USAuPzlBxBob

Snap some pics along the way, of your travels, Mr. "I've Been Everywhere, Man!" I too have been everywhere, but back when flying was where I'd wake up and wonder if it was Hong Kong, or Japan somewhere, maybe Singapore. Hong Kong had the most mystery; so beautiful, everything about it. Oh! It's that rare time of day right now when some sort of cicada, for just half an hour before dusk, has a Jew's Harp twang to its drone.

Diamondslayer, I'll second GoldFinger1969's opinion that you did fine with your purchase. When it comes in, assuming you bought it over the Internet, take a cellphone pic of it and try to get better at simple photography; editing the pic, centering, boosting things to make it look its best. This is a "rich" hobby, and especially that you're going for the "gold." As you collect more coins, develop some sort of coherence for your efforts, to make them make more sense to you. I remember when I was collecting my hundred year gold type set, the challenges of the search, the finances involved, the "heat of battle" with the doubt that keeps you in the hunt, or the coins you let get away by indecision, and when you refresh the page, the coin is SOLD… and it is all good when things are done with reputable people and dealers. If a dealer makes a little more than you think is fair, let them know, and remind them that if they curry your favor now, they might be rewarded many times over by further dealings with you, later.

This thread isn't about Gutfeld's "safe" word? Nice coins, btw.

Coin might be really good for Pitching Pennies; maybe have an innate tendency for being a "leaner." More likely: "You try too hard, man. You just ain't ready for me, yet."

With my questions, the coin I had conserved by NGC had to be submitted twice to them, since the first time they only removed an unattractive fiber within the holder. It was an 1849-D Gold Dollar, and when it came back the second time there was no longer grime in the "D," nor grime in some of the lettering near the reverse rim. Also, the coin upgraded from AU 58 to AU 58+ most likely because of its improved appearance. One thing I liked about submitting it for conservation was that it's a very small coin, and really just needed overall eye appeal, especially when placed anew in an NGC Scratch-Resistant EdgeView Holder.

Fascinating reading about acetone, here. Takes me back to my R&D laboratory days. The acetone would get transferred from the Fisher bottle to smaller polypropylene "squirt bottles," and maybe deionized water would be added to drop its flammability down. The large bottles of reagent grade acetone would immediately go back to the flammable storage cabinet. It was the way things were done. This then brings up the question of how grime is removed from within the letters on coins, when conservation practices are used on coins by the the "big" grading companies. Do they just perform acetone soaks of varying lengths of time, based on degree of grime-removal difficulty? Or are shaker tables used? Maybe impinging "squirt bottle" techniques? Higher temperature? All of the above? Anyone know?

I just see it as the doldrums of summer, coupled with hackneyed threads.

Back in the '70s, I had the pleasure of playing the guitar of the real Tommy Devito, one of The Four Seasons. A Fender Jazzmaster, I switched my guitar, a Gibson SG, with my bandmate — who had borrowed the guitar from the son of DeVito — I played a few chords to see what I was up against, and then held on to it for a few songs. Silky smooth neck, great high string sustain when played in full treble pickup position — really raw and pure — and I wasn't a fan of the guitar's appearance "style" at the time. Memorable, nonetheless. Devito's son died in his sleep a few years later. I don't remember if he even made it to twenty years of age.

You guys need to lighten up a little. I think gold will "rise" and "shine," and it will ignore the "cold out there." Especially since it happens to be going up to 100º F here in New Jersey, today. And the way I feel, looking at a beautiful new 84" Sub Zero in my kitchen, even though it is still uninstalled since last Tuesday due to a "cluster" installation team that left it in the middle of my kitchen — hopefully only until tomorrow, Monday — I like to see the optimistic side of things… like the excitement of using my two igloo coolers 24/7. Been living like this since late May… so much fun… like camping out, but in my own house, and buying ice at package stores constantly, along with other things available at package stores. Things really can only get better, right?

