Coinbuf

Congrats on the new Lincoln, those steel cents are beautiful in the uber gem grades.  

On 12/10/2021 at 3:17 PM, Revenant said:

I just don't  think I could ever talk myself into paying someone to image my coins. Through years of trying and doing and redoing I keep slowly getting better... 🤷‍♂️

Its not a cost that everyone would or even should incur, I sort of view it as an investment which will pay for itself when the time to sell comes.   I hope that these high quality photos will help close a sale for (hopefully) top dollar vs photos of lower quality.   And of course I would not pay to have every coin I have imaged as that would indeed be very cost prohibitive.    I also consider the costs of buying/maintaining a high quality camera/lens setup, heck a really nice digital camera and quality macro lens can easily run upwards of 2K.   And then all the other bits, good high intensity lights, copy stand, editing software, etc... it all adds up quickly.   Another reason I do this is my coins live at the SDB rather than at my house due to the value of some of my collection, so having great high quality images allows me to enjoy the coins without having them in my physical possession.

I do have a very low cost setup; less than $600 total for everything; which I am getting better with and continue to practice on some of the low value or new addition coins.  My setup is good and my images are better than they were so perhaps one day I'll be able to get close to his level.

On 12/10/2021 at 7:51 PM, Legionary1 said:

My hearty congratulations on that 1940 Walker; the MS67+ CAC is  next best thing to an actual MS-68. You really stole a march on me with that one....

You'll pardon me if I don't let you rest easy on the throne...

I'll just have to send my stuff to Mr. Goodman for imaging; the images I have are all from NGC and the CAC stickers on many of my specimens don't show them in the pictures.

Thank you sir, that is high praise indeed coming from a collector of your level.     Mark is great and I'm sure your sets would be visually enhanced with images of the great coins in your collection.   And of course I welcome the challenge to stay on top, taking a line from the Alabama football program "iron sharpens iron".   Competition raises the bar and keeps us both at the top of our game.

Thanks for the kind words fellas.   I have not run the numbers but getting to the 6 slot (assuming those four in front don't improve) I am guessing will cost $2,500 to $3,500; so not a huge investment but not cheap either.   I did not include the number five set in the photo but it is almost exactly double the points of my set, so getting to and passing that five slot would require spending double or more what I currently have in the set.   That does start to add up to a lot of dough, and from there I would need to double that point and dollar total to even get to within shouting distance of the top slot.   A very big task to be sure and one that I know I'll never be able to achieve.   I know that none of my Lincoln sets will ever win any awards, but I love the series so I collect them anyway knowing that its the enjoyment that drives me not the awards.

But I think that being in the top ten here in the NGC registry puts my set(s) in the top 50 of all Lincoln sets that are out in the hands of collectors.   And that in of itself is not too shabby and I'm very happy with that.

Thank you, I hope to have some photos of it up soon as I think it has a very nice look.   And it certainly was not inexpensive at close to $1,400 it is twice as expensive as any other coin in the set.   I am sure that little green bean was responsible for pushing the price up in the GC auction where I bought it, but I really wanted it so I sold off a couple of Morgan dollars to make it happen.

Going back to the 40-D, I do not really understand why the point bump is so low for the 40-D in 67+ when both the P and S coins have a very large spread in the points.   I would guess that its an oversight on the part of the registry team and one day they may decide to change that.   If that does change in the future then perhaps it might be worth taking a second look at.   I have only one coin that I really want to upgrade and that is the 40-S half, I would really like one day to have a 67 in that slot.   This is another coin where the registry point values seem very skewed, 1500 points for the MS66 to 6000 points for one grade higher.   And its not like 67's are rare as the NGC pop report shows 21 in 67.   However given the hefty price tag of around $5K I may never be able to afford one.

In the past I have been critical of the dual award system that NGC uses, but in this case I am happy that your set will receive a first place award too, you have a magnificent set and it deserves to be recognized.   Congratulations in advance as I fully expect you to win the NGC only 1st place award.  

The 40-D will be tough unless you can find one that has just been made or crossed.   The NGC census shows 3 in 67+ and one in 68, however I have not found even one of those four coins listed in any of the NGC registry sets I've looked at.    Perhaps they are in private sets where the coins are not shown or listed, or they have been cracked and crossed for use in the PCGS registry.   Either way you will have quite a challenge to find one in NGC plastic; but I hope you are able to find one.

Not a coin that I really have any interest in chasing myself.   Most of the time these sell for around 1K and up vs an MS67 which usually sells around $125 and the registry only gives you a 20 point bump from MS67 to MS67+, too much expense given the low reward imo.

