Mohawk

Nice pickup, Bill. I love birds and I love any coin with a good depiction of any bird.....the obverse of your new silver dollar certainly fits the bill!!

Indeed it is, Bob! And that's really saying something, given some of the characters who have graced us with their presences here over time........

Oh yes.......how could i have forgotten about Etsy's equally as vile relative Alibaba. That's another place to never spend your hard earned hobby money.

That's spectacular!!! That is definitely in the top five of the worst counterfeits I've ever seen. It's not as bad as the 2009 dated U.S. Trade Dollar I saw, but it's not much better than that, either.

That is one dead dinosaur, Roger. It looks like it was there when the meteor hit.........

It's not just eBay Alex.....Etsy is likely a bigger problem with every coin issue you can think of than eBay is, including this one. I've also seen this kind of thing in antique malls where vendors rent out retail space from the mall.....lots of sketchy Wheat rolls in places like that, too. Any place that sells coins, there's a risk of this aside from a reputable dealer who just sells Wheat rolls as Wheat rolls, not unsearched Wheat rolls, for a reasonable price.

Indeed they will. There are people who collect Starbucks gift cards with no balances on them. I know this because I used to work for Starbucks in my 20s. When you work there, they give you this special Starbucks card called a Partner Card. It's like an employee ID card mixed with a gift card.....you could add money to it and use it as a Starbucks gift card. When you resign (or are terminated), you are supposed to give this card back. Well, when I resigned from Starbucks for the second time, I knew I was never going to go back to working for them, so I kept my Partner Card. I ended up selling it on eBay for over $200 because Partner Cards are never supposed to come onto the collector's market.....so, yeah, someone paid me over $200 for my crappy Starbucks Partner Card that had done nothing but sit in my wallet for a long time. Your ZImbabwean traveler's checks are much, much cooler than empty Starbucks gift cards.

I have three of the 2020-W Privy Marked quarters. My Salt River Bay is a permanent fixture in my collection because my dad gave it to me. He found it at the Laundromat he goes to. The other two (Weir Farm and Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller), I found in the wild. I haven't decided what to do with those two yet.....I may keep them, but I could put that money into my Faustina the Younger collection...........

I agree. I had the experience once, with a roll of 1969 Canadian Dimes that I was able to actually buy at the face value of $5. No 1969 Large Date, but man, it was a fun experience!!! I've also had the experience recently of cracking many OBW rolls of 2021-P WCD quarters, but that wasn't any fun. For over a month, every time my fiancée and I went to get rolls of quarters for laundry, we'd get solid Brinks rolls of 2021-P WCD quarters......we're both so sick of 2021-P WCD quarters!!!!

Thanks for sharing that Roger......I really, honestly did not know that's how the story actually went. I knew that the alleged "1964 SMS" coins were not that, but I think I was lacking on the actual details of it. I also didn't know that was the story of the 1965 Special Mint Sets. I apologize for posting that link with misinformation.....I thought it was accurate. Thanks for setting me straight on that. I always strive to be as accurate as I can be whenever I provide an answer or information regarding anything.

I'll do it Bob. Here's the thing, Rocket.....you could have actual old rolls of cents. It's possible, though unlikely. However, there are many unscrupulous people out there who either acquire actual old coin wrappers or get reproductions of old coin wrappers printed up for them. Both are actually pretty easy to do. And these people can put anything into these rolls that they want. There is a lot of this kind of thing out there with Wheat Cents. I cannot tell you how many times I've seen someone fall into this kind of trap. They'd buy a roll that looks like that on eBay...old looking wrapper and everything, often with a 1909 VDB reverse showing or something like that, then they get the roll and there are one or two 1909 VDBs on the end of the roll and everything else in the roll is post-1934 and often post-1940. And then they'd come into the brick and mortar shop I worked at and sell us these Wheat Cents for 10 cents a piece just to be rid of them and the experience. I'm not saying that you're being deceptive.....I'm saying you may have been deceived. It's possible that you have genuine old rolls, but it's also possible that you've fallen into the trap. "Unsearched" Wheat rolls are something I'd recommend people stay away from. Think about it......the 1909-S VDB has been famous and coveted for over 100 years. The 1931-S has been famous and coveted for 90 years. The 1955 Doubled Die has been famous and coveted for 66 years. These three coins alone pretty much guarantee that any accumulation of Wheat Cents has been searched at some point in the past. This includes old rolls. You could have rolls of Wheats that have been wrapped since World War II, but they've been gone through back then looking for the 1909-S VDB, 1914-D and the 1931-S. So, even an 80 year old roll of Wheat Cents is probably not "unsearched" for key dates.

Time for another of mine to keep things going......this is another of my few Roman coins that aren't Faustina the Younger. This is a silver antoninianus of Elagabalus, RIC# 155. If you want to read about a crazy life, this guy was wild, even for a Roman:

That's a very good question........

I know I'd like to see the coins in the holder, Coinbuf. I think a lot of us would. And you're right.....there are treasures to be found in junk slabs, but you have to sift through a ton of garbage to find them.

Wow, Coinbuf....you did quite well with those NNC coins!!! That really does seem to be the exception to the general rule. The customers at the shop I worked at had both bought NNC Morgan Dollars. It was almost 10 years ago now, so I cannot remember the exact grades involved, but they got absolutely killed at NGC grade-wise.

Wow!! That is really cool, Roger!! Thanks for sharing that with us.

I'd say AG Details-damaged on it, based on Photograde.

LemE is right on with this one.

Indeed it was. Very cool Quintus!!! Thanks for sharing that!!

Roger is absolutely correct with his assessment of NNC. If it were me, I wouldn't expect a coin to grade anywhere close to what NNC called it if sent in to NGC. I knew a couple buyers who tried it when I worked at the brick and mortar (we didn't sell them the NNC coins. They got them somewhere else) and it didn't work out well for either of them. If the grade is important to you with the coin in question, I'd definitely pass on anything in an NNC slab.

I'm hoping it was low grade, too. I'm not a gold coin guy either, nor a U.S. coin guy but this still makes me sad. It's hard to say what the grade would have been before placing it in jewelry because wearing coin jewelry is a great way to keep damaging a coin more, but I hope it was a low grade, too. I think Liberty Head gold coins are the absolute ugliest coins ever made, but I still hate to see one end up like that $20 pictured.

Given that the 1904 Philly is the most common Liberty Head double eagle, I'd say you're correct in your assessment, GBrad. Tragic, isn't it?

That reminds me of my pet scorpion, Terra. I used to have to feed her live crickets and she would mangle them like that when she was a baby. I miss her. RIP Terra 2005-2012

I'm with Coinbuf......looks like a grease strike through to me, too. Not really that valuable, but a cool circulation find nonetheless.

Distance Ace, It's a virtual certainty that the coin is already damaged. Most coins placed in jewelry end up damaged the minute they're placed into the bezel. Making jewelry out of coins basically destroys them. Like Coinbuf said, unless it's an extreme rarity, the coin would not be worth grading as that damage is going to absolutely kill the value. Most collectors would not be interested in a former jewelry coin.