coin928

On 10/5/2021 at 8:48 AM, Revenant said:

Reverse Proof:

Your photos are excellent, but the results for the reverse proof are not as appealing as for a regular proof coin.  The side lighting technique accentuates the frosted portions of the coin, which brings out the details of the devices on a regular cameo proof.  Unfortunately, on the reverse proof, the background is accentuated and the details of the devices are lost.  I would opt or Gary's Standard Lighting technique when it comes to reverse proofs since it provides the most detail for the devices and represents the frosted fields as nearly white.That appears to me to be the most dramatic method for photographing a reverse proof coin. I may still try one on my scanner to see how that looks. Don't look for the results any time soon though.

Hi Gary,

An excellent post as always.  Your photos are a great comparison of techniques, but I'm surprised you didn't try side lighting on this coin.  Many years ago, I took photos with a very cheap camera and two lights shining towards each other from the sides in an otherwise dark room. The lights are at the same angle as your 45 degree axial, but without the glass (or in your case, the CD cover)..  I was just trying to do comparisons, so the final quality isn't great.  I wasn't concerned about dust or the camera lens reflecting on the coin. This technique only works well for cameo proof coins, but the effects can be quite dramatic. The fields can appear totally black which sets off the cameo devices.  A similar effect can be achieved using a flat bed scanner. I have not tried either technique on a reverse proof though. I would be curious to see what that looks like.

Above photos taken with a very cheap camera and two side lights.

Above images acquired with a flatbed scanner.

This has been my reaction to pretty much every one of my submissions to NGC.   I even created a custom set (Coins I have had graded) to track my expectations vs the results.  The coins in the set are listed chronologically, starting with my very first submission.  I think my eye has gotten better over the years, but there are still the highs of a grade better than anticipated and the lows of a details grade.  Despite my best efforts, some hairlined coins are still seem to sneak through.  I'm in the process of prepping 40 coins for submission, and I'm sure there will be some highs and lows in this batch as well.  They will be added to the the end of my custom set when I get them back.

Something you should keep in mind.  Every year at the annual ANA World's Fair of Money, NGC offers one or more "Ask the Expert" sessions where Mark Salzberg will review a few of your coins.  They could be coins you are planning to submit or coins that you've purchased or had graded.  I've gotten several significant upgrades as a result of those sessions.  It is often the best 10 minutes of the entire show.

Every submission is a learning experience.  Best of luck with your future submissions.

Thank you for the information.

On 3/16/2021 at 5:15 PM, ChrisInJesup said:

It's bash file I found online.... It's a heavily modified now since then as things have changed on search engines over the past 10 years. It's a learning curb for me and it uses Lynx. I'm an old DOS guy (TSRs were my thing in the '90s) and C++ programmer (Win95 Beta Tester... sorry for the crappy software)..... scripts, bash, batch.... all tomatoes TomAHtoes. Retirement is around the corner and look forward to spending quality time with my LINUX box.

If it's not already in your list of search sites, you might want to look at.  https://www.numisbids.com/

They specialize in searching for world coins and ancients on an impressive number of auction sites world wide.  You can save your search criteria too and you will receive an email when something matches. Like eBay, you can set up watch lists on their site.  Interestingly, you can also find U.S. coins that are being sold in foreign auctions.

They have a Facebook page too: https://www.facebook.com/numisbids/

I'm impressed, that's very clever.

Just out of curiosity, when you say --script, are you referring to a shell --script like bash or something similar?  Also, are you using curl, or something like it to batch execute your searches?

I've submitted several coins in their ANACS holders. All have crossed at the same grade or one grade higher.

My eBay purchasing profile is very similar to yours except that I had a higher percentage in the electronics category.  I sincerely hope they don't make that change since the vast majority of my collection has been acquired through eBay.  I've had a few disappointing purchases, but there have been many more winners than losers.

You could have the pedigree of each coin added to the NGC label.

20 hours ago, Mk123 said:

If they do this for the world sets it will be great!

