Mohawk

I hear you, Greg. I completely screwed up Hog's GTG with the Washington Quarter!! I wasn't even close!!!

Then you better grab it before SlickCoins comes back and nabs it out from under you!

No problem, Joe. It's always a pleasure to give you a hand, my friend.

I had to scale down my hoard as well. I did a lot of that over the course of 2020 and 2021. Now, I'm ready to expand out on the things that survived the purge. A purge is a good way to figure out where your true and strongest interests lie, I'd say. It'll probably get unruly again though, I'm sure. I always have a way of making the collection unruly eventually.

Definitely. I'd also say that would work well on cents. When I worked at the coin shop, I was the "check it for varieties" guy. Yep. You read that right......the ancient/German/Canadian coin guy was the check the U.S. coins for varieties guy!! But I love to read coin books on almost anything and I'm pretty good at remembering those little details. The flatness is a great pickup because they're all pretty flat on the 1941 Large S coins.

That's exactly why I've stuck with selling small numbers of coins.....the photographing. I can get through about 20 coins or so if I have the time, but then I c*ap out. So, I tend not to buy much over that for resale at any given time. Though, I wouldn't call myself a dealer. I'm just an Educational Sales Coordinator with a bad coin and note addiction who sells a few things to help feed the beast even more

You know, Lem E, I never thought about it that way.....but you're right. The Large S is very flat. That's a good diagnostic to use, I'd say.

Nice pics, Woods! I can't wait to get my 5 Marks and actually photograph them myself. Not that my pics will be up to what you posted. They're very nice photos.

I'm with the others, Anthony. Definite Small S. The photos Woods posted are excellent and show the differences very well.

Hi Joe!! I'm with Woods...looks like an RPM-001 that took a hit on the mintmark at some point. As always, I hope that this is of some help! ~Tom

German is a great area to get into. There's a lot to offer and something for almost anyone. Empire gets a lot of love from people, but I prefer coins from the time of the East/West split. That said, though, I'll go for anything German that catches my eye aside from Nazi stuff. I don't like Nazi stuff. But, other than that, I'm pretty fair game with German. If you like a good bird depiction, German coins have A TON of them!! I really like the latest bird depiction Germany has done, too, on the 1 and 2 Euro coins: I don't have one yet, but I'm planning on picking up a Hamburg or Berlin proof set to add the designs to my collection. Germany is really good at awesome bird depictions.

Bird designs are huge with me. I'm a bit obsessed with birds (I know, a shocking confession from me!) The only reason I own any U.S. coins at all is because there are several with bird designs I find beautiful and compelling except for the March of Dimes dollars I have. I have those because I like the baby on the reverse. If it weren't for bird designs (and babies), I likely wouldn't own a single U.S. coin. It's funny how we both have some things outside of our collecting areas because of birds, and our areas of interest are opposite each other.

Hi again, LemE! Actually, I do think your 1978 is a mint state strike. The circulation type of silver 5 mark ended in 1974 and was replaced with a copper-nickel version. Your 1978 (and 1968 also) is a commemorative coin that wasn't intended to circulate and was sold at a premium to collectors. I've seen some mint state/circulation strike West German silver 5 marks, of both the circulation variety and commemorative issues, with frosted devices like your coin. It's more prevalent on the commemoratives to find the frosted devices on MS coins, but it can happen with any of the silver West German issues.

Very nice, LemE!!! I really like them all. Looking at your Neumann and Fontane 5 marks has me giving some thought to picking up some of the West German commemorative silver 5 marks as well as the circulation issue. As for the Imperial 1 Mark, that's a damned handsome coin as well. I never got started on a set of them because there are just too many expensive dates in that series....it's a real challenge!! I may pick up a nice one off, though. Thank you so much for sharing those!!! I really enjoyed seeing them!

Me, too. My deepest condolences, Lee.

That's a very good point. There's an added layer of security with a graded note. That said, though, I only own two graded notes. The graded populations of the notes I'm interested in are typically a lot smaller than for U.S. notes, so I often have to go for a raw note and try to do my best evaluation.

Definitely....a scanned image of a note can be very deceptive. I'm very wary of those. As someone who buys the vast majority of their coins and notes online, I've had to develop some skills in evaluating photos of both. One thing I've definitely learned......avoid buying notes based on scanned images.

I'd say a note is much harder to grade from photos. Photos can hide creases, small stains and fading on a note very well.

That's a neat solution, Bill! I like it. I think it could work for some of the West German and East German sets I want to pick up. I'm going to have to figure out the sizes of the packaging on some of the others.....some countries have much larger proof set packaging than the U.S. Thanks for the suggestion

Another great pickup, Bill!! I've been giving some real thought to some World proof sets myself lately.....if I can figure out a good way to store them.

To the OP.....please only post one thread per coin. Posting multiple threads about the same coin gets confusing and it doesn't change the answer as to what your coin is or isn't. If you need to post additional photos of the coin, please do it in your initial thread.

I'm with the others.....your coin is damaged, cleaned and has zinc rot. It's a spender.

I love bank notes!!! Mostly German and Canadian, like my non-ancient coin collection, but I do have some from other countries as well. I actually do have one of those red seal $100s you referred to, GoldFinger. Currency is something I bounce around with....I work on it for a while, then I bounce back into coins and then back into currency. It's a fun addition to my collecting life and I really enjoy it.

I'm now headed on a West German streak. I'm really feeling these beautiful silver 5 Marks. These are the seller's pics and this is a circulation strike:

That is true. When I worked at the coin shop, we used to sell these medals for $1 each whenever we busted up a 1982 Proof Set to sell singles. And we did sell them. There are a fair number of SBA dollar collectors who like to add this medal to their sets.