To figure out that you can?t get a real MS70 for $2.00

As a rule, I stick to NGC or PCGS when buying graded coins. I prefer NGC for appearance but it is the coin on which I ultimately make my decision. For recently minted coins, I almost exclusively buy NGC. After having looked at several coins and compared them side by side, I cannot see the difference between a NGC and PCGS PF70UC/DCam and I cannot, in my mind, justify the premium that PCGS seems to command. I am somewhat dubious of all other grading services but I will closely exam and consider coins graded by second tier companies like ANACS or IGC. I almost never buy second tier graded coins on-line unless I can get them for an extremely deep discount to FMV. (I mean pennies on the dollar!)

Anyway, I am actively trying to fill the holes and upgrade existing coins in my raw Jefferson Nickel set. It has long sat on the backburner as an also ran but it?s time has come. Yesterday, while scanning eBay, a neglected, slabbed MS70 1954 S Jefferson nickel pops up. It has an opening bid of $0.99 and $1.00 shipping. It is a ?supposedly? an MS70 graded by SGS. Tell me this coin isn?t over graded! NGC only has grades up to MS67 for a 1954 S Jefferson Nickel and only 16 of those. (The FMV for a MS67 1954S Jefferson Nickel is $275.) There is no way this 1954 S nickel, up for bid, is MS70 but at $2.00 total, this is a nice hole-filler for my album. My max bid of 0.99 was the high bid. When I get the coin I will take a good look at it. One of two things will happen. If the nickel is a well strike coin in either MS 66 or 67 condition, I will consider a cross over to a lower, more realistic grade, if not, I crack the slab and put it into my raw set. Personally, I am betting on the second option. The way I look at it, it was just $2.00 and either way I?m a winner.

I managed to do well on my budget in September. Along with my other finds I?ve already mentioned, I even picked up a nice red 1940 Lincoln cent to upgrade my album. With October looming, payday is in just a few days so I am back in the game, looking for a few neglected gems that I can pick up for a song. With silver over $21 an ounce, the coin market is certainly fickle these days. You can pretty much figure any low end silver coins are being picked up as a silver play. (Thus is the nature of an economic panic.) Fortunately, that does draw some attention away from the high end silver coins and a lot of the top end clad coins. I don?t look too much at gold coins because by definition those are way out of my budget range. (I do have the grand dream of hitting the Powerball Lottery one day.) So, with payday around the corner, I put in some pretty lofty bids, by my standards, on a couple complete-year sets of coins. I?m hoping, given the economy, that these lots may be of less interest to some bidders who are also on a budget instead opting to buy one coin at a time. Also since the coins are relatively recent coins, I?m hoping that collector side of the bidding competition is a bit less because many collectors already have these coins in their collection. If not, oh well, nothing ventured, nothing gained. (Yes, I have a very pragmatic perspective to my collecting.) If none of my bids materialize, I may just buy some coins directly from the U.S. Mint.

Enough of my musings for the time being, may all of your coins be truly brilliant and uncirculated.

Dennis