samclemen3991

I think a lot of people do what you do Moxie15. I would not do it myself. As you say you wanted proof the coin was genuine before you spent that kind of money. What are the odds the next buyer in line will want the same assurance? To me it is like buying a car and then burning the title. James

I am too chicken to submit very many coins to be slabbed but I do remember one heartbreaking experience. Years ago I was building a set of Standing Liberty Quarters. My go to dealers were J Cline and A guy called Dave The Collectors friend. I can no longer remember which one sent it to me but they sent me a mint state 1927-D Quarter for inspection. My entire set up to then was circulated but they swore the coin was a 63 or better and pre paid to have the coin graded by PCGS. I will never forget getting that body bag. James

All I will say is when you start seeing coins from ancient Rome (A government that no longer exists) being tossed in the garbage as useless (No gov. entity supports their value) then start to worry. Otherwise collect what you like and pay with what you want. James

Actually Just Bob the purchase was from a company with some generic name like "Coin Kings" or some such thing. They were a trio of dealers but I couldn't even begin to guess their names. I suck at names. This very morning I am working on an update bid for an account I got in March and for the life of me I can't remember the owners name or the managers. A long term fault of mine. Sorry. James

I have no idea what this new sticker service will be like or what effect it will have on coin collecting, but I am one of those little people in coin collecting. It still surprises me that there seems to be such an anti slabbing sentiment on a board devoted that very thing. I have never shared this with anyone on a coin board, but here is why the little people NEED slabs. I hit some hard times in the late 1970's and had to sell much of my coin collection. However, by the early 1980's the wheel had turned and I found some excess funds coming my way. I had spent the lean years thinking about what coins I might collect in the future. The idea I came up with was to obtain 3 Barber coins, one of each denomination, and then perhaps pick one to be my new focus. An ad in Coin World (full page if I remember right) offered numerous high grade barbers and the sellers bragged they had something like 125 years of combined numismatic experience. The coins I ordered arrived and I knew right away something was off. Our local coin dealer whizzed every coin that came his way to death so I recognized immediately that the half dollar was whizzed. Both the quarter and the dime had odd gray spots that started turning black within hours of my getting them. At that point I called and told them about the status of their coins and told them I was returning them. They called me back and informed me that they (as a group of three experts) remembered those coins well and that they would give no refund. They claimed I had doctored the coins so any return was null and void. I spent a day or two stewing and then I remembered they listed a number of organizations they belonged to and how they had ethics to honor. I called them back and told them I was going to file complaints with their coin organizations. The fellow on the other end laughed his head off. He told me how he was great friends with the people I would be calling. He told me the names of the people I would be speaking with. He told me what a great laugh they would all get out of it the next time they got together. The last thing he said before he hung up was , "You really think a hick like you, sitting out there in fly over country, can take on people like us? " I can look back and think how my complaint might have worked, for better or worse though, what he said was true. That was the closest I ever came to quitting coin collecting forever. As one of the little people all I can say is LONG LIVE SLABS, and if some new sticker helps, good for that too. James

Numisport. It may not work for everyone, but I have all my coins set up in a sequence to be sold at Great Collections. My oldest daughter has my specific instructions from insurance, packaging (all boxes and bubble wrap on hand) and I set up an account in my wife's name. Nothing is fool proof but having the forms all filled out and labeled as to order to be sold is the best I can do. hope you can find a good plan. James

I have talked about this a little bit before. If I had no heirs to worry about I would start a raw collection of Standing Liberty Quarters on the spot. I would also buy one of those 7070 Dansco albums and go nuts. The reality is that no one in my family would know what to do when I died. I am not sure I would know how to sell them myself. Reality is that I have a medical condition where tomorrow may never come. I still actively collect, but every new coin is also added to a pre-auction invoice so it can be sold when I die. Life is an imperfect thing. james

