GoldFinger1969

Are these raw or graded Morgans ? Since you referenced "cleaning" them, I'll assume they are not in plastic slabs, have not been graded, and are either loose or in little paper/cardboard holders. Taking a picture of your Morgans all together (we can worry about individual close-ups later) might be worthwhile. Do you intend to ADD to your collection of Morgan's ? It's a very popular series and there are different ways to go about it. Morgan's are my 2nd favorite coin -- after Saint-Gaudens Double Eagles -- and I have elected to collect a few here and there coins that I liked that were graded and slabbed.

You do not CLEAN coins. It ruins the coin's appearance, originality, and value.

FWIW, there seem to be 2 complaints about CAC: (1) Veteran do-it-yourself graders who don't like CAC for the same reason they don't like the TPGs and/or market grading. (2) Folks with nice collections that don't have many or any CAC stickers and feel that their collections are being devalued because they don't have the CAC stamp of approval which will hurt them if they go to sell their coins. Doesn't mean their coins are the bottom-rung "C" coins...they may in fact have plenty of CAC-worth "A" coins but by not submitting, they won't find out. And thus, they feel they are unfairly penalized.

You make some valid points, but I think that something THIS RARE probably would have been shown to a few people over the course of 18 years and then it maybe leaked out. It clearly didn't and in fact the coin wasn't kept by Weitzman, he loaned it to several venues for display. With other valuable coins, even involving secret bidding, there are always rumours (some true, some false). There was nothing in this case, as befits a guy who wasn't a known coin collector.

All-in-costs are probably closer to $1,300. CASH costs might be that low or lower....but all the other costs add up. When was that ? Must have been before my time. I do see that OGH's are advertised as a selling point regardless of the underlying coin.

Kinda proves my point.....if it were a collector, they probably talk to others and you'd have a leak or rumour. Weitzman isn't a coin collector though. Nobody knew anything about the 3 items he has.

When I read it that was true....then I see no follow-up AND I see the same exact post ATS. Some kind of weird agenda here.

I didn't see threads about stolen packages 5 or 10 years ago. Yes, a package got lost every now and then but you didn't have the problems with theft. This is related to the increased number of newcomers involved in mails at USPS/FEDX/UPS/Amazon....and Covid-19 wrecking havoc with supply lines.

You would think someone would have better things to do than post on a message forum about a company that might be seen by at most a few dozen people.

Numis is correct. CAC might be trying to split hairs by 1/3rd of a grade but not 1/6th. And while I can't vouch for an A, B, and C-type coin for all coin types, we all know at times the grading standards got slack and there are "strong" 65's and "weak" 65's.

I'm assuming he is who he says he is. I think his lengthy scribe is somewhat out of order with an individual who does as much business with the TPGs as he says he does (I would think he'd be very familiar with CAC then).....but let's see what his responses are to our responses and questions. I remember some people here and on CT thought I had an agenda with my postings on Saints and they couldn't have been more wrong.

Curiuous as to what coins you collect; if you have PAID the TPGs that much over the years either you and your associates are dealers or you have very substantial (both quantity and quality) coin collections. If you have no problems with the TPGs, you should have no problem with CAC. Each is doing essentially the same thing -- except CAC is grading the graders. I am with you on the absurdity of being able to grade 2 coins 65.4 and 65.7 when we see the same coin types being given grades off by 1 or even 2 grade increments. No, CAC is pretty much a company which reflects the views of 1 man -- John Albanese -- who certainly has a very good reputation in the business and has decades of experience including with the TPGs. I've never met him and have never submitted to CAC (or a TPG), FWIW. Some swear by him....others dislike their coins being devalued by not having CAC stickers. As one commentator said...if you have problems with the variance in TPG grading for coins, you can't object to CAC. For some reason, the biggest critics of CAC also bash the TPGs. Can't have it both ways. Well, I guess you CAN -- but it doesn't make sense when you think about it. I think CAC's mission originally made sense. The TPGs were brand new and for the first few years and first few decades of existence there were periods of time when grading standards varied. No doubt there were coins that were given an MS-65 and some of them could have been low-65 and others very high-65, almost a 66 (maybe should have been a 66 -- but then they would have been WEAK 66's). CAC provided a 2nd opinion on coins, particularly coins that were subject to "gradeflation" (i.e., Saints), that some people liked. Others didn't. To each his or her own....... CAC isn't perfect with their stickering, finding doctored coins, etc. But it increases the odds you are getting a LEGIT coin that is authentic and consistent with the grade. Ultimately.....CAC/Albanese is a buyer of CAC coins. He has no incentive to sticker "crappy" coins since he is going to be buying them back at inflated prices. CAC eats their own cooking, in other words. There's some good articles on CAC including one with Maurice Rosen from 2008 or so when CAC first started up (I or someone else may have linked it here). You can find it on the web and it may answer more of your questions.