For anyone interested in pursuing a project like this, or if NGC decided to avail itself to providing XRF analysis "free" for coins that could benefit from this sort of learning experience, I would direct their attention first to purchasing a copy of the book Statistics For Experimenters (Box and Hunter). This book is actually an enjoyable read, so much so that — as I found myself referring to the book many times from the laboratory library of the company where I worked — I bought my own copy. My suspicions are that to undertake this project in a meaningful way, each coin that would undergo XRF would need to have several measurements taken and the data stored. This would then open the door to revealing how many measurements per coin would be required, and also how many coins might be needed. Both of these ideas — measurements per coin and number of coins — would be revised as more and more data would come in. In the process of this project, just think how much you would learn: experimental design, critical thinking, statistics, spreadsheet management, and the language of expressing results and conclusions. This "general" skillset is in demand in all of the Science/Technology/Engineering/Mathematics (STEM) disciplines. A young enough individual, motivated and with an outgoing personality, could write their "ticket" to work wherever they wanted with this sort of self-taught expertise.

I'll go with AU 58, too. With lighting as good as you have managed, it isn't "popping." It looks flat, no character to it, just a gold coin. Looking at my $2.5 1925 D MS65+ CAC, on my iPhone, blown up… lots of reflection points are part of the design, and it "pops." What you should do is go to the NGC Coin Explorer >> Gold Quarter Eagles >> Indian Head $2.5 (1908-1929) >> 1913 $2.5 MS >> View the Registry Image Gallery. There are 87 coins there, with just about every one of them involving photos, and they range from MS 66 down to AU53, with four as AU Details coins. Find the coins that look the most like yours, bound your coin within a few of them, and you'll have a good idea of the grade. Also, the Coin Explorer is a good way to learn about your coin; Jeff Garrett has a write up. And the coin owners in the Registry might also have write ups in their Owner Comments.

With my Puzzle Box Gold collection, every slab has a clear plastic separator between slabs so that the slabs do not, over time, get "nesting" scratches. When I look at the collection — once a year, dead of winter — the slabs look perfect. Every year! For me, it is no longer collecting… it is maintaining. And by only looking at the coins within the Puzzle Box once a year, it is always a delight when the final side slat moves down, allowing the Puzzle Box top to clear that last side-slat, and the interior contents begins to reveal itself. If I'm not mistaken, the 14 coins are additionally surrounded — in addition to the separators — by a large Comic Book Coin Armour, carefully folded to house the 14 slabs together. The large Comic Book Coin Armour is folded so that the top two coins of the two stacks of seven coins each can be seen, and you can make out the $5 1834 Crosslet 4 and the $20 1876 CC. All part of the fun of the collection.

I was at a window dealer the other day, and when I arrived, I was waiting while listening to a guy describe a NJ shore property being fixed up, owned by someone else, and before it was done, someone offered $2.2 MM. The owner refused the offer even though a handsome profit would have been made. The story continued that when it was finally ready to go on the market, it listed for $4.4 MM. Finally it sells… $6.6 MM. The guy telling the story then said, "You watch, in a few years it will be lucky to be worth $350 K." Another guy, listening to the story as I had been listening — a salesman — looks at me and say something like, "We should be so well off, have problems like this!" I agreed, but I found it interesting, the potential boom and bust of real estate. And I did think of coins in the back of my mind, and what happens when things maybe become dire in the next couple of years. I'll just ride out the market… spend stock dividends along with my Social Security to weather the storm. "What, Me Worry?"

Love the Ferrari, too. And with the building reflected on its hatch glass, I couldn't help but think of… As I was walkin' 'round Grosvenor Square Thank you, Charmy!

Lead the way and we'll precede.

Reholdering. Anything less, and "Farewell and Adieu to you fair Spanish ladies…" But wait until NGC gets their Scratch Resistant holders act together.

Like your avatar.

If you're at all unsure of a coin purchase due to appearance, it is far better to return it than to get stuck with it, regretting the purchase… especially when a lot of money is at stake. You should be pleased as soon as you receive the coin… that's the "tell." I almost kept a high grade $3 Indian Princess Head that had a horrible, huge, copper spot in one of its balled-plume feather-peaks. Completely detracted the rest of the coin's high grade appearance. It was the first thing you'd notice about the coin. Would have been miserable had I kept it.

I'm a fan of CAC. Their "beans" — what they suggest on a holder, especially a white-background NGC holder — add class and interest to the overall presentation. I submitted three coins to them through Central Jersey Rare Coins, and it was a great experience. Two out of three got the beaned.

Definitely return the coin!! Unless you want a $20 Saint-Gaudens that will remind you — every time you view it — of the Bring Out the Gimp scene from the movie Pulp Fiction. 100% refund, nothing less, no strings attached, "or you'll go viral."

