but an old story
I was talking with a patient of mine about a month ago ( who has since been discharged so no ethical issues involved) and the subject of coin collecting came up. As has happened to me dozens of times, he mentioned that he had a bunch of old coins. I told him that once he was no longer in my care that I'd love to take a look and let him know what he had.
So he pops into the office a few days ago with a shoebox. We sat and talked a bit and then I perused the contents.....
As is often the case, most of the nicer coins were of common dates..and the 2-3 coins that were of rarer dates were not in very good condition--except for one.
He had a gorgeous BU+++ detailed 1854-O Seated Liberty Quarter. There was only 1 problem..someone, probably ages ago, had tried and scratch off the arrows !! I've heard of this being done.......
When the mint switched the size of the seated coins in 1853, 1854..and subsequently lowered the silver content, they added arrows to identify them as the smaller coins with less silver weight. Consequently some schemers tried and remove the arrows and pass the coins off as the heavier, bigger silver coins of prior years. Little did the culprit know that he was altering a potential, future $3,000- $5,000 coin into a "damaged" specimen...all for the effort to gain a few cents worth of silver value !!
Oh well, maybe I'll get it details graded..if nothing else it makes a neat little piece of numismatic history...but it's still a crying shame...
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