gmarguli

Unless I'm misremembering, the last time this came up (a few months ago) the Mint said they would not mint the coin and the Federal Reserve said they would not accept the deposit of this coin. Basically, don't look at us to help you out of your own problems. 

I'd be much more upset if that allowed authentic coins to bang around on each other while getting a photograph. 

Impossible to know how the line was caused. Some sort of contaminant. Perhaps a rubber band over time. 

I think it is a toss up as to whether it would details grade or not. I've seen worse in straight grade slabs and better in details grade slabs. Personally, I'd work on the coin. You should be able to even out the dark spots and likely remove the surface contaminants. 

I would also call the coin AU.

It does not appear genuine.

If you want to send in something like this, send it in under economy. If it turns out real and worth 100K, the TPG will adjust the submission fee accordingly. 

On 2/20/2023 at 9:00 AM, VKurtB said:

Not according to the British, no. My piedfort coins are British, not French. The Spink catalogs spell it “piedfort”. 

At least we can agree on how it is pronounced. 

On 2/15/2023 at 4:39 PM, VKurtB said:

If you’re looking for consistency, you’re in the wrong hobby. NGC often can’t even spell “PIEDFORT”.

I think you mean Piéfort.

Kienast-386 / X-1 has the medal reverse. However, the Bruce (X) book calls them 5 Mark, but pictures the medal.

Kienast-387 / Schaaf-327xxx has the 5 mark reverse.

I suspect these are greatly misidentified when being sold. I've sold dozens of them and never noticed the difference. 

On 2/16/2023 at 8:01 AM, RWB said:

The piece has a 5 mark denomination on the reverse. Therefore, it is a coin and not a medal.

There is no denomination on the reverse. 

I don't know the answer other than they probably switched reference books at some point in time, going from the Bruce book to the Kienast book. 

I've also see these labeled as 5 Mark, Medallic 5 Mark, and Medal. So it seems that they aren't consistent on that either. 

The cert number will not change when they fix this error. You can send it back to CAC and they should re-sticker it without issue.

The "prototypes" that people refer to are not traditional proof strikings, more like a fine granular business strike. This coin is clearly not like that, it's solidly in the proof category. It sounds like the poster thinks this is a Type-1 reverse.

You can match the craters on your coin to the regular type on the pictures below. 

You can double check based on the weight of the coin. The regular Ike weighs 24.6 grams and the Type-1 reverse is 22.7 grams.

I believe your coin is a normal Ike and will probably come back as PR62, making it worth less than the slab.

Maybe the ANA could pick a city where you're not likely to get murdered? 

What are the odds you can "hit on a few"? So basically you have no clue how to grade them. If you want a $300 lesson in grading, send them in. Or you could examine graded examples in person for free at shows. 

Most of these coins are dirt common in 69/70. You can get them on eBay in PR70 for less than the cost of grading. The odds that you have PR70s for the rare ones is near zero. I can see spots and haze on some, which will exclude them from a 70 grade.

There is no value in taking them to your local ANA dealer. The odds that the dealer can split the 65/66/67/68/69/70 grades for modern proofs is very small. As easy as it is to grade them, most people including dealers never learn as there is no value in it for them. 

Since when is there a Type-1 & Type-2 for the 1971-S 25c? 

I've submitted MANY THOUSANDS of moderns over the years and there are two ways to do it. Bulk submission where you blindly submit hundreds of coins and pay very little for each or you know how to grade and select gems for the dates that make sense. For most of your dates, not even bulk submission makes sense for PR70s.

On 1/22/2023 at 10:25 AM, GoldFinger1969 said:

Would I be wrong in saying that buying raw coins today is more dangersous than 10 years ago ?  25 years ago ?  40 years ago ?  

Depends on what you are scared of. 

Exceptional counterfeits have been around since the beginning of time. Take a look at the contemporary counterfeit ancient coins that fool the experts. The counterfeit US gold coins from the middle east in the 1950s. 

I don't believe it is more dangerous today. Buyers are dumber today than in the past. They have a massive amount of knowledge at their fingertips, but they close their eyes and do stupid things instead.

It's a Year 11 (1936) Japanese 50 Sen. Date is on the obverse (10-11 o'clock in your pic)

These are very common. I've handled several unc rolls over the years. They minted millions of them. 

