GoldFinger1969

Looks like Summer FUN 2021 is on....I thought it was cancelled.

If you do, we'll all be getting together. Scan the hotels and airfare or other transportation if you are flying or taking the train or bus or whatever. Some folks book months in advance, get good rates. Hotels aren't cheap there, but you can get early discounts. I want to stay in the same hotel next time as the CT and NGC folks....I booked another hotel about 3/4 mile up the road and basically I couldn't hang with the guys in the hotel (it was also closer to the show). There's also different Convention Centers in the Orlando area right near one another, make sure you know where your hotel is in relation to the center.

The "social media buying frenzy" lasted 1-2 days. Silver rose like on a trampoline....and came back to Earth.

Are you saying Don Corleone is a coin collector ?

If you live in Eastern KY, I suspect there are some 1-day local coin shows somewhere close to you. Or maybe in one of the bigger cities. Maybe even Cincy ? For me, the show to go to -- just went to my first one in 2020 -- would be the FUN show in January 2022. Probably some of the NGC folks here will be there and folks from CT too (probably ALL the coin forums ). 600 dealers....workshops....lectures....costs money to get there and stay there but it's a blast. I took the train from NY last year and then flew back. Not at all. Hey, we can't take these coins with us when we pass on and we don't know if they'll appreciate or what when we own them. So it's all about learning the history associated with our coins and enjoying them..

Joe....how long have you had the coins ? Were they given to you or did you buy them ? Did you REALLY think they were worth $200,000 ?

Well, I just said it....and this guy with a bunch of coins he was gonna send to a TPG decided to go sit in a cave. I think something got lost in translation.

Yup, caveat emptor ! Er...how do you say submitter in Latin ?

I agree with you. Having never submitted any coins, I just know if my fees were tied to the value of the coins and they were raw to begin with, I'd certainly make sure they were legit and close to my market value in the first place. No argument whatsoever. I understand the submitters anger and maybe embarassment at getting a $1,000 bill to have his coins declared counterfeit. He also may be upset because he is suddenly "out" $200,000. But the whole thing is cloudy because he INSISTS he is an expert in the field and that he knows the coins are legit and any opinion to the contrary is false. This makes his appeal less symptathetic, IMO. We still don't know WHEN and HOW he came into the coins -- and at what cost.

The thing is....by declaring the coins to be worth $200,000 he was setting himself up for a big bill. If you have raw coins and this is how the TPGs operate, then you better be right on the value or close to it.....OR.....have them screened beforehand to make sure you don't pay a fee based on $200,000 in assessed value for coins that are worth less than $1,000.

Nobody does it ? Anybody sell the holders and I can put them in myself ungraded ? You know, if the TPGs and dealers offered this, alot of people would probably pay $$$ to get their coins in something nice and it would also INCREASE the demand for the proof sets as opposed to having them in that flimsy see-through plastic.

I found some Roosters in the Heritage Archives, lots of interesting coins but no in-depth text accompanying it. Still, might pay to scan and hit them up 1-by-1 and see if you uncover some nuggets of info.

Zad, please don't misconstrue what I said: I would certainly never say that anybody was OBLIGATED to sell a coin they liked and enjoyed. I am talking more about someone who isn't a coin collector and not concerned with the hobby hoarding the coin or coins and then nobody being able to enjoy them AND the publicity of a sale or auction not taking place. In the case of the UHRs, there are close to 20 of them, so 1 or 2 being off the market for decades hurts but isn't fatal. OTOH, I would hate for the 1933 Saint to be off the market for another 18 years especially if not owned by a collector. However..... Kudos and thanks to Stuart Weitzman for at least making the coin viewable by the general public. That was a classy move and I applaud him for that. While reading Roger's and Bowers' Double Eagle books I was stuck by how many coins were sold and re-sold over the decades. And if you read the HA texts that accompany auctions in their archives, you'll see comments from David Akers talking about how he and other collectors like Steve Duckor would sell coins that they had and sometimes replace them with lower-graded coins, just to help out other collectors or to let the coins go into a registry set.

