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A "VERY" RARE "MODERN" COIN IN HIGH GRADES

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W.K.F.

1,181 views

The U.S. Mint gets back into the "Commemorative" business...

Greetings Collectors,

I have had quite a bit of extra time on my hands lately and holding off buying anything, has enabled me to start to build up my rainy day fund for future gold & silver purchases. Having said that, I'm not sure if the correction I predicted in the metals shortly after the Nov. 2nd elections will be any less than the price is of late. Gold and silver have just "blown through" past records and both are up big again today. A few minutes ago gold was $1275.50 and silver was $20.80. I refuse to "chase" these prices when I believe a correction is on the horizon.

Having this extra time on my hands, I have been looking at past acquisitions and the coin pictured here is one of those. A few years ago when silver was less than $7 per ounce, I picked up a couple rolls of this issue. This was the first commemorative issued by the mint since the early 50's. From the 1920's to the 50's there was a major abuse in the minting of commemorative coins. Way too many of the same issue and way too many mint marks for consecutive years.

When the mint started this type of coinage again, this was the coin they started with. 2,210,458 of the issue in mint state and almost 5 million in proof were minted. Both at the Denver mint. There were so many that the vast majority have slowly made their way to the "melting pots" from the 1980's rise of silver to $50 per ounce and also the massive melting in the last few years. I have been told that less than 1% of this issue remains today. This issue is scarce today, but much more so in high grades. The coin pictured is one of 40 that I bought at 10% above melt when silver was around $5-$6 an ounce. A very close dealer friend had several 5-gallon buckets of rolls of this issue, bought from an older gentleman. He had a young kid at the shop breaking up the rolls to send to the "smelters". I rescued a couple rolls intact and now wished I had bought alot more.

I sent a roll to PCGS and kept a roll intact and every single coin came back the same grade, MS-68. They all looked great to me but not one "69" in the bunch. I'm unsure of the pops at PCGS but NGC has graded 3,670 with the vast majority grading MS-67 and lower. They have only seen 72 coins make the grade of 69 and none higher. In this grade of MS-68, 828 sit in NGC slabs. A dealer had a PCGS MS-69 on eBay in auction a few days ago with lots of other misc. coins and that MS-69 brought $232.50 with 15 different bidders. Not a bad deal for buyer or seller and as rare as this coin is, I think the buyer got the better deal. I have one like the one pictured in my commemorative set here and have the others on eBay and have sold a few for over 8 times less than the 69 I just mentioned. For a coin that saw a fairly high mintage, it's a pretty scarce/rare coin. Even more so when it gets to this grade and higher. If you check, this is the "ONLY" commemorative that has not seen an example grading MS-70. Very interesting.

And on the issue of "points", the MS-68 you see here garners 395 points while my same issue in proof, in a grade higher at proof-69 only receives 183 points. But neither is as special as my '56 Franklin proof in 68-cameo which is a "huge 45" points.

Anyway just thought you might like to know. Can you tell I have way too much time on my hands? Happy Collecting to all!

WKF

P.S. A great many of you have added me to your "friends list". If you will let me know who you are, I would like to add you to my list as well, even more so if you post journals. That way I don't miss one of your posts. Many have written me today and in the last month or so. Many I have never heard from before. In this "I thank you". As I have said many times, it's always great to hear from fellow collectors.

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