That's the great think about the internet, you can do EASY and FANTASTIC shopping from Ebay, HA, GC, etc. You pay a bit more with bp's, taxes, fees, etc....but there's something to be said for being able to shop in a few minutes (or hours) from your home with clicks of a mouse. With Hi-Def pics and return policies, you have decent protection. Biggest problem of late seems to be slow and lost mail deliveries. First.....you can see great Hi-Def pics with the grades at places like HA and GC, so check them out. Also, there are plenty of "Guess The Grade" threads over at CT (not many here though there are a few). Second...not sure if you can travel but some of the larger regional shows (Whitman Baltimore, Bay State Mass.) are nice....and the Big 3 (ANA, Long Beach, and FUN) are tons of fun (pun intended ). Went to FUN 2020, my 1st non-local coin show and it was great. Previous shows had 25-40 dealers; FUN had close to 600 !!!

You can buy Proof Gold coins at $75 (~3-4%) over bullion price, PF70. Very minimal price to pay for the grade, protection, and confirmation that the coin is legit.

Suggested Re-Reading: I'm going to re-hit the COMMENTARY sections of Roger's books. I had forgotten how much information and factoids there are in these sections. They are easy reading for me (compared to the stuff on dies and variations) and also often contain commentaries from other dealers, collectors, etc. (i.e., Akers, Bowers, etc.). They were probably my favorite part of each year's/mintmark's review. Just too bad no digital copy of the book as I would love to have these section on my smartphone. But that's another reason for grabbing the Top Coin commentaries from HA often with Akers' comments.

By price spreads, you mean it doesn't pay to crack-out and resubmit low-MS or AU-graded coins where going up 1 grade won't mean more $$$, right ? Those numbers came from a column I saw in COINWeek. I think I linked it earlier in this or another thread.

I only follow folks who are right like 90% of the time, like those football experts that helped Homer Simpson:

I doubt it is in writing, but imagine the conversations among the Mint officials about melting down ALL of the gold in those vaults.....and striking all those 1933's when you were probably sure they were all going to be melted down.....and what Nellie Ross and others might have said regarding the 1933's in private. Could have used Facebook and Twitter back then.

I just find the whole thing fascinating.....tough to sneak out a single coin or even gold droppings at that time and yet somebody was smart enough (lucky) to be able to get an entire bag of 1928 Saints smuggled out.

Brilliant points...... Yup, must be hundreds of thousands of investment collectors of Saints, to go along with the 500 or so serious/registry collectors (estimate) and 25,000 type collectors (estimate). Could be more for Morgans though you need lots of them to get the same dollar value as Saints. Enjoy the coins, whatever they are worth in your retirement or for your heirs is just a bonus in addition to more substantial (hopefully) assets.

Is it possible that there is a "treasure trove" of documents on stuff that we have speculated on in the past....i.e, the stolen 1928 DE's.....Mint records regarding the 1933 Saint and Indian Head coins that stockpiled up.....reaction of Mint officials to dealers/speculators making a fortune off their coins released at face value....etc....that we just haven't gotten to yet ? Or has most of the "juicy stuff" been found already and it's basically minutae interesting only to numismatic experts and their followers ?

Interesting, thanks Roger. It might be in your new book, but do you have any letters or communiques or inquiries from the Philly Mint regarding those 1928 stolen DEs ? I'm wondering if they put their thoughts on that in writing or mostly talked about it.

What's interesting is that if you go back and read coin articles from 5 or 10 or 15 years ago (as I've done), you see some of the more well-known dealers and commentators saying that collectibles are dirt cheap. And you keep seeing those comments. But the coins just got cheaper. At SOME POINT, they might be right. Maybe......

Going over some of the threads ATS a while back, it seemed that alot of the old coin types that the Baby Boomers collected in the 1950's and 1960's -- those are being sold, and there are no buyers. The "big" coins in size -- Morgans (very much so) and Saints (less so, given the cost of gold) -- seem to have held up better from a collecting and interest POV. But smaller coins (pennies and nickles aside, it seems) have lost some relative interest. The days of getting a Whitman book....filling it up...then maybe starting over with higher-quality (today that means graded) coins....not sure that is happening to the extent of decades ago. As someone who used to do it, I'm going to guess....NO. Whitman probably knows for sure given that they sell the actual books.

I'm just surprised so much stuff was handwritten....I know there were no computers at the time, but they did have typewriters. Also would think a big outfit like the Mint would maybe have pre-made forms for their coin and bullion inventories.