I needed the coin, and it was the only one I could find at the time. It fit a narrative I was working on, and it helped me to accomplished my objectives. I knew at the time that I didn't like the MS 60 "in-between grade," but when I got the coin it was visually very appealing, and it photographs wonderfully. Just now, I compared what an MS 61 would have entailed. An MS 61 $20 1876 CC would have cost around $20K back in 2014, and back in December 2020, they fell off a price cliff. I'd be out far more money had I located an MS 61 and held onto it. My MS 60 grade coin stays in a narrow price range, it is a favorite of mine to own, and since I'm not in it for the money, it was easy for me to commit to buying it. That's what it comes down to… can you live with the coin? Will you have serious regret at a later date? If the answers to these two questions are in your favor, then it's "buy time" and don't look back.

Just about every coin I own has been bought for a loss because I needed the coin, rather than wanted it. I could have gone the "auction route" to collect, but that would have been "wading in over my head" for my limited means and experience, and I would have been "shark bait," so to speak. One coin, and one coin alone, has saved my collection, and it is an MS 61 $3 1854 O. I needed the coin, it was available, and the dealer gave me a really good price. Someone else, in a Heritage Auction, bought the same grade coin eight years before me, and paid over 3x what I paid. That guy really needed the coin.

I checked my Puzzle Box Gold collection yesterday and it had fallen in value by $250 overnight. (NGC Price Guide) I searched within the collection — one advantage of having a small collection rather than thousands of coins — and was able to find the coin. My $20 1876 CC MS 60 was the culprit, down $250. Curious, I then checked all of the prices for this coin in neighboring grades, and they all were higher as of yesterday. Then I looked at other neighboring years and mints for $20 double eagles and there's a lot of "red ink" to be found, but a lot of "green ink," too. "Luck of the draw," I thought… or for me… it seems these days, just my "dumb luck."

With all of this talk of counterfeit coins and NGC holders, I went to the NGC Verify and compared my small 14 coin Hundred Year US Gold Type Set collection to the Verify Photos. Everything went fine, matching up enough marks to provide the confidence I needed, except for one coin: 1839 $2.5 MS 61 Classic Head, and there were no Verify Photos. It's the only coin I have for which there are no Verify Photos. This bothered me because I then checked NGC's thread archives and found out that the "prong" holders were rolled out at the same time the Verify Photos became standard practice. If you have one feature, you should have the other, too. I sent an email to NGC Service, they got back to me, and they said that there were no Verify Photos because the coin was graded before the Verify Photos were standard practice. That would be 2008. I checked my paperwork records, found the original paperwork, and I paid a pretty price for the coin back in 2013. I contemplated sending the coin in for Reholder, and I would only want to do this to have NGC verify the coin, take Verify Photos, and put it in a Scratch-Resistant EdgeView holder. But the Scratch-Resistant holders are still out of stock with no estimated timeline for when NGC will get them in. Then I applied a lot of soul searching logic to the problem. The coin has a rim ding on it. It is pronounced enough that I discussed it with the dealer back when I bought it, and I bought the coin anyway… I really needed it. No counterfeiter would intentionally counterfeit a blatant ding into a rim. Also, the coin is rotated in its holder about 3 dentils from vertical, as though NGC deliberately did this so as not to conceal the rim ding in the slightest. For the rim ding to be hidden by one of the holder prongs, it would have to be rotated back 6 dentils, and this would be sort of dishonest to holder it like that, and the portrait would be 3 dentils under-rotated from vertical, if done. Finally, I checked the dealer's activity on the boards, here, and he was much more active five years ago, and actually he has been a several-times-over winner of a Best in Category Registry set, here. And he has been involved with coin collecting since 1978. No way would he have ever been fooled into buying this coin if it had been suspect back in 2008. And the reason he hadn't sold it (IMHO) is because of the rim ding. That kept the coin waiting for me to come along… the ideal customer for it. And, when I checked other paperwork, I realized that I personally like the dealer… A LOT, and I have purchased five coins from him and still have them. So, I won't do anything… I'm convinced the coin… and holder… are legitimate, and I'm going to leave well enough alone. I've now done my own "mental-verify," the coin really helps my collection, and it has its own, unique collecting-story, which I'll eventually flesh out in my NGC Registry Owner Comments for this coin.

No more honest than Jonathan Winters… Interesting thread!