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He's too "green," and I don't know Dr. Robert Bruce Banner personally.

It was so cold yesterday, so decided to look at my Puzzle Box Gold collection in person, which involves hours for me to even gain access to the coins. Got to my 1914-D coin and played around with it, tapping the holder this way and that. It's not a "rattler" so nothing budged or rotated. Now I'm wondering if a gold coin in an NGC holder is more likely to be loose in the holder when the holder/coin is warmer or colder. Have even gotten out my old Tipler Physics book (Fifth Printing, August 1980), page 434, problem 9, which involves an interesting problem: Temperature: 20º C start steel tube OD: 3.000 cm brass tube ID: 2.997 cm Q. To what temperature must the tubes be heated if the steel tube is to be inserted into the brass tube? The "rattler" exercise for me would be to solve the steel/brass problem but use thermal coefficients of linear expansion for gold and plastic. While I have the collection out, here's a nice pic… The thin leaves of plastic between the holders are from "sandwich" baggies. Using a straight edge and X-acto knife, I cut the leaves a little larger than the holders. The purpose the leaves serve is to prevent holder-nesting chatter marks where they touch on the faces of the adjacent holders. There's other surrounding wrapping too, involving comic book size Coin Armour Corrosion Intercepts. Holders still look beautiful — mint condition — after eight years.

Years ago, after constant urgings and reminders from my mother to get a colonoscopy, I got one. I still remember waking up and the doctor whispered in my ear, "I saved your life today. I removed a large polyp." I think I was still in my thirties. Since then, I've had at least two more... probably due for another. RIP Oldhoopster

Thanks… I'll try that. Knowing that it has to be coin rotation, I, too, wonder if it is a "rattler." So, I'll test for that. See if I can "tap it back." As I've been going through this winter, I've been noticing a nail at the top of the center hall stairs that has raised up again about 1/8 inch. Every year I have to hammer it down again. Maybe my coin's rotation has something to do with temperature, humidity, and possibly the forced hot air/air conditioning system of the house, which cumulatively add routine disturbances that might cause micro-movement of many things within the house. To be continued…

Photographs taken of my small gold coin collection have just prevented me from undertaking an awkward email exchange with Sarasota Numismatics. I was looking at my NGC Registry Coin Photo of my 1914-D Indian $5 NGC MS64+ (CAC), and just for the fun of it I looked up the coin using the Verify NGC Certification. The coins did not match. Uh Oh!!!!! How could this be???? The Coin Verify photo showed the upper-center prong (a tri-prong holder) "just touching" the right side of the "E" in LIBERTY on the left side of the prong, whereas my NGC Registry Photo showed the upper-center prong "just touching" the "E" with the right side of the prong. The coin is rotated clockwise by more than the width of the prong. To make matters even more incredulous, both the Verify and the Registry photos show a small fiber to the left of the coin and a slight amount of grit on the lower left prong. NGC Verify Photo NGC Registry Photo The coin has never been out of my possession, and has hardly been moved around during my 8 years of ownership. Could it have rotated in its holder? Has it suffered the fate of Death Valley moving rocks? After all of my worry, even preparing an email to send to Sarasota Numismatics, I looked for a photo to send them and I came across photos in my Photo Library that they had provided when I first ordered the coin: … and one I had taken one month after its purchase. My worries are over, the coin is legitimate, has somehow managed to rotate in its holder, and may very well rotate further.

I've shown my coins to very few people in person. Their first (and only) question is always, "How much is this one worth?" When I tell them how much they cost, they look at me with one of those rueful expressions of: a fool and his money are soon parted.

Anyone here ever scan an NGC barcode successfully? What information comes up? How did you do it? Did you need special equipment, a downloaded app? I blurred out my Certification Numbers because I have something to lose of considerable value. I would have done the barcodes too, but I don't know how anyone other than an NGC "higher-up" would know how to access information from them.

Funny how we all got the question wrong. VKurtB, blemishes do show up less, but when I look at photos by others that have seemingly infinitely-precise detail, the coins take on a "sterile" appearance; there's no "romance" in the photos. It becomes an obsession of "is my coin more perfect than someone else's coin." All of my coins are far from perfect, so I like to see them "through rose colored glasses.

I'll guess #1, too. One thing I've found is that if you pull up your coin photo stored in Photos on your computer (Apple 13" MacBook Pro, in my case) and compare that photo to what is seen when viewing your same Registry photo, the Registry "version" is dumbed down in sharpness. Considerably so. And this is especially the case when you enlarge both photos side-by-side. For this reason I'm very pleased with my Registry "version" since it can only look so good, if I want to show the whole slab. The single piece of advice I can offer for taking cell phone pics of coins is: work on your lighting. All of my cell phone pics were done in the kitchen on the kitchen island and the recessed large bulbs in the ceiling — 4 of them; Philips Indoor Flood BR30 — contribute 65 W each, there is one of those pendant lights that comes right down to 20" above where my coins were imaged, and it had a 40W crystal clear bulb in it. Then I also used, in conjunction with all of this, a Euro Tool 5x Magnifying Lamp (currently $35.19 Amazon) that has an 11 W fluorescent circular ring-bulb and the light has a gooseneck stand for positioning the 5x lens/ring-bulb to the coin, and two stacks of books, one on each side of the coin so that I could make a platform of whatever height I needed to get things to "work." (wrong height… add or remove books) The cell phone then took the photos from above everything, looking through the 5x magnifying lamp. To get things to gloss up a little further I may have incorporated a Mini MagLight and experimented with it from an extreme oblique-angle. If you fool around like this, you're going to find just the right "everything" to get some attractive photos… and then you "warm" them just a touch in your Photos Editor.

