Lem E

Looks like heat damage to me. Clad layers are separating from the core.

1955 Jeffs from Philly are notorious for having inferior planchet issues. This example is very dark yet the surfaces are pretty clean. Looks almost black in hand. 

Welcome to the forum. No value over face. Looks like a cup holder coin and has some staining or a bit of corrosion from exposure to the elements. No mint mark means it was minted in Philadelphia. 

After a bit more digging I am going to say that a good majority of the Denver coins came from the 2 special sets. I see that the numbers for the coins with the Explore and Discover label are quite high compared to just a regular 2019 D coin. Same for Kennedys from the Rocketship set. I didn’t see anything all that special about either set aside from a product limit of 50,000 sets each. Must have been a label thing.

Edit - Both TPGs encapsulated the one cent blank planchet from the Explore and Discover set. That may have been the reason.

On 10/7/2023 at 11:48 AM, RWB said:

Don't know...Were Denver coins of better quality than Philadelphia's?

Will be an interesting answer - if there is one.

I wondered about that myself. Or if there was a special label slot in registry sets? Doubled die from Denver?

I am always digging around in the NGC census for one reason or another and something happened to catch my attention. I noticed that there was a pretty big gap between Denver and Philly uncirculated/business strike coin submissions. Here are the numbers of total submissions.

Lincoln cent.             P 509 / D 1380                  
Jefferson nickel        P 269 / D 841           
Roosevelt dime        P 227 / D 1028   
Kennedy half            P 483 / D 8290

The quarter numbers were all higher for the Denver coins but the gap was not as significant so I didn't include them. 
The only outlier was the Sac $ with more Philly submissions than Denver. P 3289 / D 1559

I understand that the Kennedy numbers were affected by the release of the Rocketship set that included a Denver Kennedy and a proof Sac $. I also know there was the Explore and Discover set that included Denver and San Fran coins.
My question is why such a large margin between the Denver and Philly coins? Was there something special to look for with the Denver coins? Just curious.

On 10/4/2023 at 11:59 AM, powermad5000 said:

I want to say it was a 2017 D. He may have acquired it already slabbed but it is gorgeous!

Thanks. Yea It was already slabbed. All the nice coins come out of the uncirculated sets. As of now I believe there has only been one 2023 submission to NGC for Jeffs and it graded out at 67. Everyone is waiting for the 23 mint set to drop. Then we will see some nice clean ones pop up.

I agree with the others that the obverse strike is a bit soft. With that said, I say that the chatter on the collar alone would take you out of the 67 range. Just too much there. What exactly is going on behind his nose? I think the reverse isn’t too bad strike wise. I have seen much worse. I have definitely seen some head scratchers when it comes to graded Jeffs. There are 0 FS coins graded by NGC for the 60D. Not sure about ATS. I looked at my example of the 60D which is graded MS67. While it’s not the most beautiful coin in my collection, it is a bit cleaner and the strike is a tad stronger. I think a clean collar, shoulder and jaw plays a huge role in determining grade. Major focal point. Still a very nice looking piece.

I ask because of the difference in how I would buy between the two. All gold will have its metal/melt value no matter what you buy. If you are looking for a collector piece I would go with one that is already certified. If it was strictly a bullion buy for stacking then I would not buy a certified piece. If you can build a relationship with your local coin dealer then I would choose that route as opposed to ebay. 

I would say it depends on what type of piece you are looking for. Are you looking for a collector piece or just bullion?

On 9/14/2023 at 7:15 PM, J P M said:

I found some southern coins for the set...LoL

Nice. Any idea what the Tennessee Valley Hoard is?

On 9/13/2023 at 6:13 AM, J P M said:

Nice coin Lem     Yes I am still looking for a MS66 or 67 in a reasonable price range

Thanks JP. This has been one of the coins that has been tough to locate. I do have another one in a grade of 66 and it took a long time to find it. This is one of those coins that tend to have a bit of a higher price even in the lower grades. Several of these 60s era coins seem to be that way. I just never saw them very often. Find one with steps and you will be in the 4 figure range.

Thank you @powermad5000 for opening my eyes to this. I did not realize there was a 3rd mintmark used on the 41 S Washington quarters. My apologies to the OP for jumping the gun. I am just used to the small and large S mintmarks used on the Jeffs and I knew this was not the small S. I have never really studied up on the trumpet tail style until now. (I love things that make me do research.) To me, this looks like the large S variety and not the trumpet tail. This should be good news to the OP as it looks like the large S is a bit more scarce. From the examples I looked at, the trumpet tail looks quite a bit thinner overall and of course has the bulb type serif as opposed to the large S being much blobbier for lack of a better word on most of the examples I looked at. I do understand that this is a circulated piece and wear could play a factor. I also noticed that the large S on the Jeffs seems to be much clearer than the ones on the Washington quarters. At least on the 2 large S Jeffs I have. This may not always be the case though. Just an observation. Always something new to learn in this hobby. 

I agree this looks like the large S or trumpet S. It is the same as the large S on 41 S Jefferson Nickels.