I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for world sets to be included.  When the addition of PCGS coins was suspended for U.S. sets, any PCGS coins in a registry set  were "grandfathered" in and allowed to remain.  The last day PCGS coins were allowed in World registry sets was January 31, 2012, and on February 1, 2012, all PCGS graded coins were expunged from all NGC competitive World sets.  I registered my euphoria over that event in the Journal entry The red ink flowed over the World Coin Registry last night. on February 1, 2012.

The PCGS exclusion from the World Registry was announced on January 18, 2012 via email with a subject line of: Exciting New Updates to NGC Registry.

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Great News for NGC Registry Participants

...

NGC Registry for World Coins Update

Effective January 31, the NGC Registry for World coins will be NGC-exclusive, meaning only NGC-graded coins will be eligible for inclusion.

This change will result in a better experience for collectors with World coin Registry sets. It allows us to create more accurate Registry sets, streamline the process for adding coins to sets and enhance the competition. Most NGC Registry World coin sets are already NGC-exclusive, so this change will affect relatively few users.
 

All coins will continue to appear in your Collection Manager inventory and US Coin Registry sets will not be affected. Should you have any questions, you may contact NGC at 800-642-2646 or registry@NGCcoin.com

I found this policy change more than a bit aggravating, and after many rewrites I replied with the following on January 29, 2012:

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Subject: RE: Exciting New Updates to NGC Registry

Dear NGC Registry,

Your decision to exclude PCGS coins from the Registry for World coins is hardly what I would consider exciting. It certainly generated a lot of excitement for the Collectors Society's members, but from all of the message board posts I've read, I would hardly say that any of them are excited about the new policy.

There may be some for whom this change will result in a better experience, but I am not one of them.  I've been a paying Collectors Society member since November 2007, and I have been adding to my sets in good faith that my PCGS coins would always be welcome.  Most of my coins are in NGC slabs, and any that I have sent for grading have been to NGC.  In very thinly collected sets however, there are often only a few slabbed examples available and those are in PCGS slabs.  I'm not going to cross my PCGS coins over to NGC just so that I can included them in a competitive sets. There is no financial incentive since it would cost a lot of money and provide no offsetting increase in value.

If it is truly the hassle factor for you employees, then charge a few dollars per PCGS coin to have it added to a registry set.  I'd be happy to pay a small fee to have a PCGS coin added.

If it is a case of mismatched designations, then just exclude those that do not exactly match their NGC counterparts. 

It seems to me that thee are plenty of alternatives to the proposed policy of absolute exclusion.  Certainly, expunging all PCGS coins from current sets seems very heavy handed and completely unnecessary.

I sincerely hope you reconsider this policy change before January 31st.

To which I received the following reply on January 30, 2012:

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Thanks for the email. There has been a significant expense on our end in extending the World Coin Registry to support both NGC and PCGS, and the result has been that we cannot release new features that support collectors of World coins (such as integration with the World Coin Price Guide, Krause, and the Census). The different attributions and designations used by NGC and PCGS for World coins have compounded that difficulty.

 

The goal is not to force crossovers, but NGC does maintain a significant market share advantage over PCGS. The change made a lot of sense for long term growth of the World Coin Registry. Very few Registry users have a significant number of PCGS-graded World coins so the change only affects a small number of people.

 

Your PCGS-graded World coins will continue to be in your Collection Manager and will still be allowed in Custom Sets. You do not have to spend money to cross over the coins if you don't want to.

I hope I'm wrong, but I it seems very unlikely that the NGC-exclusive policy for the World registry sets will be reversed after nearly eight years.

I'm pleased by the re-inclusion of PCGS graded coins too, since that's why I choose to participate in the NGC Registry over a decade ago.  It's only for U.S. sets though, so your Canadian silver dollar would remain on the sidelines if it was in a PCGS holder.

I've had over 1200 eBay purchases delivered from all over the world in the past 15 years and to date, only one was actually lost by USPS and never found.  A few have been MIA for a while, but with some intervention, all but that one got delivered to me.

The USPS internal tracking seems to have gotten much better in the last year or two.  I've called my local P.O. and had them track deliveries that seemed to be in limbo like yours.  I also had one that showed online that it had been delivered, just not to me.  They were able to find the item pretty quickly and even called me back to tell me and again to make sure I got it.  They've gotten much more service oriented, at least at my P.O.