Question In my hundred year gold type set, which features a 1776 Carson City Double Eagle, the double CC mintmark has them (the two Cs) almost touching each other. When I go to the Coin Explorer for the coin, the representative 1776 CC photo shows a wide gap between the two Cs. Would dies for the year be created such that they would be significantly different in this regard? Why?

Recently, I was considering chasing Registry rank a little, and as a sanity check for my gold type set, I wondered what would be involved with trying to replace two coins I own with much more desirable coins that currently can be found on the Internet. What I learned was the effort and expense would be so difficult and cost prohibitive that the "normalcy" of my life would be "turned upside-down." With everything considered, I'd have to risk bankrupting my future, hope for a successful crossover on one of the two coins, manage to get the two coins I currently own included in the "purchase negotiations," relearn how I had taken photos five years ago so that the new coin photos would be similar to my other Registry photos, and after doing all of this my Registry gold type set would change from an okay rank of 60 to merely another okay rank… rank 30. A real eye-opener on "what not to do." It's nice to "dream," but it's preferable to "leave well enough alone," and enjoy this hobby with "both feet planted firmly on the ground."

The one advantage I have of only having a 14 coin gold type set collection is that I still have all of my original paperwork of buys and returns, as well as Crossover and Conservation paperwork. When the paperwork is compressed between thumb and forefinger, it is about 1/4th inch thick, and kept in a manila folder, inside an old teacher's desk that a friend dropped off where I used to live, since he got it when he worked for the township public works department. (boy was his boss mad when he learned what became of the desk; I still have it and when I got it, first thing I did was refinish its top/applied a few coats of polyurethane)

Was wondering the same thing. Bald Eagles supposedly exhibit prominent yellow talons and beaks, not seen in the photo. Since many others took photos too, maybe one of their photos could uncover this mystery.

On a computer, go to the NGC Coin Explorer, and search the coin. Read up on the counterfeiting warning article provided therein and compare your coin pic to the Coin Explorer's pic. The roughness of your coin doesn't look right. They should look much smoother, to make the incuse design "pop."

The first rare gold coin I ever collected was my AU53 1881 CC $10, purchased ten years ago for $1,000 more than NGC was listing it as. (at the time I knew nothing about rare coins) A year later it bounced up to my buy price and stayed thereabouts until October 2021, when it soared $2,100 overnight, and it is now bouncing around twice my buy price. Not just the $500K coins have shot up in price the last couple of years. As all ships rise with a rising tide, now, more than this, just locating desirable coins has affected collecting strategies in a big way.

Always a pleasure reading your reviews, Charmy, and not so much for the coins… but rather the beautifully prepared/served food… and of course the wine, too.

"Forget it Jake, it's Chinatown."

rrantique, your 1924 Double Eagle has the saddest eyes. Captures my mood these days of how I feel about our beautiful country, and its exceptionally unique history. Some collectors are only interested in coin perfection, but truth be known, with clever lighting technique and simple photo "clicking" capability, most any coin can be brought to life, to reveal itself as truly gorgeous. I've noticed that you're currently pursuing this art form, and I wholeheartedly applaud your efforts.

Merry Christmas, everyone. How did I invite Christmas in? Reading, from the very beginning, all 7 pages of QA's Roosters thread. (while lying in bed, browsing on my cell phone) Very interesting "hunt." Had no idea. And very beautiful coin type.

Never. However, have done a few Upgrade to Scratch-Resistant Holder, and several PCGS to NGC crossovers. Never had a crossover failure.

Gambling at best, conniving at worst.

NGC Scratch-Resistant Holders Temporarily Unavailable Posted on 11/18/2021 NGC anticipates that Scratch-Resistant Holders will be back in stock in six to nine months. 76 views 1:00pm 12/11,21 To the best of my knowledge NGC is still out of the scratch-resistant holders, with no timeline for when they'll have them back. Playing around with a Dremel Tool on plastic slabs is a lot different than playing around on a plastic headlight. Think of it more like playing around on plastic scratch-resistant eyeglass lenses. Less than a satisfactory outcome can be expected, and you'll then see your "beginner's luck" handiwork instead of the prior scratches, going forward.

hubris noun arrogance, conceit, haughtiness, hauteur, pride, self-importance, egotism, pomposity, superciliousness, superiority; informal big-headedness, cockiness.

I was wondering if this thread was still on the boards. I tried searching for it but it wouldn't show up, so I then went thirteen pages back and checked every page individually from there. Found it an additional 30 pages back! Bump. Might help "would be" collectors who wonder what sort of creative ways may exist for them to form their own unique collections.

I miss Luis Rukeyser and seeing him each Friday on Wall $treet Week… his opening monologue. Used to live at my grandparents, room and board free (my grandmother: "you save your money"), helping them get by in their elder years. Religiously, on every Friday night, PBS was watched just for this show. Also, my grandmother would take her transistor radio with her to each sitting-room during the day, and listen to 1010 WINS news radio to get intraday financial updates. This experience wore off on me, and gave me the mindset to invest, and to save, and be aware of the markets. All good!