Fenntucky Mike

On 2/22/2024 at 9:56 AM, Zebo said:

I like the pattern reverse better and am leaning towards the obverse as well, but haven’t made my mind up quite yet.

Here are the original Metcalfe designs, see below. Not much changed with the penny, the hound, hunter, pig, and bull were altered to greater extents. 

Final designs below.

On 2/22/2024 at 1:01 PM, zadok said:

...the ones i purchased were thru a third party from his widow, i did know a couple of dealers who had a few patterns that they had purchased...as to whether he personally distributed any i can not say...i do have the names of the dealers that had the patterns for sale but am not certain who was the source for those pcs....

Interesting. 

Were all 10 of Morbiducci's designs produced as patterns or only some of the designs/denominations?  Gut feeling for how many were minted of each or total, Krause estimates the number between 4-5 for the known examples. 

At least for the penny, patterns were stuck in three different metals. I don't know if this is the case for the other designs as well. 

On 2/22/2024 at 10:57 AM, zadok said:

...morbiducci patterns do show up from time to time n the prices have escalated 10 fold over the past 50+ years since i purchased my own...i do believe u r correct in that morbiducci had a few patterns struck privately, the original model submissions were not presented as actual coins but as designs...interestingly, there were a total of 66 models submitted by 7 different artists, other than the designs the only patterns i have seen were those created by morbiducci....

Were most or all of the Morbiducci patterns sold by his widow in '76 or were there others in private collections? It would make sense that Morbiducci distributed a few of the patterns, or sets of patterns, to individuals prior to his death, most likely at or around the time he submitted his models. 

On 2/22/2024 at 9:56 AM, Zebo said:

I like the pattern reverse better and am leaning towards the obverse as well, but haven’t made my mind up quite yet.

The pattern reverse is definitely more lifelike and has movement to it, the Metcalfe is more art deco which is fitting for the times. I'm really having a hard time choosing between the reverses but I do prefer the Metcalfe obverse hands down. The harp is too puny on the pattern, the layout on the Metcalfe design seems better to me.

In all fairness we are comparing a pattern to a final design, Morbiducci's design would have gone through several revisions if selected to make it more friendly to produce, prevent premature die wear, etc.. I have not seen Metcalfe's initial submission for the penny but his initial designs for some of the other coins were altered considerably for several reasons. If I can find an image of Metcalfe's original submission for the penny I'll post it here.

A rare Irish pattern piece just popped up for sale, graded by our hosts PF64, it is the pingin (penny) pattern designed by Publio Morbiducci.

Image From Atlas Numismatics, https://atlasnumismatics.com/1078211/ .

I believe Morbiducci commissioned the patterns himself and had a handful produced in Italy, none of his designs were chosen for the new coinage as the Committee voted in favor of those submitted by Percy Metcalfe.

The most recent auction record I could find for a 1 penny pattern was in 2022, the piece auction by Spink sold for just over $23k with BP.  The coin above is listed on ebay and the seller is asking $30k ($29,500 on their website) but is accepting offers. 

I was thinking that a reasonable sell price would have been in the $10k range but it seems $30 is not too far off albeit a little high.

Below is Metcalfe's design. Does anyone disagree with the Committee's selection?

Image from NGC World Coin Price Guide. https://www.ngccoin.com/price-guide/world/ireland-republic-penny-km-3-1928-1937-cuid-1126846-duid-1473460

AI will be used to try and maximize profits/sales by increasing efficiency in everyday business at auction houses, TPGs, dealers, etc.. Whether it is by generating lot descriptions, improving efficiency at the office, compiling information, identifying varieties/cherry picking, etc., the collector will have no say in most of these decisions, it's only a matter of if or when AI and the equipment to support it can advance enough to preform some of these tasks. For example, if at some point AI could cherry pick varieties, minor ones, at no cost to the user why not identify them in an effort to maximize profits regardless of public sentiment. 

If only AI could process monster boxes of ASE's at the TPG firms. 

