TomB

Hey, ER, your cent looks PL (Parking Lot).

Nice coins, Toyo, and I was wondering if anyone else would pick up on the PCGS grade within the serial number.

Do any of those wonderful coins have an obverse, Toyo?

You guys all make me feel like I have to go out and buy something! Nice coins!

As Shane has written, it is truly impossible for us to tell you 100% that that coin is AT, especially given that you say that the color is remarkably different in-hand. However, as many of us have written, that look is often found on AT Morgans. Is it truly AT? Who knows.

The images of your raw Morgan have me concerned about the color on the reverse, however you say they are not accurate.

That's a nice one, Lee, and I saw the grade when you posted it across the street so I won't mention it here.

Why yes it does. As soon as it arrives from TeleTrade, I'll be sending in the entire set to be pedigreed. The "PROOF of 70 IQ" set will stand the test of time and I'll go down in history with Eliasberg, Carter, Ford, and the others who built truly great sets.

You see, this is what collecting is all about...I have a serious case of the warm-and-fuzzies now.

Does that complete your set, Greg?

Your Franklin looks like it has nice frost to it. To tell you the truth, I always thought these looked less like Bugs Bunny and more like a mini-Hitler mustache. I know, that is terrible, but it is what it looks like to me.

I apologize for so many consecutive posts but you can blame that chinook!

Thanks for the kind words, RGT, but again, chinook is the human matte proof vacuum cleaner around here and I can only claim a handful of these gems as my own. The half dime is also truly nice, and these are actually more reasonably priced than one might think, given their age.

Mike, I saw that Norse on Adrian's site for a while and I was sooooo close to buying it. Now you make me wish I didn't hesitate.

Nice purchase!

Chinook!!!!!!!!!

You and I should sign a nuclear non-proliferation treaty so as to nip this in the bud. After all, you're killing me! As a token of my extended olive branch, here's a nice little 1912 matte proof to look at.

Since that's the case, here's the coin I bought just before the half dime posted previously and that you were able to inspect sight-seen at Baltimore.

You know, chinook, it's terrible to admit this but I always cringe when I see you post to this thread as I expect another fabulous coin to have been salted away forever!

Don't let supertooth see that '29-S WLH!

I picked up this small plaquette several years ago in an auction, yet don't know much about it. It was made by the Medallic Art Company for a dinner in honor of Augustus Saint Gaudens held on April 9, 1937. Hence, this post is on the sixty-eighth anniversary of the dinner. As I understand it, the plaquette was given to each of the invited guests. You can imagine that such a plaquette was not exactly inexpensive, yet I know little about it other than I was in a bidding war with njcoincrank for this piece.

The obverse has a splendid and forceful bust of Saint Gaudens and, written above it along with his name, is

Statuaire

on the left side and

Aetatislvi

on the right side.

I have no clue what "Aetatislvi" stands for. The lower left obverse field has the date of the work and a monogram. The work was dated 1934 and the monogram is JF. This may mean that James Earle Fraser, the designer of the Buffalo nickel, was the author of this work. However, the monogram on this plaquette does not match the style of Fraser's signature for a large bronze plaque of Theodore Roosevelt that he prepared in 1920 and that I own several copies of. The Roosevelt plaque was sold by DecArts. An intriguing note is that Fraser did study under Saint Gaudens and much of his work shows many of the same features of a Saint Gaudens piece. He was also active at this time as he died in 1953. Of particular interest, Fraser produced the forceful bust of Saint Gaudens that was installed in the NYU Hall of Fame for Great Americans in 1926 and this plaquette feels eerily similar in style and spirit.

Alternatively, and somewhat in an ironic vein, the JF monogram may stand for John Flanagan, the author of the Washington quarter. I write that this is somewhat ironic as it was James Earle Fraser's wife, the eminent medallist Laura Gardin Fraser, who won the competition to design the Washington quarter, as judged by the Commission of Fine Arts, only to see Flanagan's design put into production at the insistence of Treasury Secretary Andrew W Mellon. Mellon has long been labeled a misogynist for this decision, but in all my years of researching this decision I have never found one shred of evidence to suggest that that was the case. It is my opinion that Mellon simply prefered the Flanagan design over the Fraser design. Laura Gardin Fraser's design later became the model for the 1999 Washington half-eagle commems.

Flanagan also worked for and was a student of Saint Gaudens and I believe both he and Fraser worked for Saint Gaudens at the same time. He and Fraser were exact contemporaries as Flanagan was also active at this time and died in 1952. Something else that might point to Flanagan as the plaquette author is that he modeled a portrait of Saint Gaudens during Saint Gaudens lifetime and this model was later used, in the 1930s, to produce a bronze miniature portrait that is currently in the Harvard University Fogg Art Museum. The Flanagan work is also recreated on a larger scale in New York University’s Hall of Remembrance for American Artists.

The reverse of this puzzling little plaquette bears the wording

In Honor Of An American Sculptur Augustus Saint Gaudens

all in upper case and with triangular stops between words. Similarly, an all upper case sentence on the bottom of the plaquette states

Sculptors Dinner Of The Medallic Art Company NY April 9 1937

I have gone to the Medallic Art Company website and the company has absolutely no information on their medals. It appears that the company is the same company in name only and that it has moved several times over the years.

Does anyone have any information they might be able to share with me and the rest of us about this piece?

That is terrific to read, Bill, and thank you for taking the time to post it.

That's pretty darn cool and I have never seen anything like that before.

AEATON, this is the set that I sent you a PM about.

I don't read the PCGS boards anymore, however, I followed the links and read the relevant threads and came away with one overwhelming impression. That is, I'm actually quite saddened and dismayed by some of the statements made by board members on both boards. Broad statements about either company can be attributed to enthusiastic allegiance or ignorance, however, the statements about the board members are petty and mean-spirited. It's depressing...we are all members of a relatively small niche.

It's extraordinarily unlikely that you have a broken into and resealed slab. Since you have not posted an image I am going to assume that the slab is similar to many that NGC put out in the time period since they have used the W designation and that the seems are not flush.

I believe Greg is correct in that the bulk submissions are designed for rolls of coins of a single date. So, a collection of IHCs, while very cool, wouldn't fall under that plan.

I haven't seen you in a long time, Shiroh, where have you been?

I agree, the Krause price seems like a bargain for a complete set with great toning. The other set also sounds very cool. I like it!