To the fellow creating this site I would like to offer one small piece of advice. Don't be like Coin World. About 20 years ago the Coin World publication put up a site for collectors to use for inventory and reference purposes. It was not an easy site to use. Yet I put a huge number of hours into logging in my entire collection. One day I went to log in a coin and the site simply was not there. I had been there the previous day and thought they might be doing some sort of maintenance. So I call Coin World to find out when it might be back up and the fellow tells me they got rid of it. NO WARNING, NO CHANCE TO PRINT OUT INFO NOTHING, In disbelief I told the fellow I had spent ungodly hours filling in that information. He said, "To bad for you". Then hung up. I cancelled my subscription instantly. Every since when they call or send a renew offer I throw it in the garbage and say, "To bad for you." If you get this off the ground and it looks looks it is going to fail (Don't take that personal I have been in business for 40 years not everything works) PLEASE tell people so they can save their efforts. James

In truth 20 cent pieces are listed for more money than quarters but I already have a 20 cent piece I like. I suppose someone out there has the chance to buy the coin and perhaps make a profit. I am not sure what a "mechanical error is", i would think it would be human error to apply the wrong label. just my opinion.

This is just a general statement/question. I have been on the lookout for an 1875-S Seated Quarter for about 3 years now. I put a coin in my auction track list a few days ago but discovered today (And for the third time in 1 year) that NGC has slabbed a Twenty Cent piece and labeled it a Quarter. Seriously, my wife has dyslexia and hasn't written down a correct phone number in 45 years! do we need to check on who is in charge of labels? Vent over. James

Thanks Hoghead. Uncirculated grades sometimes baffle me. I believe MS-61 is supposed to have negative eye appeal. Go figure.

Truly stunning coin Walkerfan. Uncirculated coin grading by photo is a weakness of mine. One reason I stay in the AU and lower waters. I may have missed it, but could you post the current grade if you get a chance?

I don't know if it is a great unanswered mystery but I have always wondered about the who and the why involving the New Orleans Seated Dollars of 1859 1860. Everyone seems to know they were released a hundred years later. Was that a long term plan? Was there some doubt as to who struck them? Obviously the Civil war played a role but why bury the coins for a century? I have never found a specific answer to this in the Gorbrecht Journals I have access to but my access only goes to 2014.

I don't know how specific you want posters to be but there are three web-sites I use a great deal. The first is the Liberty Seated Collectors Club. If you go to their site and look under online references you will find a number of books about Seated coins. There is also a monthly news letter with many back issues available. All free. If you like Bust Half Dollars there is a site called Dave's Bust Half Dollar Site. It has pictures and written descriptions of every bust half die marriage. Free. Finally there is something called the Newman Numismatic Portal. This site is also free . I will be honest though. This site can be harder to navigate, (At least it has been for me) but contains a SEA of coin information. Good luck. James

I am afraid the only numismatic question rolling around in my head is what coin should I pursue next. However, someone asked about information on the how and why's of coins circulating. I would highly recommend 2 articles that can be found on the Newman Portal in the Gobrecht Journal under periodicals. Look under July 1989 for The Circulation life of liberty Seated Coinage, part 1. And in the Nov 1989 for the second half. Quite well written and filled with facts. James P.S It's free

Yes tsk tsk MR B. Insidious of you to have conned good men like Giuliani, Cruz and Huckabee to be the shills for your nefarious plots.

I have always wondered just how many coins were melted during that Hunt Brother period. On the one hand I guess I should be happy I converted a great deal of low grade silver coins into more than $3,500 dollars. On the other hand I was depressed and angry with my self that I contributed to the destruction of numerous coins I was originally proud to own. .

I collect Seated coins, but I can give you a few general facts and possibilities to consider. These may or not be useful to you. First off, ignore the phrase "original skin". If the coin is in a grade below choice Extremely Fine there is NO way to know what has or not happened to any coin. If the coin is in a higher grade there is about a 99 percent chance it has been dipped, lightly polished, etc. What I look for is a coin with what I call a gun metal blue tone. With any luck, the coin will have an underlying luster when you tilt it under a bright light. It is wonderful but not always possible to find a coin with clean fields. Likewise, I examine the figure of Liberty and the eagle on the reverse very closely to see if the coin has severe digs or scratches that might not be obvious at first but will drive me crazy later when it is all bought and paid for. There are some issues such as strike that may vary from coin to coin. If you can find a good reference book , you may be able to learn what to look at for particular dates. In this same vein, there is something I call the Easter Egg. that is what I call it when you find a coin that has something special about it. It may be the coin has an overdate. The coin may have clash marks, or perhaps an interesting set of die cracks. To me those are the things that lead me to choose one coin over another . good luck James

