Gold Label Fever

Hello everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season!

As usual, I'm looking closely at a number of coins in the Heritage auction at the FUN show. One of them is an 1870 half dime, PCGS graded MS66, in an "old green holder" and sporting a gold CAC sticker, indicating that CAC thinks it is undergraded. The PCGS price guide (typically a bit on the high side...) says $1975 for this coin in MS66. And for those who believe it is undergraded, they say $4500 in MS67.

In addition to those TPG factors, the coin itself has colorful, but uneven toning, and the strike is very good but not exceptional. Without seeing it in-hand, I can't make a good overall judgement as to my grade opinion from the photos.

I understand that the PCGS OGH, CAC Gold, and the toning tend to influence prices upward in the current market. But the current bid on this coin (to be sold later this morning) is $8000 ($9400 with the buyer's fee)!!!

In the MS66 slab, it is not a top pop coin for those PCGS registry collectors. If that's what this is about, then it seems a bit risky to spend so much on a 66 hoping it will upgrade to 67 (which would be top pop). Or could this just be tough competition for CAC Gold stickers or for "nice" toning? In any case, it was a candidate for purchase that's now out of reach. Oh well...

Happy New Year! And good luck to those of you who are hopeful for registry awards. But let's try to keep any disappointments in perspective, and any related communications civil. Having received a couple awards, I can say that the recognition is appreciated. But I think we should not be actively seeking the awards, and certainly not deriving the most enjoyment from them. There's so much more to this great hobby than that.

- Alan

Followup - It sold for the $8000 ($9400) bid. The following lot was a lightly toned 1870 in PCGS MS67 that sold for $2600 ($3055).

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