Mohawk

I'm very happy to hear a Saint collector confirm what I've suspected about Saints.....those key dates are just a little too "key" for many collectors and for a lot of people, settling for the "poverty set" (LOVE that description by the way! It's funny to refer to a poverty set in regard to $20 gold coins!) can feel like a failure out of the gate. That exact kind of feeling stopped me from attempting to assemble a set of one coin for each Roman Empress until the end of the Western Empire in 476 CE......Cornelia Supera will cost at least $12,000 for something recognizably her (and we're talking just recognizing it's her. That $12,000 will get you the ugliest antoninianus in your whole collection) and Annia Faustina, well, there are 5 denarii of hers known on the entire planet, so she's even worse than Cornelia Supera!!! You could live your whole life and never even have a shot at buying an Annia Faustina denarius!! Thinking about the set without those two (and there are other empresses which are extremely difficult, but those two are the worst), it did feel like something that was doomed to fail right out of the gate because it would never be truly complete. It was actually this experience that made me think about the Saint conundrum recently as I think there are definitely parallels between taking on Saints as a collection and my Empress set that I abandoned for an ambitious and large project, but one I may have a shot of actually completing.

This completely would not apply to my relationship. If I went and spent a bunch on money on a diamond, my fiancée would tell me I was stupid for buying an overpriced piece of carbon. However, she was extremely happy with the nice AU 1882 O/S Morgan Dollar I got her for her birthday. She'd always pick a nice Morgan over a diamond any day and she'd definitely be in that coin shop with me. Definitely a keeper!

Indeed it does!!!

You want some real sticker shock? Look up the 1884-S in that grade!!! An 1881-S would definitely be more affordable and just as pretty.

Here's the thing......I'm kind of concerned about this coin because it seems to have the same cud as this fake does from Coinreplicas.com, along with other similarities to it. I could be wrong, and I'll be the first guy to say I'm not well versed in early American copper varieties, so I'm going to hope that someone who is more versed than I chimes in. Gradewise, if genuine, I'm going to say based on Photograde it's an AG-3.

I'm with Coinbuf.......Chinese fake. There are A LOT of these floating around out there now and they are massively more numerous than genuine 1943 bronze cents are.

It's not a bad design....the new ASE one, that is. It's actually pretty nice. In addition to selling and collecting coins, I'm also a bird watcher and I really love raptors. It's a good looking rendition of a bald eagle......definitely an improvement over what was a dreadful heraldic eagle that looked squashed, in my humble opinion. I like a more naturalistic eagle.

It looks like a genuine, heavily circulated example to me as well.

It really is......being on the dealer/seller's side is definitely different. It changed me in many aspects of my participation in the hobby, but in good ways. I wish you the best of luck and much success, Woods!

I had to translate that using Google Translate but........

Exactly. And I personally refuse to answer those questions unless someone is clearly showing that they are a curious collector who wants to know a price for reasons pertaining to that. And I never tell anyone who is new and possibly just looking for a quick buck how to sell. If it's someone like me who wants to sell to help their collecting budget, that's a little different, as is if it's someone who is a member in good standing here, like Woods in his thread about selling at a coin show. I won't help people who just want to try to make a million dollars with what they find in a parking lot, in a roll, in their change from the gas station or metal detecting. Those people do far more harm to the hobby than good, and I won't help them do it.

Yep. Definitely 1948.

Then you are a better man than I, Bob. Don't get me wrong, I've been more than prepared and willing to do my fair share of shovel work since coming back home, but I think having multiple paragraphs in a fifty line post should be a given.

Seriously!!! That could have led to....complications that I'd rather not think about.

All I can say is.......WOW!!! That is just NUTS!!! Glad I didn't work at the Russian Mint in 1884!!

I'm in the nope, nope, nope camp for sure. If you can't bother to use paragraph breaks, I can't bother to read your post.

Agreed with the others.....definite Large Date.

That's insane!!! I would NEVER spend that on a Silver Eagle (which probably means next to nothing because I only collect Roman coins), but it's ridiculous!!

I'm sorry for my role in that, Roger.....it did go off the rails. I am interested in it, for sure, but sadly I'm also easily distracted when it comes to many topics regarding coins.....I'll try to rein it in!

No doubt about it......Saints are getting some high dollar love lately! It's gotta be exciting for you Saint guys!

That's entirely possible. Or maybe it went to a Saint collector who isn't a Registry participant who had the funds and decided that particular coin would work to fill the 1921 spot in their non-Registry Saint collection. I hope it is this latter one......I like when collectors set their own rules to play by and set their own goals for their own reasons.

You do make a good point and I'm sure that some people are happy with acquiring 40 or so of the available Saints or whatever else they can afford......clearly there are as there are a decent number of Saint collectors that still do it knowing they'll never have a 1927-D or a 1930-S. Beyond that, I couldn't say......like I said, Saints have never been my thing. You and Cat Bath are actually the first serious collectors of Saints that I've ever knowingly spoken with, honestly. But really, to be fair, gold has never been my thing, either. If I never own a Faustina the Younger aureus, I definitely won't lose sleep over it . But I think there is something to completing what you can and being proud of it. Even though I'm only 41 years old currently and hopefully have decades left to live, the massive scope of the collection I'm attempting means that I may very well drop dead before it's actually complete and you know what? I'll be pleased with whatever I do accomplish there!!! Similar attitude about very different coin projects for different reasons

Man, I don't think I could last long enough to get kicked up the ladder in that situation.......I cannot think of a "coin" I find more boring than the silver eagle. Having to sell the damned things raw when I was at the brick and mortar was bad enough, but at least I got to see and handle other, much cooler coins. Grading boxes of silver eagles (or gold eagles for that matter of fact) all day would be HORRIBLE!! And I sell moderns!! There are good modern coins, but eagles are not those. Eagles are lumps of metal struck with a design and a weight for the purpose of being lumps of metal that people hoard.

Fair enough, but I only meant that in terms of 70 graded moderns and market acceptance of 70 grades. If the question was involving Morgan Dollars in MS 68 or something of that nature, my answer would have been entirely different and more in line with how you're thinking about things. My answer applies solely to the whole 70 grade situation and no other coin grading situation. No one would buy a modern coin graded PF or MS 70 at the kind of premium a PF or MS 70 brings without it being certified as such by NGC or PCGS. I probably should have been more clear about that and I do apologize for my lack of clarity.

That's A LOT of Silver!!! Thanks for sharing!!!