You may need to check on you package, but odds are pretty good that you'll get it

13 hours ago, deposito said:

Mr Coin you seem to know a lot about this area - any leads on a real nice 1/2 cent or larger denom from 1916 of Dutch East Indies ?

I can't help you with that one. My main focus is on world coins minted by United States Mints.  I've got plenty of 1945P half cents though since that's the only year the U.S. mint struck those coins for the Netherlands East Indies.

1 hour ago, MIKE BYRNE said:

The 1945 D  had two D D. One was the mint mark. The second was the complete reverse of the coin. ... When I called Heritage House they said with mine there are less than thirty left.

Hi Mike,  There are currently three cataloged 1945-D ten centavos with Allen variety numbers.  These are all recognized by NGC in their Variety Plus.

• 9.05a - D/D repunched mint mark (RPM).
• 9.05b - Doubled Die reverse #1 ( the one you have)
• 9.05c - Doubled Die reverse #2

There are also two more doubled die reverse varieties and one more doubled die obverse that will be added in the 8th edition of of the Allen catalog

• 9.05d - Doubled Banner on reverse
• 9.05dd - D/D RPM and Doubled Banner on reverse
• 9.05e - Doubled Die obverse

Now you can go back through all of your 1945-D ten centavos again and see what else you might have.

You're very lucky to have found a 9.05b in such a high grade. I'm assuming that yours is one of the four certified in MS67 (NGC:3 & PCGS:1)  It is not however as rare as Heritage told you.  NGC has graded 21, PCGS 70, and ANACS 6, for a total of 97. There may be some crossovers, but it's still substantially more than 30.  That's only coins that have been certified and doesn't include details grades.  It's hard to know when to sell, but in this case I'd go with sooner rather than later.  The price will only go down as more are graded. At one time, my MS63 was the highest graded by NGC.  It wouldn't sell for anywhere near as much today as it would have 12 years ago when I had it graded.

Good luck variety hunting!

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I have used NCS on several occasions and in some instances, I have not liked the results. Over time I have become better in selecting candidates for conservation. This piece was a no-brainer for me and I am delighted with the results.

I've been using NCS for many years, and most of the time the results have very positive.  Nearly all have been submitted on the recommendation of NGC personnel, so only a few have been a disappointment.  I'm getting better at recognizing good NCS candidates based on their recommendations but I've still got a lot to learn.

7 hours ago, deposito said:

I just discovered these PH coins a couple years ago when I started putting together a set of coins from every country of 1916.  For 1916 the biggest PH one you can get is the 20C.  Those are a tough date but they are around on Ebay and auctions - for a lot in the higher grades.  Mine is AU details hairlines and does not have the luster or color I want.

It's interesting that you mention the 1916-S 20C.  I acquired a raw one last year for a reasonable XF/AU price and had it graded in August 2018.  It turned out to be one of my most satisfying acquisitions.

Hi Gary,  This is one that I showed to Mark Salzberg last August in Chicago.  Meeting with him at his "Ask the Expert" sessions has generally been the best 5 minutes of the ANA WFM.  There was a good crowd this year and people really took advantage of the opportunity.  Mark didn't explicitly say that it would upgrade, he just said it would look better in a new holder and that it might upgrade.  And no, I did not crack it out first. As a matter of fact, I've never cracked one out before submitting for a regrade, but most have been reviewed by Mark first.

You should call/email the auction houses as well as the grading services concerning use of their photos.  I think you might be pleasantly surprised at the response.

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A few months ago I talked to another collector who recalled a conversation where-in he and someone else agreed that, if they had tried to build their collections today, buying graded coins and not ones they “discovered” themselves, they never could have afforded to build their collections because prices have gone up so much.

I'm pretty sure that was me, and if not, it certainly could have been.  As you say, the answer to your question is It depends...

