pricing information.

Be careful out there, and don’t be taken in by the bells and whistles of slick advertising promotions.

The Old Wolf has spoken.

Coin collecting – nobody makes money but the dealers.

Posted on by The Old Wolf

I learned this lesson the hard way as a kid, as I sank endless amounts of allowance and paychecks and tips into a coin collection and various and sundry offerings from the Franklin Mint, touted as “brilliant investments” and “guaranteed to be coveted”. Yes, some of the things I gathered were very pretty, but 50 years later when it came time to divest myself of the items for this reason and that, I found out that most of the stuff was worth: melt value. That’s just the sad reality of the collecting world.

The same holds true for stamps: the mint sheets of things like the Mercury mission

301748

Face value: $4.00. Dealer price today: $18.40. Hardly a brilliant investment over time, and that’s for a mint sheet. Certainly not what my father envisioned as he gathered sheets like this which I ended up inheriting. Individual cancelled stamps collected from envelopes will fetch you… well, kindling, really. With the exception of a few very rare beauties, stamp collecting is a hobby for amateurs (in the original sense, meaning “those who love”) rather than investors.

Not that dealers out there are not still trying to flummox the unwise and the uninformed. Look at this beautiful collection of Liberty Seated coins from PCS stamps and coins, offered for only two payments of $295.00:

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Yes, it’s very attractive. Here’s the potential breakdown of value, taken from the PCGS website – you can be sure that the coins you get will be the commonest (hence cheapest) varieties out there, and all in “Very Good” condition, or between grade 8 and 10.

1877 CC Liberty Seated Half Dollar – grade 8 – $59.00
1876 CC Liberty Seated Quarter – Grade 8 – $60.00
1876 CC Liberty Seated Dime – Grade 8 – $29.00

Total $148.00

That pretty little case probably costs about 30.00 or less from a dealer in China – so for a premium of $400.00 you can have someone put together a set of coins that you could own for 1/3 the price. Even 50 years down the road, don’t expect your investment to appreciate anywhere near that much.

Old US coinage can be beautiful, and top specimens command insane prices from the wealthy bidders who buy them at auction – but if you want to make money from collecting coins… become a dealer.

The Old Wolf has spoken.

End the Madness

Posted on by The Old Wolf

Reuters recently reported that an Egyptian Judoka refused to shake hands with his Israeli opponent after a match at the Olympics in Rio.

It’s all the more sad because there were so many supporters on El Shehaby who encouraged him not to participate, because it would “shame Islam;” this is the pinnacle of resistance, resentment, and revenge, the zenith (or nadir, looked at another way) of stupidity. The Olympics is about building bridges, not about being a pettish douche. And this goes for anyone who does such things – El Shahaby is only the teacher in the moment.

In 1969, Bobby Darin wrote:

Now no doubt some folks enjoy doin’ battle
Like presidents and ministers and kings
But let us build them shelves where they can fight among themselves
and leave the people be who like to sing! (Simple Song of Freedom)

I invite all who would perpetuate this psychopathic, internecine conflict of the ages to toddle off into the desert somewhere, far, far away, and blow each other up until there is no one left – a sort of Middle East Hunger Games, if you will – and leave decent people, Arab and Jew alike, to dwell together in the land in harmony as  they have at many points in history. Knock down the borders. Don’t call the land Israel. Don’t call it Falastina. Call it “Rainë,” the Quenya word for Peace.

I don’t care who your God is. I don’t care if it’s יְהֹוָה or الله. I’m neither Jewish nor Muslim, but I can tell you this – whoever God may be, he’s probably mighty pissed with both sides of this millennia-long conflict. Stop it. If you don’t, this will be the inevitable result:

This is my opinion, and my opinion only. If you think otherwise, I volunteer you as tribute.

TICKET

Comments are disabled for this post. If you have other thoughts, post them at your own blog.

Foistware (or: Unwanted Software While Installing)

Posted on by The Old Wolf

I wrote a few years ago about stealth installs, but the practice continues; I thought I’d give another example of what to watch out for.

Today I updated a couple of modules of Free Studio from DVD Video Soft; notice I link to them because they provide a really useful suite of products that work well, for free. I get that they don’t do this as a labor of love – they need to monetize this somehow, and I suspect the foistware issue continues because it helps the bottom line. So be it – but the consumer should be aware of the rules of the game, because what you get is often not what you want or need.

During the install, you get this dialog box. It tells you exactly what you’re going to do to your computer, so nothing is really hidden there.

Foistware 2

If you just go ahead and click the “next” button, you’ll be installing bytefence, Chromium (an open-source version of Chrome that doesn’t really work that well in the Windows environment), and YahooEverywhere, which will be difficult to remove if you don’t know what you’re doing.  It’s not until you click the “Click here to customize the installation” link that you see exactly what’s going to happen, and get to uncheck the boxes.

