VKurtB

Man after my own, and my son’s heart. He’s 25, and has completed his Buffalo nickel set, except for varieties, in a nicely matched XF set. 

Thass “Grounhog Pee” them fellers up there in the backwoods cook up. If you ever want to get sick reading something, look up “Boilo”, which is a Meade-like concoction they cook up in the anthracite coal regions. 
 
I’m bringing real legal PA whiskey. Many micro-distillers have sprung up since our liquor laws liberalized in 2017.

Man after my own, and my son’s heart. He’s 25, and has completed his Buffalo nickel set, except for varieties, in a nicely matched XF set. 

One well placed but poorly timed meteorite of the correct type could even substantially cripple the worldwide gold market. Not likely, but still...

I remember the days we could buy Fleers Double Bubble gum, a good size square, complete with sports cards for a nickel.  Even a candy bar big enough to share for 5 cents,
I collect the Buffalo.  Nothing fancy nothing exciting bu at least AU or low MS.

No!!!! Dammit, we ABSOLUTELY NEED to denigrate dishonest posters, of which the OP is one. Picturing an irrelevant part of the coin is dishonest in the context of diagnosis of a DD.

And predictably enough, neither have I. 

One well placed but poorly timed meteorite of the correct type could even substantially cripple the worldwide gold market. Not likely, but still...

I was in my family’s photo shop business in 1974. I never experienced a change shortage in that era. Eastern PA. Where did a change shortage happen? I do remember the Arab oil price shock. Oh yeah, and the Philadelphia Flyers winning the Stanley Cup; I remember that too. Kate Smith singing "God Bless America" live, with the high note crescendo ending. Magic.

I'm mostly a nickel guy, too, but I "put back" all exceptionally nice coins I get in commerce. I don't have all that many years left, but my kid's kid(s) may like them. He's 25 and more of a coin nut than I am. He's an ANA certified exhibit judge for European coins too. The only 2020 nickels I've seen so far are proofs of one sort or another. I'm still getting ridiculously nice 2019P's also. I recently got seriously into my Shield set at a local auction in central Pennsylvania. Really nice material that had been held for decades by a collector who died. All raw, all very nice. I overspent my budget at that sale.

I got my very first 2020P dime over the weekend. I threw it under my microscope. Clean as a whistle.

Misinformation is pure "poison" to this hobby, whether promoted by an innocent newbie, a troll, or a person with ill intent. And I'll not apologize for jumping on the back of anyone spreading misinformation, regardless of motive. Knowledge is power, and misinformation is the power to deceive.

Well, the ear itself was vintage 1809.

In response to 'you know whose' thread about 'you know what', I dug out my ANACS small slab 1935 MS60FSB Merc dime and threw it under my stereo microscope to check it out anew. At that magnification (pretty low through the whole range up to the max) I saw what looked to be loose dust particles among the other miscellaneous detritus that was disallowing any luster to shine through. I sent this coin to ANACS about 1994 or so, and I haven't messed with it since. I was much less experienced then with 'chemicals as part of my numismatic toolkit'. I credit (blame?) Weimar White with giving me the courage to try stuff. The dime was matte, matte, matte. No sign of any luster on it.
So yesterday afternoon, I cracked it out and put it in a glass petri dish with some distilled water and a glass lid over it. Almost immediately, some luster showed up. By this morning, there is even more. Tonight, I'm changing out the distilled water for another day or so. Then I intend to hit it with some acetone. If any ugly toning is revealed, I'll hit it with my Kodak cleaner formula (a thiourea and citric acid concoction that does great things to coins with ugly toning). It'll be in my next U.S. coin NGC submission. First I have a 'World Coin' order to assemble. It is a FSB coin after all, and getting prettier by the hour.

More to the point, what could they possibly do to make me care? That's the real mystery.

Okay, I confess, it's me. I caused it. I'm the guy. I have too many coins. It's 1964 all over again. I feel so dirty now. 

I don’t even have to watch it. Now that I know it’s from PCGS, I’m rather inclined to dismiss it immediately. Not because they can’t grade, but because they have serious problems with honesty and transparency. I get that every day at work. I work for politicians. Why would I want more from my TPGS?
I see PCGS as the type of place that puts one set of criteria in their educational materials, then uses a different one in the actual grading room. There really is only one true grading criterion over there - “because we said so.”

Other than some slight percentage quibbles in the commercial grading distribution (lower eye appeal with higher strike) I can find very little here with which to disagree. Some people can remain technical grading “nick pickers” if that is their wish, but they only become all the more irrelevant as each month passes and more enter graveyards.

I’m an old timer. I’ve been collecting for 57 years, and I’m now a senior citizen under most definitions. Where I differ from many old timers is I never found a point in time in which all grading made logical sense to me, so I’ve constantly strived to get a “better” grading system. That’s one of my main quarrels with the chief moderator over at CT. He has a date in his mind, somewhere some 30-some years ago, where he thinks grading was perfect as he has refused to continue evolving. 
 
Heck, there are way too many in this hobby, and on this board, who gave up learning anything new in 1964/65, because they have a fetish for a particular metal and concept of value and of money itself. I keep telling people that if I ever get that way, it’s time to shoot me. At no point will it be okay to insist that change needs to stop here. No point ever. Tastes change. What people find important changes. Embrace the changes, don’t fight them.
 
There is one aspect of grading that I do not SUPPORT, because I choose not to, but I continue to RECOGNIZE it, because at the end, the market decides. That aspect is wild toning. I hate that stuff, but it affects grades, and not by only a little. So I need to grit my teeth and use it as part of grades, even if it’s all BS in my opinion, and it is that.

That is actually a kinda “screwball” way to look at it. 

They surely do love their “First Strikes” ATS, don’t they? That’s just one strike away from the pitcher having the batter set up for a slider away.

There only ever are 10,000. The ones that are sold later are for credit cards that were rejected, returns, etc.

If you go back far enough, back into the silver era, they exist. But you’re right. From 1965 to 2000, they weren’t so impressive. 

Throw it in the trash.

Check the 1924 nickel for a mint mark on the reverse just below "FIVE CENTS". Those mintmarked mid-1920's pieces bring nice premiums.