AP reports (Dec. 17 — via the Las Vegas Sun and Insurance Journal) on a new suit in Florida seeking compensation for coin collectors allegedly duped by application of the designation "first strike" to collectible coins: 

[S]ome collectors say the label is misleading and that the coins aren’t special at all.  Now, a Miami attorney has filed class-action federal lawsuits on behalf of potentially thousands of collectors claiming that the "first strike” designation is unfair and deceptive.  More than $10 million in damages could be at stake.

‘Basically, what we are saying is that it’s impossible to know which coin is the "first strike,"” said attorney Charles Lipcon, who filed the lawsuits on behalf of collector Thomas Francisco and others.  ‘People are paying a lot of money and not getting a better coin. Really, there’s no difference between those coins and any other coins.”

Named defendants are two leading coin sellers, Numismatic Guaranty Corp., of Sarasota, Florida, and Professional Coin Grading Service of Newport Beach, California.  Their spokespersons maintain that the companies’ definitions of "first strike" are clear, acccurate and reasonable.  The $10 Million valuation of the claims comes from the plaintiff’s attorneys, and is based on the assumption that the U.S. District Court will grant class action status to the case.

The story makes clear that any knowledgeable collector should know that “first strike” status is by and large an abstract concept: it is “first strike” because people say it is “first strike,” with little or no objective correlation to the physical quality of the coin in question.  In essence, the potential class plaintiffs are disappointed because they have lost the opportunity to share with others — or, more likely, collect a premium resale price from others for — the essentially imaginary extra value that the words “first strike” carry with them.

The suit is a change of pace for the plaintiff’s counsel, the Miami firm of Lipcon, Margulies & Alsina, whose website emphasizes their specialty in bringing suits against cruise lines.