Coinbuf

Ehh maybe, like most I have never had much of any discourse with any of the other registry participants ; well except you William and the few times we have conversed on the 1932 sets. The only other registry set member (in my areas or sets I compete in) is the one guy that was rather upset when I took over first place in the 1940 year set last year. He started a thread on why his set had been overtaken and why, which turned out to be the CAC points. And while he was not hostile per se the tone of his posts seemed rather ticked and much more focused on putting me in my place as opposed to any "fun" discussion, at least most comments seemed that way to me. Like you I think it would be rather fun to have some interesting conversations with other members that participate in the registry be it the competitive or custom sets. But as Mike pointed out it seems that very few are interested in any sort of comradery or communication.

Returning it for a refund is the best option, you could attempt to give it an acetone bath. However most likely the print is already etched into the coin and if so there is really nothing that can easily be done.

Hope you find a nice gem in the bunch.

Thanks Greg, as I'm not interested in buying any of these I had not followed much of the hoopla, I guess then that there is some opportunity for varying quality.

The holder is a bit scratched but a nice coin with an almost cameo contrast on the obv.

I have not followed these that closely Lem, but are these not all being produced at the same location vs individual mints as in the 1800's. If so then the quality should be fairly uniform across the entire mintage.

Like Mike wrote above I expect that these will hold value for a few years, certainly into and likely past 2022. Now five years from now might not be a very safe bet, but then again there is a lot of money in the current market and it is not going away just yet. I recently heard a story that the Dems want to push another stimulus payout in early 2022, while I suspect that may have more to do with politics than anything else, that would just throw even more disposable monies into the market as you saw from the previous stimulus payouts. With the current level of available money and the possibility of more; dealers may be able to keep (imo) the current unrealistically high prices flying for some time yet.

Not to me, but there are buyers out there for this at this price.

And thats the problem with microscopes, everything looks like something it is not. No this is not what true die doubling looks like, you need to consume much more wisdom, and scrap the microscope.

Can you explain why you think this coin would deserve such a lofty grade? From your question I get the feeling that you have never seen a high grade Lincoln coin. Before you ruined it with your fingerprints on both sides that coin could not have graded any higher than MS63 red/brown with all the spots, stains, and marks/hits.

I agree the photos are not very sharp, however I do not see any evidence of an RPM nor are there any known RPM's for this date.

Thank you it is a fun set to find additions for and many can be found without spending alot. I really hope that in the future that NGC will be less restrictive with the custom sets, the great thing about custom sets is the freedom to create the set in any way you like. And I have many other old holder coins from firms like ANACS, ACG, PCI, Hallmark, and others that cannot be seen by those that view the set. The archaic mentality of limiting those sets still to only NGC and PCGS holdered coins needs to be opened up, end rant. Now as to the Morgan you posted, I cannot say for sure from those photos. My gut reaction is that they may be a bit of both, some circulation scrapes mixed with a light wipe or thumbing. Sharper photos and of the full obverse (not just the close up) could help but ultimately you need to spin the coin under a single light source to see how the lines look and how they impact the luster. I will say that if these were the only photos I had to make a choice from; and also assuming this is the 1878 you mentioned earlier in the thread; I would pass as the lines give the impression of a cleaning, thumbing, or wipe and 1878 Morgan dollars are much too common to settle for marginal quality. If this was a scarcer date and the seller had a return provision I might be tempted to see and inspect it in hand if it were a date I needed.

Here is a direct link to the set. Custom set

If you are asking what you can accept here on the marketplace section of the forum, as a seller you can accept or deny any form of payment you choose to. Keep in mind that by refusing to accept some types of payment you may not be a viable option to all buyers. As an example I would never use wire or ACH due to the costs and the dangers to me as a buyer, likewise I am not a user of any sort of crypto currency. So I would not be interested in doing business with you regardless of what you might be selling due to your payment options. This is a very small forum with a limited number of active members, if you really want to sell something you might need to be more open to other payment options.