Far too many people, when installing software, just go NextNextNextNext, without reading what the boxes say. After all, who really reads the EULAs or is telling the truth when they click the “I have read and agree” button? We’d spend half our lives plowing through byzantine legalese if we did, and I’m still not convinced any of these agreements would hold up in court.

Foistware

“Set Yahoo as my default search, homepage and new tab on all my compatible browsers.” Uh, no.

From where I sit this is just not an ethical business model, because it takes advantage of consumer unawareness. In my previous article I mentioned Oracle, who for the longest time tried to cram the “Ask” toolbar and search engine down people’s throats when they installed or updated Java. I don’t know if they are still doing that or not, but I always thought it was supremely douchey because Ask is a supremely intrusive and essentially worthless software package.

Just be careful. When you install software, read each menu and see what’s being installed/offered. Deselect things you don’t want, and you’ll avoid a host of problems down the road. Unless you want your browser to look like this:

toolbarhell

The Old Wolf has spoken.

 

Flower Sack Dresses From the Flour Mills (Historical Kindness)

Posted on by The Old Wolf

Beautifully crafted article demonstrating compassion and ingenuity in difficult times.

Kindness Blog's avatarKindness Blog

In times gone by, amidst widespread poverty, the Flour Mills realized that some women were using sacks to make clothes for their children. In response, the Flour Mills started using flowered fabric…

With the introduction of this new cloth into the home, thrifty women everywhere began to reuse the cloth for a variety of home uses – dish towels, diapers, and more. The bags began to become very popular for clothing items.

Flower Sack Dresses From the Flour MillsAs the recycling trend looked like it was going to stay, the manufacturers began to print their cloth bags – or feedsacks – in an ever wider variety of patterns and colors.

Some of the patterns they started using are shown below

Flower Sack Dresses From the Flour Mills Flower Sack Dresses From the Flour Mills Flower Sack Dresses From the Flour Mills Over time, the popularity of the feedsack as clothing fabric increased beyond anyone’s wildest expectations, fueled by both ingenuity and scarcity.

By the time WWII dominated the lives of Americans, and cloth for fabric was in…

View original post 261 more words

Loan Sharking: Alive and Well

Posted on by The Old Wolf

loanshark

I recently had brought to my attention the existence of a company called “LoanMe,” which pre-qualified a redditor for a $10,600 loan at an APR of 99.75% with a $70,000 payback.

loan (1)

I knew credit cards had outrageous interest rates of 18% and above, but I had no idea they were being outdone by orders of magnitude in the world of high finance.

Have a look at rates available in Utah from this company:

loan

This is from LoanMe’s own website – with the next column in red calculated out  by me and showing the total payoff.

For a $5,000 loan you’d be paying $36476.04 in interest over 7 years. For an even smaller loan of $2600, you would pay $15729.80 in interest over just shy of 4 years.

Predatory practices of this nature are incomprehensible; I thought we had laws against usury in this country, but I guess we don’t.

Be careful out there, and avoid those who would rob you in broad daylight under the loving protection of the law.

The Old Wolf has spoken.

 

A dozen Crypto attempts today

Posted on by The Old Wolf

crypto

All of these arrived in my inbox today; many are duplicated versions of the same message with minor changes.

Dear info,
Cathleen Holcomb asked me to send you the attached Word document, which contains the final version of the report.
Please let me know if you have any trouble with the file, and please let Cathleen know if you have any questions about the contents of the report.
Kind regards
Alisa Harper
Managing Director
Notice that all of these emails begin with “Dear Info,” since the relevant address is “info@devnull.com.” This in itself should be a red flag.
Dear info:
Thank you for your email regarding your order of 21 June, and sorry for the delay in replying. I am writing to confirm receipt of your order, and to inform you that the item you requested will be delivered by 25 June at the latest. If you require more information regarding this order, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Also, our records show that we have not yet received payment for the previous order of 11 June, so I would be grateful if you could send payment as soon as possible. Please find attached the corresponding invoice.
If there is anything else you require, our company would be pleased to help. Looking forward to hearing from you soon.
Yours sincerely
Benjamin Martin
Chief Executive Officer
Information. A report. An invoice with request for payment. A spreadsheet. All looking innocuous and legitimate.
Dear info,
The reference you requested is attached.
Let me know if you have any questions.
Best regards
Erma Frederick
CEO
No matter how official emails like this look, you should verify every detail before proceeding.
Dear info,
Our records show that we have not yet received payment for the previous order #A-393685
Could you please send payment as soon as possible?
Please find attached file for details.
Yours sincerely
Jami Garrett
Mexico Key Account Director
Don’t open those attachments! They are almost certainly javascript files which will download an encryption virus or something equally vicious.
Be careful out there.
The Old Wolf has spoken.

Infect your computer from home!

Posted on by The Old Wolf
From: <my email address>
To: <my email address>

Subject: Cooperarion with a large firm

Hello!

