Crawtomatic

To parrot those at the beginning of the industrial revolution, a computer doesn't get sick. It doesn't take vacation. It can work continuously (save for scheduled update intervals). It doesn't require salary nor benefits. .... Glad to see that you've found joy in this @bernard55! That patent they let expire is an interesting read. I might be busy with that the rest of the afternoon.

Too quick on initial response. Common on zinc cents. Plate bubbling or machine doubling, but no premium.

Oh, really? But you had time to edit the post? If you have a hypothesis to share or correct answer to your riddle to reveal then do so. Otherwise you're just stirring the pot seeking attention. I don't know the series that well but I'll play the game so here's my 3 guesses. 1. Gold is soft. Higher chance for a pre-strike and/or post-strike flaw. 2. Europeans haven't embraced third party grading to the same extent so the coins may be out there raw. (purely anecdotal) 3. If we're looking at the period of 1899-1906 there were 2 world wars on the continent as well as other conflicts. If the best examples didn't leave the continent prior to the wars they faced an uphill battle being fully preserved.

Agreed.

Depends what type of value you're looking for but anything from 1982 & 1983, even in circulated grades, has value above face for album collectors.

I concur. When you're new to coin collecting and it's especially due to error & variety hunting the idea that every coin has a potential error or variety can be front of mind. But the time investment to diagnose each coin on only potential will outweigh the actual benefits. My suggestion, and what I employed myself in that phase, is to make a list of years & mint marks in a series with known varieties. That way when you're coin roll hunting you can eliminate a great deal of the population and focus in on coins where you'd have pictures available to compare against. Make one pass just separating them out, a second pass to organize by date (or do it when separating), and a third to look for the known diagnostics on each. Production work first then knowledge work is most efficient. If you've played video games it's akin to maximizing your grind. So looking intently at 250 nickels out of a box for 30 minutes instead of all 2000 will allow you to churn through more boxes in a shorter timeframe.

I'm not seeing anything to indicate doubling on the obverse or reverse. Also not seeing a repunched mintmark.

I'm not sure if there's a requirement. Based on this interview from 2014 most grading is done with the naked eye. Though I think I recall reading somewhere that when a loupe is used it's no higher than 7x. Lots of related articles on the main NGC site if you search for the term "magnification". https://www.ngccoin.com/search-results/?q=magnification

Hey Jones. Most of the time on these forums you won't see replies from NGC representatives. Just Bob & the others you like to play with are just regular guys and girls like you & me. We're not here to hurt your feelings and fight. One love, man.

Useful information in this thread. https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/977173/modern-coin-albums-and-toning

I hear you, Coinbuf. I like attractive toning as much as the next guy. But when I'm looking at coins for grading purposes I give more weight to strike and technical aspects.

Anyway, here's a better article on the PCGS Expert tech. It reads as if 'Expert' is an AI and actually makes a lot of sense to use. The X DMPL finding is interesting. https://www.numismaticnews.net/may-29-1990

Well, in a press release 10 years ago it was thought that a new laser imaging process would get us to that utopian. "Imagine a world without coin doctoring. Imagine a world without 'gradeflation.' This is the right thing to do," said Hall." https://www.pcgs.com/news/pcgs-announces-pcgs-secure-plustrade-service-for-increased-consumer-protection ...... My takeaway, PCGS coins prior to 2010 were not laser scanned so they're still ripe targets for gradeflation. That's considerably after the OGH period ended in 1998.

Certainly agree in a broad sense @MarkFeld. I'm thinking if Bernard develops an application to track eBay sales data (or any source depending on who provides an API) there's 2 ways to go with that. Tracking it all after the auctions are complete provides you a retrospective review and allows you to adjust your own bidding/buying decisions. But the other option would be to track it realtime as compared to the database of AWP with the option to send alerts & automate bids. Customizable by user of course and then the user is left with the decision on how to set those parameters. There's been 3rd party automated bidding apps for 2 decades, I think, so it's just marrying the 2 ideas. But yeah, automating bidding for most coins sight unseen would not work out well but I think if you set a parameter on a fairly low pop, say less than 100 in a certain grade, AWP-20%, then it may be a coin with less than ideal eye appeal but could still carry value if a registry hunter wanted to fill a hole/upgrade.

HA, new guy and I share more collecting habits. I picked up a similar item the other day just for the novelty. 1964-D Nickel in a 1964 (P) slab. No real price difference but I thought it neat enough. I hear NGC will re-slab the error if you ship it to them. But in my case it'd be just another irrelevant coin in a holder at that point.

I've noticed that, too. On the non-numismatic auction sites there's a lot of...trash/garbage...that goes for far more than it should. I imagine for some dealers it's an easy way to dump inventory you wouldn't want to retail under your brand and still probably get more than retail rates. All upside, no negative publicity. This would be beneficial to a buyer looking to retail certainly. Widgets may not be sexy but they tend to move more often, as compared to a coin with a pop of 3. If you could build in triggers that automate the bidding process when the price is at a set percentage below the average wholesale price (to borrow a term from pharmaceuticals) that could really help.