I really like the old holders and do somewhat actively search for them. Part of the reason for that is I collect copper coins and copper is a highly reactive metal. So when I find a copper coin I want (or sometimes just a really nice one) in an old holder I can be assured that the coin color/surfaces are stable and have not been messed with, something that I cannot be assured of with a new holder. But I also like the history of the holder progression, in my sig line you can click the link for my old holder collection where I have showcased all my older NGC, and PCGS holders. I actually have many other holders from other TPG's but the showcase software will not currently allow those to be seen by anyone but myself. This is an area where knowledge of a specific series is important, often on Morgan dollars you will see some parallel incuse lines across the cheek. Those lines might be from a cleaning, however they also might be from the planchet prep process and are called roller marks. Knowing the difference is key, cleaning lines are bad where roller marks are mint made and while some collectors may not like them they are not damage. Everyone has an opinion on these, I'm old school and am not a fan (and thus critical) of todays market grading. But in general from what I see the + gets used for coins that have great luster but the rest of the coin is just not quite there for the next grade. The star is usually seen when toning is involved and the graders really like the colors. Again this is just my personal thoughts and other may feel differently on these.

I have been experiencing spotty problems with the forum software for the past few weeks using edge, got away from chrome due to too many popups. However my issues may be my horrible internet provider.

Just for future reference it helps if you can give us an accurate weight (to two decimal places) and size in MM's. I am also thinking just damaged (dryer coin) and if you had the diameter that would help to confirm that or open the discussion to other possibilities.

I will say the I also love gold coins, maybe not quite as much as a beautiful mint red Lincoln, but really close. I have both classic gold coins and the modern eagles, both types are beautiful in their own way and I'm sure that you will be happy with whatever choice you make.

No you should not expect that a rattler or fatty holdered coin will have a high expectation of an upgrade, this is especially true if you are buying from a dealer. You should expect that for the most part all the old holders have been picked clean of the coins that will upgrade with two notable exceptions. 1) If you have the opportunity to buy directly from another collector that has held those coins for a long time; say from the time they were graded or very close; then your chances are better of finding some undergraded coins in the old holders. But even then you should never expect that most of a long held collection will upgrade, it will depend greatly on the ability of the old collector's ability to spot and buy nice for the grade coins when he was buying them. And you should also expect that those you do find will almost certainly be common dates. 2) The other area is in the low MS grades between MS61 and MS63 for coins like Morgan dollars. Here you can still find some undergraded coins in those old holders because it does not make sense for a dealer to take the risk of regrading. For example, if you have an MS61 1881-S Morgan dollar that is undergraded it would cost you at least $50 to crack and regrade it but the price difference from MS61 to even MS63 is at best $50, so there is simply no upside. In those situations the dealers know that the mystic of the old holder can in many cases add value without any additional cost or risk on their part so they are better off just trying to sell the holder hype and increase the profit without the cost or risk. Here is an example of just such a coin I own, even with the gold bean this coin would not bring over MS63 money, which is maybe a difference of say $40 at best. This coin is far more valuable in the OGH with green bean than it would be in a modern MS62 or MS63 holder.

Put me in the no camp for any value on the label; first strike, first day, blah blah. Just useless marketing hype as far as I'm concerned. As to your next questions, I do not have a go to source for gold partly because I'm not a buyer at todays high prices and premiums for bullion, I'll wait it out and hope to see prices drop in the future. There are lots of options from the modern mint products to some classic $1 and $2.5 coins that can fall into the same price range as the modern mint products so do look around and shop carefully. What I should be doing is selling all my gold coins as most were bought when gold was much cheaper, but I'm not ready to part with them yet.

It is not one or the other, there are other factors in play as well. Luster and eye appeal are the most important attributes to the grading companies for UNC grades under the current market grading scheme. Bag marks (especally the location and severity of the marks) and strike/wear are factors and also do factor into the eye appeal but are now second fiddle to luster and eye appeal in the overall view at the TPG's. Circulated grading is still somewhat close to the old school standards, however eye appeal will still trump all. Basically in the current market the TPG's are more pricing UNC coins as opposed to really grading them, they are placing the grade that they feel the coin merits (and should be priced at) on the overall look not by strict hit counts or the strength of strike alone. As you view many coins you will see a disparity between the grades given today vs those in the early days of slabbing. While most of those older graded coins that were worth the costs have been broken out and regraded there are still many coin in the older holders (like MS61 Morgan dollars) that were not worth the cost to upgrade. So its important when you are viewing coins to understand the timeframe when the coin was graded and the changes from that time to how grading is done today. That alone could be a part of the difference you see between grades under MS65. Keep in mind that this is all my opinion and I suspect that the TPG's and others may not share my full opinion.

Just more awful and uninspiring junk designs from the mint, something else to not collect for me.

I know I have heard the name before but do not recall anything specific about it, an interesting mystery.

@Woods020, do you know the story behind the Dominick/Joshua label?

Calling @JKK