Thanks for the feedback. I would have to say though, I think it would be a bit of a stretch to say that what I ran across was a coin market. I got more of a sense that they were all on some sort of scavenger hunt. There seemed to be a lot of people with very specific dates they were looking for, and yes, everything was being filmed, logged on their phones or I guess added to their inventory. I never heard a single kid mention grade. Just wish I had brought my eyeglasses that day. It kills me I couldn't find out what kind of prices were being paid. I think you know a lot more about moderns then I will ever know Cladking. I saw numerous mint sets for sale, but I never saw one sell. Quarters seemed to be the focus. There was a fellow of around 25-30, with long stringy blond hair sitting on a stool in the back of the narrow slot shop. I would have loved to had a chance to talk to him. As fate would have it, I was celebrating my 42nd wedding anniversary 25 days late due to work demands. All I could do was steal glances and over hear when chance permitted. James

I noticed some discussion here about what modern day kids are or are not doing when it comes to coin collecting. My wife and I recently went on a round of visits to what she calls antique stores and I call junk festivals. I was quite surprised to find them selling coins. (Yes, I expected the usual glut of Wheat cents and damaged silver coins being fosted off as rare coins at ridiculous prices.) What I did not expect was that two of the stores had the old turn table display cases that were a fixture in Woolworths and other Department stores 50 years ago. To my surprise both stores featured State Quarters in their case. What is more, while we were there, over a half dozen different kids (Under 18 to me) came in with specific shopping lists. Some quizzed the owners about specific dates, but I couldn't even get close enough to check the prices because there was a line to see the case in both stores. A third store that was a congregation of vendors, each selling what ever they wanted , had two large cases that was filled with State Quarter folders and a huge number of coins in 2x2 holders. We spent more than an hour in that store and I never got a chance to make a closer examination of that set up. At all times there were 2 or more kids in that slot (And I do mean slot, it was a set of two glass cases facing each other and about 18 inches apart.) I don't know about anyone else, but I was stunned to find so many kids in junk stores on a beautiful Saturday. I live in the middle of fly over country and never expected to encounter ANY kind of coin collectors in such an enviroment. Makes me wonder just what all my be going on out there in the wide sky blue and few people know. James

Sorry zadok but I don't think you have a very good grasp of the difference between things you can control and things you can't. There is no law requiring anyone to have a coin collection, nor is their a law preventing them from planning to sell one. Although having one can sometimes be very handy. truth is, you can sell anything houses, cars, guns etc. that is up to the owner. Here are a few things on my favorite list of things you can't control. Having your very pregnant wife suffer a massive stroke, spend the rest of her life partially paralyzed. Making it 4 months from your 32nd birthday, but then having acute pancreatitis because it turns out you have hereditary pancreatitis and will have that fun stay at the hospital 25 more times. Plus 15 other times just cause God likes those zingers. Try this one. Two weeks after having your only son die in your arms. Find out that your 10 year old daughter will go blind because she has a disease of the muscles in her eyes and needs an operation. Only problem is that the hospital demands 4,000 dollar or they won't put the surgery on the schedule. You are flat broke from trying to save that son. Luckily though, you have a certified coin collection left to your name and are able to make an emergency sale. plan B was a 357 and a ski mask. You_Have_to_Sell_Your _Own_Coin_Collection? Please. doesn't even make top 50 list as a problem around here.

Actually Coinbuf, the original poster said thanks because he had plenty to think on. AFTER that someone named Morganman said he was concerned his family would end up getting 10 cents on the dollar. Which brings me back to my original reply, which I stand by. You have to be proactive if you wish to achieve or avoid a particular result.

I believe the quant but true moral is, "People don't plan to fail, they just fail to plan." I have all my coins prepared to be sold at the auction house of my choice. The forms are all filled out. I have specific instructions for each group of coins and the order they are to be sold in. The rest is up to the market. James

I am not quite sure of what all is being discussed here, but if you believe facts from the 2020 census about 24-27% of transactions in America are cash transactions. I suspect the M_1 money will remain unchanged for awhile.

If it were my find I would just keep it. Kind of neat to have a rarer date that has done his duty. but that is just me.