Call it the ‘clueless defense’

If a sketchy character tries to sell you some rare coins with some questionable story about how he got them, you probably should check it out. Otherwise, the North Carolina Court of Appeals has said, you might be on the hook for a conversion suit.

Donald King, styled as “a collector of many things,” had a valuable coin collection stolen from his Buncombe County home. The thieves hawked the coins at a shop owned by William Wright, who became a codefendant in King’s suit for conversion. The jury eventually returned an $84,000 verdict against Wright.

But Wright appealed, saying that he was “a bona fide purchaser for value” who had bought the coins in good faith. The appeals court said that even if such a defense does exist, Wright couldn’t mount it because the stories the thieves fed him about their title to the coins was so weak that it should have made him suspicious.

Another coin dealer had turned the thieves away because the deal seemed shady, and some of the coins still had King’s name on them. Wright “was told that some of the coins were acquired through various trades with a drug addict who had inherited the coins; that some of the coins were being sold to pay for the care of a disabled child, who was present at the store; and that some of the coins were acquired in exchange for caring for an elderly woman. By [Wright’s] testimony, nothing about these stories made him think that the coins might be stolen.”

Really? Skeevy characters with rare coins wander into your coin shop and offer explanations about making deals with drug addicts, caring for disabled children and helping little old ladies, and that didn’t set off alarm bells? Looks like to us that the jury sold Wright an $84,000 clue.

David Donovan