On 12/3/2022 at 1:55 PM, Quintus Arrius said:

Presently, NGC boasts 1.2 million coins featured in 150,000 registered sets by 17,000+ members from around the world.

PCGS boasts 130,829 U.S. coin sets and 156,725 registered sets overall.

I bet the number of sets drops by 50% if you removed sets that have less than 10% complete and also removed overlapping sets. Some popular series you can fit into numerous different sets. 

On 11/25/2022 at 1:44 PM, NewGuy1 said:

almost certainly?  Nah. What planet are you on?  Why would you think some goofy commemerative would be used when they changed to zinc cents  that would be way more important than a commemorative wouldn't it

NGC has spoken. Why 1982? The 1982 date was chosen because that is when the Tylenol capsule tampering happened and changed our country forever.

"The 1982 date signifies a loss of innocence for our country and [this incident] ushered us into the modern era". - Josh Tatum, NGC Director of Numismatic Research and Idioms

I like Ron Guth. He's a great guy and I wish him the most success ever. Having said that, his scale is completely illogical. There are no grade points from 59 through 79. 20% of the grading scale isn't being used. Shouldn't a near UNC (AU58) be closer to the lowest UNC grade (MS80)? This would cause just as much or more confusion as having a 70 point grading scale now. 

He's taken some adjective grades and increased their frequency for no apparent reason. Do we really need four VG grade points?

He has the grades of Good-5, Very Good-7, and Very Good-11 (utilized today!!), yet other than clueless people I've never see those grades used.

His scale has no high end "Plus" grades except those for MS coins. If we're going to expand the grading scale, shouldn't there be high end grades for circulated grades? 

If we really want to go to a 100 point scale, we should get rid of all the adjective grades and just grade them 45 and 86. 

The numbers should actually mean something. If 80 is UNC, then 40 should only have 50% of the details left. But why is UNC 80? That's as arbitrary as UNC being 60 on the Sheldon scale.

Why are the grading steps 1 point, 2 points, 3 points, and 5 points for circulated, but only 1 point for UNC? Isn't this illogical? How about MS60, MS65, MS70, MS73, MS75, MS80, MS85, MS88, MS90...

Can anyone shed some light on why the date of 1982 was chosen as the cutoff? 

Take a look at PhotoGrade and compare. 

Forget Redbook prices. See what they are selling for on eBay. Select SOLD items and you will get an accurate value.

On 11/25/2022 at 6:03 PM, GoldFinger1969 said:

My point was that Saints traded at certain premiums within a range over time.  It got blown out of the water in 1988-90.  Saints were one coin that was targeted for investment $$$; I'm sure there were others that got driven up hugely in price but I don't follow them that closely.

Everything was going up as no one knew what the firms would be buying. And I mean everything. I wish someone could show a Bluesheet from this time. The number of + vs - would blow your mind. 

On 11/25/2022 at 1:26 PM, GoldFinger1969 said:

Good point, but it's all we got. 

And the Coin Bubble of 1989 was right after PCGS and NGC opened for business.  It wasn't the TPGs that were the reason for the spike -- they were a contributing factor -- but the promise of Wall Street and institutional $$$ into the sector.

MS-65 common Saints traded at a 500-700% premium to their gold content.   The last 20 years or so, it's a 20-100% premium. 

The coin bubble was years after PCGS/NGC opened. PCGS opened in early 1986 and NGC in 1987. The coin bubble started to pop around August 1989 when the Wall Street funds were publicly called off. The PCGS/NGC commoditization of coins clearly had an impact, but so did other factors of the time such as the belief that inflation was coming back, the "recent" Black Monday, the Japanese stock market euphoria/crash, etc. 

I'm not sure why finding a line between an MS65 Saint and spot is relevant. Doing it for common date XF Liberty gold, maybe. Would you do it for MS65 Indian cents and the spot price of copper? 

On 11/25/2022 at 1:32 PM, GoldFinger1969 said:

Look at real estate, which is largely replaceable:  prices are falling for trophy homes, super-expensive beach houses, skyscraper mansions, etc.  There's always more of these being produced (just look at the NYC skyline  ).

OTOH, unique art pieces seem to be holding up.   Can't produce more DaVinci's, Rembrants, Van Gough's, etc.  More bidders....no more supply = stable or rising prices.

Real estate is not replaceable. It is unique. It may be substitutable. 

There have been numerous times art prices have crashed. Art also goes in/out of favor much more quickly than coins.