We are looking for employees working remotely.

My name is [Audra|Joni|Gus|Emily], I am the personnel manager of a large International company. (I got four of these in my mailbox today).
Most of the work you can do from home, that is, at a distance.
Salary is $2500-$5000.

If you are interested in this offer, please visit Our Site

Best regards!

If you’re careless enough to click that link (disabled above), what you’ll be taken to is this:

http://yaseminalkaya.xyz/wp-content/plugins/easy-tables-vc/xxxxxx/lib/jquery-handsontable/test/jasmine/spec/settings/

whereupon your computer will promptly be infected with an encryption virus or some other evil chicanery.

Do not respond to emails like this, and do not click embedded links!

The Old Wolf has spoken.

The Auto Warranty Scam

Posted on by The Old Wolf

Edit:  As a followup to this post, here’s a good article from Consumer Reports about auto warranty scams. Still getting scammy letters as of 8/2017.

“We don’t actually send out any paperwork without receiving a down payment.”

This from an article by ConsumerMan, written in 2008, addressing the onslaught of fraudulent extended auto warranty offers by mail and by phone.

And here it is, 2016, and the tide has not turned. In the last couple of months, I have received virtually dozens of these solicitations to purchase an extended auto warranty (the companies not realizing that my Prius is already at 165,000 miles in 9 years, and hence ineligible by anyone’s standards.) Here are just 3 examples:

Auto3Auto2

Auto1

An article at Edmunds.com also addresses this ongoing plague. Granted, there’s no way of telling just from a solicitation that any given company is fraudulent or reputable, but the fact that there are so many of these things hitting my mailbox and email and even my phone is a pretty good indication to me that there is a huge and lucrative market for these things, and wherever there’s money to be made the roaches will scurry out of the woodwork.

By the time your manufacturer’s warranty has expired – many of them run up to 7 years or 110,000 miles or even more – your car’s pretty much past its day and you should think very hard about whether purchasing an insurance policy (that’s what these are) is really worth it.

Beware of high-pressure sales tactics and “limited time” offers. Research any company and/or policy carefully before sending any money to anyone. And for heaven’s sake, if a salesman tells you, “We don’t actually send out any paperwork without receiving a down payment,” run away fast.

Be careful out there.

The Old Wolf has spoken.

Please: never respond to a letter like this

Posted on by The Old Wolf

Scam letter. Never respond, never fall for these lies.

CONGRATULATIONS

we are pleased to inform you of the result of the just clouded annual final draws of Yahoo FAIR LONDON international programs. You are therefore been approve to Claim the sum of £850,000.00Eight hundred and Fifty Thousand POUNDS.) Your E-mail address is one of 7 lucky Addresses that have won in the Weekly Promotion.                

PAYMENT OF PRIZE AND CLAIM

Winners shall be paid in accordance with his/her Settlement Center. Yahoo Prize Award must be claimed thought their Accredited Agents in South Africa and United Kingdom? Any prize not claimed would be forfeited. Stated below are your identification numbers:
BATCH NUMBER: MFI/06/APA-43658
REFERENCE NUMBER: 2006234522
PIN: 1206
SECRET CODE: 1976
These numbers fall within the SOUTH AFRICA Location file, you are requested to Contact our fiduciary agent in SOUTH AFRICA and send your winning identification Numbers to him, and He is JOHN MORE Consortium. Make sure that you call the African Claim Agent JOHN MORE First and send him all your winning details through mail. Don’t fail to contact him through to contact him through Telephone or email and through email, it is very important that you call him or send email first be sure of your Winning. For further confirmation Please call Claim agent office at SOURCE: INTRALOT S.A. media release CONTACT: Financial Analysis & Investor Relations Manager. SIR JOHN MORE
SIR. JOHN MORE
Fax: 44-870- 974-6825
Email: johnmore@webmail.co.za
2. by Direct Telegraphic Wire Transfer.
The Yahoo Fair London Lottery Licensed Operator shall keep all personal information
You give us as strictly confidential and no personal information shall be made available
to Third parties, unless obliged to do so by law or legal process.
1. Full name………………………….
2. Country…………………………….
3. Full Address…………….
4. Mobile Number (……………..
5. Country of Resident
5. City…………………….
6. Occupation………………………..
7. Age………………….
7. Sex……………………………
8. Company name…………….
9. Your position in your Company.

Congratulations once again.
IT IS OUT OF GREAT TRIBULATION THAT HEROES USUALLY EMERGE.
Regards,
Dr. (Mrs.) Mercy Martins
Zonal Coordinator, United Kingdom Award Promotion.
YAHOO FAIR LONDON

It goes without saying that this is complete bulldust. There is no money waiting for you; all you’re doing is giving your personal information and your money (if you’re foolish enough to send it, for “taxes” and “fees” and “bribes”) to African criminals.

Be carful out there.

The Old Wolf has spoken.