Congrats on making that 40-S Lincoln in 67+, I noticed that the pop increased when you added it to your set so I'm assuming you or someone you know made or crossed it.

On 10/10/2021 at 4:24 AM, Revenant said:

I didn't say it was unusual. I just think it'd be fun to have a conversation.

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.

You have too much time on your hands.      Of course by my reply so do I.  

Glad you were able to add the comments back in, @Revenant may have hit on the issue of a bug.  I'll second his recommendation to report the issue to the registry team and have them look into it.

Looks like you did quite well with only one big disappointment in the 1938 that you hoped for gem and got 63; congrats on the grades and also for the win last year that awarded you the grading credits.

That is a very nice addition, and some great information and background to the piece.   As to your thoughts on prices I too have seen the rapid rise of prices both at the auction blocks and for the retail prices.  It is becoming very difficult for me to want to spend too much more money as I'm worried that this could just be a bubble and I don't want to be caught if the air in this market reduces rapidly.   I bought more this year than I had planned, partly as there were more really nice coins that were brought out as a result of the higher prices, and my desire to finish a couple of sets.   I think that next year will see far less spending on coins and more time enjoying the coins I have.

Yes you do Rick, that is a set that I put on the back burner many years ago and have not even looked at those coins in years.

Well better than half way into this registry year as just under four months left until the 2021 deadline.   My sets received quite a few points when the CAC bonus points were updated, however so did many/most of the top ranked US sets so that ended up a wash for the most part.   As I look back over the first eight months I have not been able to improve as many sets as I would have liked.   The increased money flowing into the coin hobby from the pandemic for many folks has really caused a surge in auction prices for anything nice.   That has resulted in fewer than hoped for upgrades or filling new slots than I was expecting for this this year.   I also decided to allocate some funds to defend a number one set that has been under attack from a former first place set owner which took funds away from projects that I had planned to work on this year.   Not a complaint as I do enjoy the competition, just not the way I expected to spend some monies. 

So far this year I have added a total of 18 coins, most were very low value $40-$50 kind of coins.   Several of those were Lincoln Memorial cents as I very slowly continue to fill in the blanks of my Lincoln cent sets post 1958.   With those additions I was successful in moving the main Lincoln set into the number 5 position, a significant milestone for me as I am competing with some super deep pocketed collectors and dealers in that area.   While I cannot ever reach the top in the Lincoln cent category (would require at least a $500K investment) I'm very satisfied with my set.   This is one of the areas I had planned to try and do more on this year, perhaps one or two coins can still be added before the year is over.

A few coins were fun or impulse buys like a very nice Peace dollar in an old Hallmark holder for my old holder set, I sure wish NGC would change how the custom sets are currently setup.   I can add any brand of plastic slab into my old holder custom set, however just as in the competitive sets anyone other than myself can only see the NGC and PCGS coins that are in the set.   This seems really silly given that the sets are not given awards for points but rather on the creative aspects of the sets; well enough of that I'll get off the soap box for now anyway.  I also bought a couple of raw "W" quarters that I was not able to find in change over the year for my Dansco album.

The remainder of this year's purchases have been to upgrade my 1940 year set that celebrates my mothers birth year in order to keep it in the 1st place slot.   Hopefully those upgrades that I have made in this year will cement it at the top for many years.

I was also able to convince NGC to add a new Lincoln cent set to the competitive registry, one without all those unnecessary varieties.  Not to offend anyone but I see mint errors and varieties as defects, flaws, and poor craftsmanship items which have no place in the competitive registry.   Those types of coins are in my view a perfect candidate for the custom set category.  It was fun being at the top for a short time after that set was opened up but I knew that it would be short lived and I currently sit in the 2nd place slot and I expect that I will be lower by the end of the year.  No matter as I'm happy that the set exists for those collectors like myself that don't wish to be burdened with collecting coins we do not want or like just to fill a spot.

Always interesting to take a mid (ish) year look back on what I have done vs what I expected or hoped to do.   Still some time but the budget is mostly shot so I am not planning on any large or special purchases before the year closes out, but you never know.  

Can you provide links to your registry sets or have you closed them all out already?   Might make it easier for those interested to be able to identify your coins from the other 11K coins that are being sold on GC.  

I thought for sure that Covid would cause the coin hobby to slide into a slight reversal, but instead it has gone into hyper warp for just the reasons that you both noted.   The disposable money supply grew exponentially from stimulus funds.   Additionally lots of people used the low home interest rates to refi homes and pull large amounts of monies from the equity in those homes.   That money was funneled into many areas but much of it was used for discretionary spending like hobbies, RV's, and other large ticket items.