They beat the snot out of that one. Yikes!

On 2/18/2024 at 10:53 AM, RWB said:

A very large proportion of material generated by current semi-AI products are wrong. The products are useful in making quick summaries, or simple calculations. I've tried some numismatic things with Chat GPT and it has failed all but the most basic. Someone on PCGS message board tried it for coin grading, and the results he posted were uniformly incorrect and misleading....no value at all.

AI is in its infancy and is quite often wrong or misleading when generating descriptions, documents, etc., for coins and most things in general as you have stated, but where can it go from here? How useful can it become and how will it be used in numismatics in the future?

To expand on my hypotheticals in the OP. If auction houses generally shift to AI and use it for lot descriptions will subpar and misleading commentary provide an advantage to a more knowledgeable bidder who relies less on descriptions, or will it just keep the riffraff out and the sharps keep sharping? A good description can help a lot and a poor or inaccurate one can hurt but how much?

As AI becomes more accurate will there be less lots slipping through, e.g. varieties that are not listed in a description or on a TPG label, minor doubling that would not normally be noted is, etc.? Will AI cherry pick all the lots, list them, and be more accurate and find more than is done now resulting in fewer deals or bargains for bidders?

With more and more high resolution images being taken of coins and banknotes, available data, and most cellphones having the capability to take these images how soon will AI become proficient at determining a relative grade or condition of a coin? 

When will AI be a useful numismatic research tool, if ever? FlyingAl's proof cameo project comes to mind, if and when enough images are collected can they be ran through an AI program to determine die varieties and identify differences (die markers)? Could AI be used to decipher mint documents from scans or images of the originals , transcribe, sort, and provide meaningful data, information or articles?

How will TPG's use this technology?

Plenty of scenarios out there for AI and numismatics, good and bad. 

...are pathetic at the moment. 

I noticed the other day that one of the bigger overseas auction houses is using GPT to generate auction descriptions for all lots, and the few I've read so far are either misleading or flat-out wrong. What, if any, consequences will there be? Will there be more opportunities for knowledgeable buyers? Will there be less "deals" to be had in the future as AI advances and is able to identify coins and banknotes better and pick out varieties? When will AI be used to grade coins and determine value? Will AI solve the '64 SMS coins riddle?  

Below is one listing with GPT description. This is not the worst I've read but wanted to pick out a U.S. coin since that is what most here collect.

On 2/18/2024 at 7:20 AM, Zebo said:

From the research in the image below, do any of the countries on the list surprise you for the potential of building family wealth? How do you see that relating to coin collecting? Several of them have a  fairly large collector base. You would expect those with a higher level of disposable income would collect, but are there any surprises in the list? Any country that you would think should be on the list that isn’t? Do you believe that there is a close correlation? 

I guess I'm a little surprised not to see Germany on the list and that earnings are supposedly tops in Switzerland. When compared to the NGC top 10 most coins graded list there are only four crossovers.

NGC's Most Graded List by country, top ten.

1. U.S.
2. China
3. Canada
4. Australia
5. South Africa
6. Great Britain
7. Mexico
8. Russia
9. Poland
10. Germany

I would not hesitate to add a contemporary counterfeit to my collection, it adds to the overall narrative of a series and depth to a collection imo. 

The coin in question appears to be weakly struck in places and has an abundance of what look like raised lines in the fields on both sides. I've not viewed many coins from this series but I can say that the few I have did not have those attributes. I'm a little skeptical that it is a counterfeit having an identical composition as an authentic piece and nearly the same weight but... 

On 2/14/2024 at 5:17 PM, VKurtB said:

The reserves were pretty nuts.

I wonder how long SB will have to sit on these. I'm not sure if SB purchased them from the RM to auction or if the RM consigned them. Seems like the RM consigned them if I'm reading everything correctly.

I just got another notice from SB for post auction buying of the Pyx coins, looks like there were 376 passed pieces and 244 that sold between the two Pyx auction sessions.

