***PLEASE BEWARE OF SCAMMERS IMPERSONATING THIS ACCOUNT. PM QUESTIONS AND SERIOUS OFFERS BECAUSE I WILL NOT CHECK HERE OFTEN BUT I DO GET NOTIFIED OF PMs***
Hello and Happy New Year,
I am selling my 100 BTC Casascius Series 2 Gold Plated Bearer Bar. Before we get to the good stuff, I will say due to already one scam attempt, I am going to be somewhat selective in who I sell to and these are my terms, which are inflexible for this public sale:
1) Payment must be made in Bitcoin. No trades or fiat.
2) We must meet in person at a safe, public location during the day near Fairfax, VA. I recommend selecting a site here:
http://www.safetradestations.com/ but we can nail that down later. No escrow and no shipping will happen.
3) Our identities must be known to each other and we will exchange official ID before meeting.
4) I will not board a plane with this bar, but am willing to drive, or even fly YOU out to my location if the terms are fair.
5) You need to be an upstanding, credible trustworthy member of this forum in my sole judgment. I do realize my presence on this board, while numbering in the years, is limited because I am not an active participant, so to show I am a serious seller I am offering to pay RT airfare to the right person.
This is all assuming that you are unwilling to pay first. If you want to pay first, great. I'll ship it anywhere you like.
ON TO THE BAR (the good stuff)
DESCRIPTION:
This is a series 2 Casascius 100 Bitcoin bearer bar. It is loaded with 100 BTC, worth approximately $43,300 USD as of today January 1, 2016.
HISTORY:
I bought it directly from casascius.com (Mike Caldwell / casascius) in March 2013. I am not skilled with PGP and am really clueless on how to prove that I am the original owner, but I have emails going back and forth between Mike and I, including his PGP signature which I can provide. Maybe Casascius can weigh in as well to verify.
CONDITION:
The hologram label is in perfect condition and untampered with. The bar has been removed from the original shrinkwrap, but is untouched by human hands, stored in a lint free cloth enclosed in a ziploc bag since I bought it in 2013. At the time, I didn't really think opening the wrap would matter because I planned to get a case for it similar to the airtites for coins, but apparently they don't exist. I never could find one that fit it, so lint-free cloth and baggy it was. My fault
The imperfections I can see and disclose are:
1 significant scratch to the upper left of the Bitcoin symbol.
A few what I would call "rub marks" or smudges that don't come off with minor buffing with the soft cloth. Obviously, I am not going to try too hard for fear of scratching it.
Very small surface scratches that are only apparent at certain angles and with overhead lighting. See pictures below.
When viewed from the back, the edge is not perfectly sharp in several areas which are also visible in the pictures. No clue if this was during manufacturing or from handling but it has never been dropped by me.
PRICE: 130 BTCPardon the wall of text, but unlike most sales I want to explain how I arrive at my price. These are not for sale every day and Casascius has not produced them in this form in years. You will not find them on ebay or even the Goods forum. According to
http://casascius.uberbills.com/ there are 69 active and Casascius-funded 100 BTC bars left in the world. 17 are series 1, and 52 are series 2 (like this one). Given that many Casascius coins go for 1.5x the value, and this is far rarer, I initially priced this bar at 150 BTC. I have had more than one person tell me that is an absurd amount. I have rejected final offers from very reputable members of 110 and 115. In this thread from March 2013, someone speculates it could be worth 125 BTC:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=196320.0 I have personally talked with someone on here who paid 135 and 155 for Series 1 bars. But there are not enough public sales that have occurred to give an honest appraisal. Feel free to make reasonable offers.
If you want to tell me it is absurd, that's fine, but be prepared to give quantifiable reasons why. It is negotiable and I am a reasonable person. I do not want either of us to feel ripped off. If you feel that way, you are far more likely to walk away at the time of transaction and waste my time and money. Informed and happy buyers are the best kind because then we get to do it again someday.
PICTURES:
It is amazing how good or poor these bars can look depending on the lighting. To demonstrate this and provide you with as objective a view as my technical capabilities allow, I have photographed the bar in over 100 pictures with a Nikon D5200 DSLR this morning. I also photographed it with my cell phone. The DSLR photos make it look fairly stunning. The cell phone photos reveal more of the imperfections.
This is the same bar viewed with different cameras and under different lighting.
http://imgur.com/a/OwywZ (DSLR pics taken in various lighting around my house that make it look great, but do not show flaws very well. Taken this morning, 1-1-16)
http://imgur.com/a/863z1 (Cell phone pics taken in various lighting around my house. It magnifies flaws that you would normally have to look fairly hard for.)
http://imgur.com/a/HIRSy (I sent these out to a potential buyer a few days ago and am told they make it look "poor". They were taken with a cell phone with overhead, recessed LED lighting.
PARTING THOUGHTS
If you are a scammer, can't meet the terms above, want to remain anonymous, want to bash the condition of the bar or tell me it's ugly despite having access to more HD angles than a Playboy shoot, that's fine. This sale is not for you. I am a patient seller, and there is documented evidence of me trying to sell this for over a year now. I can wait another 30 if I have to, but it would be nice to finally sell it as I am just not that into collectibles and would like to use the money to grow my business. I realize reputation in this community is everything. If you are a member with high standing, I will definitely be more flexible than if you are a relative unknown (like myself, to be perfectly honest). Anyway, thanks for reading and sorry for the long post.
Happy New Year and make sure to ignore anyone who replies here unless the spelling is 'opusdigitus'.... thanks.