@Mr.Bill347 Actually the 09-SVDB has been falling of late, not that long ago I could have sold my MS64RB for $2600 or more, that has dropped to more like $2200 currently.   Morgan and Peace dollars are the hot tickets right now, and it seriously has me thinking of sending my Morgan dollars to auction.

But back to the issue, where does the market go from here?   Can it continue this rapid rise with the for sure coming hyper inflation, will it find a top soon or just keep on trucking.   I wish my crystal ball was more accurate on these things.    My concern is that if it keeps rising as it has over the past year I will be forced to the side at least until it peaks out and descends back down. 

"winning by default"    I can totally relate to this.  While I did not win any financial awards I have 4 best in category awards for a set that had (still has) one coin in the set but to my surprise nobody else had or put together a set for several years.   It was a very cheap win and fun in its own way for the time it lasted.  

8 hours ago, Revenant said:

And then you have people like me, Submitting a group of Zimbabwean coins, not because I have any dream of making money, but because I have a grading credit and I simply want to do it to make a coin counterpart to my note set.

Slightly different scenario, you have a purpose and the knowledge of what the coins are worth.  Don't get me wrong many coins are submitted for reasons other than purely financial gain, often times a sentimental coin is submitted for protection and even a special label.   But I think the pandemic caused a lot of people to find the vast misinformation that is available on the net about the riches of pocket change and then began to submit all sorts of coins thinking that they had found ultra rare mint errors and things of that nature.

I think that its a bit of everything that has been mentioned plus one thing that I have not seen talked about yet, a large number of change searchers.   Both here and on the PCGS forums I have seen a big increase in people that are asking about pocket change and "dad's" or "granpa's" coins and how to get those coins; most of which are usually not valuable enough to warrant grading; submitted for grading.  A perfect example from the newbie board here is the guy that goes by modwritter, if you have read some of his posts he has sent in a number of coins that were not valuable or worth the cost of submission.   Just tonight on the PCGS forum there are two threads asking if and how to submit the "fantastic" (which = AU or worse) condition Morgan dollars they recently came across in dad's collection.   As a side note it does make you wonder if these are "hot" or truly a relatives coins, but that is a different discussion.   So I think that the number of pocket change or low grade coins that are being sent in by unknowledgeable folks be they the youtube get rich quick type or the clueless to coins inheritance types has been one of many significant factors in clogging up the grading pipeline.

No worries the NGC only raking is of no concern to me, and I have a few adds to my set that are not showing just yet. 

I would have loved to have bought that NGC 40S Walker that sold on GC last night, I put in a placeholder bid of $2,100  knowing it would go for much more.  As expected it went for over $4K so sadly it did not come home with me, would have added over 4K in registry points. 

Better save some money, catching that 1945 set will cost you a ton in upgrades.

That is cool that the 40 set has a similar meaning for us both.   Never say never, the 41-S walker had been moving down some in price since 2015 difficult to say if it will stabilize going forward or if the hot market will lift prices again.   

I see you bought that 40-P in 67+ from eBay, nice addition.   I considered it just to up the NGC points but decided that doubling up on that date/grade was not a good choice for me as my goal is the overall point lead not the NGC only points.  I'll be watching your progress. 

Your welcome sir, and I look forward to sparing with you again this year. 

@Revenant has it correct, at the 2020 registry cutoff I had the most total points all coins combined, you had the most points NGC certified coins only.  Ergo you won the NGC best in category award and I won the best in category award.   There have been some recent changes to the registry system; specifically to the old collectors society system; as now if you attempt to access the sets using that system it automatically redirects you to the new registry format where you cannot toggle from all coins and only NGC graded coins as you could in the old system.  Or at least I have been unable to find that function in the new registry system so far, so when you view the new system it just shows my set as number one.

Another change to the registry system last week was the addition of CAC bonus points, and that is why I now hold the top spot for both the overall combined score and the NGC graded only coins.  If you totally eliminate the three PCGS coins in my set my new score after the CAC bonus points were added is 13,371 to your 13,182, so at this moment my set has the best score for both combined and NGC only coins.

For what its worth I do agree with you on the scoring of PCGS coins in the NGC registry.  I have said many times here on the forum that I very much enjoy being able to display both my NGC and PCGS coins in my registry sets.  But when it comes to scoring those PCGS coins should be given scores of 0 and only one best of category award should be given for the set that scores the highest NGC graded only.   However I don't make the rules, so I play the game the way its setup.

Best of luck, surprised that the market there is that easy given the number of people that have been moving there.  Here is way worse as we have had a massive influx of people moving out of CA and other states run by a certain political party.  House prices here are skyrocketing with no end in sight, to "win" a house here you had better be prepared to bid way over ask and have a ton of cash on hand too.