Disgraceful ? I beg to differ, QA...... He arrogantly attacks NGC when it appears their analysis and grading was 100% accurate. While I agree the grading was costly and NGC should have probably alerted him, he didn't properly evaluate the coins beforehand. You don't send $200,000 in coins that will cost you $1,000 without first making sure your coins are legit and close to the value you cite (as Gmarguli said, that's on you). I feel bad anybody gets stung with fake coins, but we need to know if he bought them, was given to him, or he inherited them -- and how long he had them without ever taking them to a professional. He said he was an expert on the coins -- but clearly, he isn't. I wasn't aware that fees were related to the value of the coins -- so if I was going to submit coins that I said were worth $200,000 but might be worth as little as 10% or less of that amount (or even close to zero)......I'd MAKE SURE that the coins are close to my estimate by having some "experts" check them out before NGC or PCGS. I agree that paying the fee based on the estimated value -- since reduced by 90-99% -- is probably a bit "unfair." But if that is how the contract reads, not sure how we can say he was taken advantage of.

I'm confused....you were dismissive about proofs in an earlier post, here you say that the die pairs could be consistent with proofs. You seem more concerned that the pairs were mixed during striking, not sure why that matters. 2 die pairs....2 collars....pretty small number of mix-and-match possibilities, right ? Is there a special combination of the dies and collars you would want to see for a proof ?

I think you are right on both counts, Mark....I need to re-hit the relevant chapters in Roger's book since it's been almost a year since I read it.

In the picture, I see King Solomon, the 2 mothers, and the baby....but where are the High Relief coins ?

OK, I think we're making progress.....so you are saying you'd have less objections if ALL the MCMVII High Reliefs were all called "proofs" instead of some YES and some NO......is that it ? Clearly, some of the High Reliefs looked spectacular and those are the ones getting the NGC Proof designation...and others that don't look quite as "proof-like" aren't getting that treatment. Makes you wonder how they could tell proof from non-proof in later years when you had those Proof Saints that were sandlbasted or satin and neither really looked that distinct from Biz Strikes (at least from the pics I've seen; maybe they look different in-hand).

I can see tonight I'll be re-hitting the 2 proof arguments in the Double Eagle book......

Roger....so let's get down to the nitty-gritty....if the 1907 HR's are made on a medal press....and if they have special dies...and if they get multiple strikes (3) and annealing....even if we don't have "special" polished dies....can't we say that there is some overlap with then-current or later proof minting processes ? I think this confusion is because in the past and in the future you clearly had Biz Strikes and Proofs -- 2 distinct striking processes and coins. The MCMVII High Reliefs seem to combine elements of both. JMHO.

The fees were based on your BELIEVED value of $190,500. BTW, I don't know why you sent them to NGC International in the UK instead of NGC in the States. Regardless....I do agree that if you were wrong on the value of the coins, the cost for grading them should be lower. If I sent in a Saint-Gaudens coin that I believed was MS66 and worth $10,000 and it turns out to be AU-55 and worth $2,000.....I would expect grading fees to be based on the lower value. But never having submitted, I'll leave it to the veterans here to chime in.

But maybe because the 1907 High Reliefs were "special coins" -- they knew they wouldn't make millions and probably not even hundreds of thousands -- they knew they could increase the quality because dies would be striking less coins. And maybe they were polished or given other special treatment ? If you know you are going to strike 10,000 - 15,000 coins you probably prepare differently than if you need to make 2 million, right ? You say they used the large medal press for proofs -- they used that for the HR's and UHRs, right ? It's probably just me and what I am accustomed to...but if it doesn't looke mirror-like, it doesn't ring "proof" to me even though I know early proof coins didn't have the mirror look.

There's a clear distinction today between biz strikes and proofs. Back 110 years ago, the distinction might not have been as clear. What specific process or addition did Proofs have in 1907 that the biz strikes did not have ? If special proof dies needed to be used -- but then replaced very frequently -- how do we know that they weren't proof dies that were used for longer periods of striking ?

The debate is above my paycheck, as they say , so I'll just keep reading both sides and learning. Interesting, didn't know that as I have next-to-nothing with Peace Dollars.

You mean that we have coins being CALLED Proofs, right Mark ? NGC classifies proofs, PCGS does not. I am unaware of any other coin or type where one TPG recognizes its existence and the other doesn't (but feel free to correct me, anybody). It's a very interesting debate. I'm sure you saw the sections in Roger's book with an advocate on both side. Other books on gold coins and proofs and Roger's own RoAC have more details to share.