On 2/13/2024 at 6:17 PM, Zebo said:

Sign of the times or lack of interest in the lots? Maybe just ambitious reserves. I’ll have to go take a peek.

My thought is ambitious reserves coupled with the condition of the coins caused people to shy away. 

FedEx may have unintentionally bailed you out of a potential $1,000+ loss, not as good as if the coin turned out to be authentic, which I'm still skeptical of, but you wouldn't be out anything either as long as the package was properly insured. Just saying. 

Hopefully they find the package, the coin makes it to NGC, and it turns out to be authentic. 

Wow, a lot of reserves were not met in the Pyx auction. SB is listing the passed coins with BIN price tags. 

I haven't seen this many passed coins in a long time.

On 2/6/2024 at 11:34 AM, Mr.Bill347 said:

One of the coins I got yesterday is a 1 Pound 1983 coin, which according to cursory search could be worth a lot of money.

Complete rubbish if you're talking about the orientation of the edge lettering. 

On 2/3/2024 at 4:35 PM, David Otto said:

im new here and still learning my way, not sure where to put these 

Doesn't look like NGC has a slot in the Morgan Dollar Hot 50 VAMs registry set which is located HERE. 

You can post a request to add this coin to the registry in the below topic which is pinned to the top of this forum or email registry@NGCcoin.com.  Sandon also gave you some excellent suggestions. Good luck.  

On 2/3/2024 at 3:46 PM, powermad5000 said:

Not a terrible design but the obverse to me has a little too much field.

I kind of like that the fields are very large on the obv, really makes the Statue of Liberty stand out and gives it an added level of gravitas and meaning to me. Kind of a gutsy design choice but would have made finding one of these that looked good in circulation a real difficult task. The reverses on the Innovation Dollars haven't been that good for the most part, the one in the OP is ok but I would have rather seen a McCormick mechanical reaper or thresher, the Mint was probably correct in keeping the design simple though. I tend to associate steel plows or bottom plows with TX, OK, and the dust bowl.

On 2/3/2024 at 2:37 PM, RWB said:

"Shattered" means a die has broken into pieces and those pieces are no longer connected. This coin was struck from a "broken" or "cracked" die with retained cud.

Agree, after I clicked submit reply and took another look at the pics I didn't like what I wrote. 

I was looking at "RICA" and the rim by it, which look weak, a typical die crack will not effect the die enough to cause an effect like this and I was trying to think of an additional descriptor, or different one other than die crack, for this. Partially collapsed/sunken reverse die would have maybe been better.

EDIT TO ADD: I took a look over at error-ref and I think the die crack on this coin closely matches the description of a what they call a Bi-level die crack. 

On 2/2/2024 at 7:12 PM, Henri Charriere said:

The distinctions that matter most occur in the Mint State range and the Set Registry makes no accommodation for speculation on these lofty grades. You've either got a slot-eligible, specific grade, or you don't.  It wouldn't matter how much definition is provided in pics.

Adjectivally graded coins can be added to registry sets but at the lowest grade in the assigned adjectival grade's range, in this case 60, it would have to be regraded and assigned a straight grade to be placed in a higher slot in a registry set. I'm assuming that the price difference between 60, 61, 62, 63 coins is miniscule at best, another reason to adjectivally grade this coin in a bulk submission. Minimal investment for a bulk submitter to have a coin like this adjectivally graded in hopes of finding someone with "SRS" or someone who wanted an authenticated piece for whatever reason.

Possible shattered die with retained cud, could you post pics of the entire coin obverse and reverse please.

Welcome to the Forum. 

On 2/2/2024 at 4:55 PM, cobymordet said:

Based on this, I would assume it is a flat MS-60. 

I'd put it at a 62 maybe a little higher, pics aren't the best.

On 2/2/2024 at 8:01 AM, VKurtB said:

“show only” 2024 Japan mint set

Those are always popular and damn nice looking coins. What is the medal in the set this year?