Someone might make a killing on this one.

With Heritage's next auction available for on-line bidding, I was just looking more seriously at a coin I had noted when the sale was in "Coming Soon" status. Although I'm concentrating on half dimes these days, I'm still looking at large cents and other odds and ends.

In the upcoming sale is an 1848 large cent, NGC graded MS67BN. I'm considering it as a potential upgrade to my 66BN. The lot description ends with some provenance information. The final entry is for a Goldberg auction earlier this year. So I went to the Goldberg website to check the price realized.

I did positively identify it as the same coin in the two sales from the good photos provided. A few things struck me when checking the Goldberg info. First, this coin was part of the Holmes collection, but is not so noted in the Heritage description. I thought that was peculiar. Second, the price realized was low for a cent from the 1840s graded 67, only $1438. Then it occurred to me that much of the Holmes collection was not certified, so I read the lot description and got the next striking thing... Third, the description indicated it was currently not certified, but was removed from a PCGS slab, graded only MS63BN (insert included with the lot)!

Now I'm not going to get into PCGS vs. NGC grading. I did not get a chance to view the coin in hand prior to the Holmes collection sale, so I can't confirm that the insert really said MS63BN. My point for now is that the current consignor stands to make out quite well. Regardless of prior certification, with the coin now in a 67 slab, I expect bids to reach $3000 easily, more than doubling the seller's money in less than a year.

Having found this information, I'm now a bit more hesitant to go after this coin. Unless Heritage has it available for lot viewing at the Baltimore show (where I'll be Friday), I won't get a better view than the on-line photos provide. With that old grade of 63, and without an in-hand look, my confidence in the current 67 is diminished...

That's all for now. Here's a peek at this pretty penny.

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