What a time the THREE GSA employees had going through and classifying all of those CC dollars.

First, I love the "Soft Packs" because they remind me of my youth when I collected the 1971-73 40% silver soft packs. The 40% Ikes were like a time warp back to the days when you could collect actual Silver, Silver dollars. I must have close to fifty of the various blue packs now. Yes that may cross the line from collecting and move in to hoarding. But many of the soft packs I have come by when buying a complete collection intact and then I just kept the soft packs.

For the CC soft packs, the person (one of only three people) responsible for sorting all the GSA... Government Services Administration... looked at this coin and saw something that made her or him think that the coin had circulated. Frequently the characteristic that tipped the sorter's opinion of the coins grade or condition to the Circulated soft pack and not in the Un-Circulated, Black Hard Pack was toning. The toning came from the canvas bags, the vault environment or the coins 100 years of conditions that the coins were in prior to the big GSA distribution.

In those days (the 60's and early 70's) the top grade was BU ... brilliant un-circulated and any toning was by definition not brilliant. Many coins fell prey to us collectors trying to make beautiful naturally toned coins brilliant. Alas, this coin escaped with just a sneer as to its grade but no damage from someone like me attempting to make it Brilliant.

Not an expensive coin, not a rare coin but for me a fun coin. And after all isn't that what our Hobby is about?

John

To see old comments for this Journal entry, click here. New comments can be added below.