‘Rare’ £1 Gibraltar Neanderthal skull coin sells for £5,000 on eBay – could you cash in too?
The coin usually sells for a maximum of £4 on eBay but one seller has flogged it for £5,000. But will the buyer cough up?
A COIN is causing quite a stir after "selling" for £5,000 on eBay.
The Gibraltar £1 coin features the Queen as well as a skull on its reverse.
If you've been on holiday to British territory which is on Spain's south coast, you may have spotted the coin.
Technically, the coin is not legal tender in the UK but it may have slipped into spare change and is often spotted in circulation.
It celebrates the discovery of a Neanderthal skull - one of the oldest ever found - was discovered near the caves in the Rock of Gibraltar.
One seller seems to have got lucky with the coin - which usually sells for around £4 on the auction website - after receiving one £5,000 bid.
Luke Hearn, from ChangeChecker.org, said: "This is a case of somebody chancing their arm, circulation quality coins of this design regularly sell for between £2-£6 on eBay."
Also, despite the eBay listing claiming it is "ultra rate" it regularly pops up on eBay.
The Sun Online has contacted the seller on eBay to see if he has received payment for the coin as it's unlikely that the bidder will cough up.
Even if your coin “sells” on eBay for a high price there’s no guarantee that the buyer will pay.
In its terms and conditions, the auction website states that bidders enter a “legally binding contract to purchase an item”, but there’s no way to enforce this rule in reality.
The most eBay can do is add a note to their account about the unpaid item or remove their ability to bid and buy.
This is because in order to sign up to the website users do not need to put in valid bank or PayPal details before making a bid.
If a bidder refuses to pay, then the only option for sellers is to give “second chance offers” to other bidders or relist the item.For items of a high value eBay recommends that sellers put a limit on their listing to approve bidders.
It means bidders must email you before placing a bid but NOT that they must pay out the cash if they win.
The popularity of selling coins has grown massively over the last couple of years.
MORE ON RARE COINS AND NOTES
The Sun Money's email inbox is often stuffed full of emails from readers asking just one question: "How much is this coin worth?".
But the truth is that the value of the coin is just what a collector is willing to pay for it.
Last month, coin experts at ChangeChecker.org created a new league table of coins to help sellers determine realistic selling prices.
Here at The Sun we only ever base a coin's value on the most recent sold price on eBay.
It's no surprise that the UK has gone coin made with some of them fetching as much as £75.
One lad from Bristol even quit his job as a builder to sell coins on eBay and now he makes up to £70,000 a year.
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