I am most certainly a collector/numismatist, but I can't afford to overpay for a coin just because I want it.  My coins really are part of my retirement portfolio, so from that perspective I have to treat my collection as an investment.  In my case, the answer to your question depends only on whether I already own a particular piece or I'm still searching for one.  I'd like the price to remain low until I acquire a registry grade specimen and rise dramatically thereafter.  The easiest (and riskiest) way to do that is to find a reasonably priced high grade raw coin and submit it for certification.  I've also had some luck buying certified specimens and having them crossed or upgraded, either to a higher grade or by adding a variety attribution to the label.  I lose a lot more auctions than I win, but it's pretty sweet when I can get a great coin at at a good price.

Fortunately, I've had more winners than losers, so I'm going to keep at it until it's time to sell.

I have had this happen to two of my primary collections.  The first time was in October 2017 when the entire U.S. Philippine series underwent a point score adjustment.  My USPI Complete set lost 31,951 over the course of several days.  The second time was in April 2019 when all of the Cuban coin scores were adjusted resulting in a net loss of 9,439 points.

I don't recall now whether I lost or gained standing as a result of these adjustments, but I do recall that the scores for coins graded below MS60 tended to rise whereas the scores for coins graded MS60 and higher tended to decrease, with the highest grades suffering the largest reductions.  Virtually all collections had their total score reduced, but the sets with the highest graded coins suffered the largest decreases, so I can easily see how one could lose a position or two in set ranking.

I have had a number of coins which were the finest known at the time they were graded only to lose that distinction as the certified population grew, so I understand the need for such adjustments over time. What I don't understand is how this causes a rise in the scores for the lower graded coins.

Hi Gary,  It was really nice to see you in person again.  I just regret we didn't have more time to talk.  I really enjoyed your Money Talk on Laura Gardin Fraser.  Well done!

I found your comment: "This year as a bonus for submitting a people’s choice ballot each submitter received a 2019 copper-nickel proof set!" very interesting.  I too cast a ballot, but there was no proof set presented when I slipped it into the ballot box.  You must be living right.

.

I'm looking forward to your presentation next week.  It's an interesting topic and one I've delved into myself.  See you in Chicago!

The label states exactly what it is.  It's a Piefort!  Or more correctly, it's a Piedfort.

A good description of what a peidfort is can be found here: Piedfort Coins - Heavyweight Coin Collecting.

Piedforts are essentially an extra thick example (generally twice as thick) of a coin intended for circulation.  Much like the U.S. Silver Eagle silver bullion coin, the Royal Dutch mint also issues a once ounce silver bullion coin utilizing the same design found on this piedfort. Although never struck, the U.S. equivalent would be a 2 oz. U.S. Silver Eagle piedfort.

It doesn't call my name, but it is a piedfort (or piefort if you prefer the misspelling) of an official Royal Dutch mint issued one oz. silver bullion coin.

4 hours ago, gherrmann44 said:

You're right. But I never really started all this with the sole purpose of being recognized. I write because I like to write and I am always striving to improve my writing skills. The spoken word and the written word are two very different things. Learning to communicate through the written word has been a challenge. That said I have come into my own writing style that when you get right down to it is an expression of my personality. In other words, I like to tell the stories of the coins I collect. I have a love for history and history has a lot to do with collecting and story telling. That some people have found my writings to be worthy of publishing is really icing on the cake and never taken for granted or expected. Simply put, I enjoy writing and collecting and when I discover something of interest about the coins I collect I like to share it with as many people as possible. I really enjoy this and my hope is that other people enjoy it also.

...  

The Laura Gardin Fraser set started with my admiration of her as a person and an artist. In many respects she was a pioneer working in what had been up to her time a mans world. She effectively paved a trail for other women to follow without even trying. With her it was always about her passion and love of sculpting. As I started to research her life, I found myself liking her all the more. Writing about something or in this case someone that I am passion about is no chore, it is a joy. In many respects I also learned this from my former pastor because he was very passionate about the things he wrote of.

Gary

There's so much in the above quote that I like, but I emphasized what I felt  like were the key points.  When you're passionate about a subject and can express that passion through a well written story, it brings the coin (or medal) to life. Your posts are always well researched, well written, tell the story, and convey your motivation and connection.  That's what connects with your audience.

The awards and recognition are all well deserved.  Maybe it's time to start writing some articles for The Numismatist.

I'm very sorry for your loss.  I've checked out your 1932 mint set several times and I appreciate the thought and effort that went into building it.