Just pointing out there's no lawyer needed to report suspicion. Counterfeiting being a federal crime the State handles the prosecution. So if you want to "drop a dime" on somebody that's the way to go. https://www.secretservice.gov/contact/field-offices/ https://home.treasury.gov/services/currency-and-coins https://www.occ.treas.gov/topics/supervision-and-examination/bank-operations/financial-crime/counterfeit-or-stolen-instruments/index-counterfeit-or-stolen-instruments.html#:~:text=Report Counterfeit Currency,Service website for more information.)

I'm not nearly as experienced in coin collecting as the rest of these guys but I do have some observations for this. 1. There are so many auctions available each night of the week. HA has at least 4 a week I believe. GreatCollections has the 1 on Sunday. eBay is constantly churning. Then there's a multitude of non-numismatic specific auction companies (online estate sales, unclaimed property, etc...) here in the US and throughout the world. Sometimes it's about timing. The buyer willing to pay $26k for it may have not known it was up for auction. You're considering it now but you didn't know it was at auction, right? I would presume if I were the one to buy that coin for $16k I would've seen value in it at 26k. But only if the money spent was out of my operating revenue and I expected a short term ROI. 2. Retail vs Wholesale. Collectors will always mention you do it for the enjoyment and don't expect a profit. That's fine if that's your approach but alternatively I know if I run my department at an aggregate 30% profit margin that's a great year. What do I need to be at just to stay happy and keep moving along? 10-15% Unless you reach the level where you need a storefront coins don't take up much space and don't incur storage costs. Of all the products I've sold, save digital items, coins also have a very efficient shipping cost. I imagine most of the professional dealers we meet in the business operate the same way. Don't get emotionally attached the product. Buy it less than you plan to sell it for. Include your shipping, buyer fees from auctions, listing fees, etc... into your calculations to get to 25% profit on it before you make the purchase. 3. Adjust prices for most widget classified coins from 50 years ago to today and you'll see that they barely kept up with inflationary increases. Gold & Silver match more with increases in the base metal costs standardized. 4. Surprisingly friendly negotiation tactics. I've never been involved in another hobby where dealers offer up discounts on their retail price without prompting as much as they do in numismatics. It's weird. And nice. Plenty of times I've walked the bourse floor, made notes in my book, came back to the tables that had coins I could turn a profit on to pick them out (at the price listed on them) only to have the dealer pull them from the case and say something like, "oh, just give me $xxxx" (a reasonably lower cost). This could also have something to do with stock management, though. When you're buying and selling coins we're all just moving around the same finite stock. Example: "Eh, I've held this one for 6 months so I'll be glad to just let it go for anything above what I paid so I can generate some cash flow & re-invest that capital in other coin(s) to offer." Not sure if any of that helps. I'm still in the prime of day time job so I don't have more time to dedicate to the numismatics collectibles industry. I appreciate coins, I really do, but I'd honestly say my hobby is chasing profits (it's not just coins).

And the 1913-1938 Nickel series has a common array of slight rotations that wouldn't be considered outside of the norm. If you come across one rotated 90 degrees or more then it'll be interesting.

Does anybody have a picture for reference or a description of the diagnostic for this overdate variety? Thanks in advance, Craw-

Reading through the online copy of Jim Halperin's "How to Grade U.S. Coins" there's a chapter regarding computer-assisted grading. "On May 16,1990 PCGS announced a major breakthrough in a computerized system that grades coins. The system, PCGS Expert, utilizes robotics, image enhancement, image processing and an online image database for its integrated computer system. The system will perform four primary functions: 1. automated computer grading of coins 2. computer aided grading 3. image archiving 4. digital fingerprinting ..... On the positive side, computer grading systems can be highly consistent, often achieving rates as high as 90%. This is more accurate than any single human grader. By using digital fingerprinting, the service can keep records on all of the coins that they have graded. A "grading set" containing several hundred examples is far superior to that of one that contains one or two examples." It would be curious if this was a source of some of the gradeflation that's seen when older slabbed coins are regraded. Rather interesting since a few of us were talking of the merits of such a system recently. Imaging technology has advanced greatly since 1990 but it's nice to know that there's a business requirements doc or plan out there already. Somewhere. ......... Interesting parallel, currently at work I'm dealing with the Arkansas Workers' Compensation Commission on a few things and noticed that they implemented EDI standards in 1995. Which would've been cutting edge for the industry and made them an early adopter. But then they just stopped and never did anything more with it while the rest of us have moved so far beyond what their capabilities are now. It's unfortunate to see useful tech supported for initial development & implementation but left to wither & rot because nothing is dedicated to ongoing expansion of capabilities. Anyway, if Mark Feld reads this he might want to ask Jim about updating the image links on his page.

+1 The reverse may be cameo but not the obverse. So trying to sell it might take longer than necessary if you bought the proof set just for one of the other coins included.

Just venting, but grrr, the MAC certified sticker for 4 Full Steps really irks me. There's 6 steps total. 4 of them is 67% at best. You're just celebrating above average. Grrrrr, again.

Any chance this variety gets designated for automatic attribution similar to the 1939 REV OF 38 5C? It seems like a far simpler reverse to identify even for non-numismatists Just curious. I don't know how often the guidelines for VarietyPlus are reviewed. Thanks, Craw-