124Spider

Perhaps a clearer example is the American Eagle one-ounce silver coins, which come in both proof and "uncirculated" strikes.  Am I correct that the strike for that "uncirculated" coin is a much higher-order process than the strike for the business strike coins?

Similarly, am I correct that the Kennedy half dollar, now that it's not circulated, still is struck the same way it was when it was circulated?

Finally, how can people be advertising the not-yet-issued Morgan and Peace dollars (which are not proof; specifications included "uncirculated" finish) as certified as MS70 (there is an ad in the "Coin Marketplace" here for some), if it's very unlikely that any one person will get a coin of that grade?

Mark

I have no interest in sending coins in for grading (as I said in one of the earlier posts).  I am trying to understand the system.  I was using grades to do that.

So the U.S. Mint's "uncirculated coin" sets are just business strike coins packages as a set, so we don't have to buy rolls at a bank to get them?  They are different sort of strike than, say, the recent 2021 Morgan dollars?

Mark

So people do submit the "burnished" coin versions of business strike coins for certification?

On 8/26/2021 at 6:42 PM, James Zyskowski said:

Howdy. Those are called burnished and I don’t quite understand your question. Here’s a couple answers. Proof coins can grade below 60. accidental circulation. All circulating and burnished for collectors and proof can be slabbed (certified). Grading goes from 0-70 with kinda below 0 grades possible. Some collectors like very low end coins. Thanks 🤓🙀

So if one were to break coins out of the US Mint's "uncirculated coin set" (say, a nickel), one could send that in for certification?  Yes, I understand that that rarely makes financial sense, but "burnished" coins would be graded, and slabbed, in the same manner, and with the same designations, as business strike coins? So, for instance, one wanting to have as many MS70 coins as possible for a collection could buy sets of the burnished coins (the Mint's "uncirculated coin sets"), and hope to get an MS70 out of that? 

Understand, I don't intend to do that, but I'm curious about the process, especially that there are no MS70 coins in the census of recent Lincoln cents.

Thanks.

Mark

Hi,

I keep reading that the 70-point grading system is used for business strike coins only (with a separate--though parallel--scale for proof coins from 60-70).

And I know that the US Mint produces three types of strikes:  Business strike, coins struck not for circulation (but not proof), and proof coins.

As I understand it, the "coins struck not for circulation" are higher quality than the business strike coins.

But I do see uncirculated coins made just for collectors with PCGS/NGC certification, generally with MS69 or MS70 grades.

Do TPGs only certify and grade such coins when there are no business strike versions of such coins?  So one would never see a certified coin out of an "uncirculated coin" set sold by the US Mint, for coins which do have business strike brethren?

Thanks.

Mark

On 8/26/2021 at 4:39 PM, Mohawk said:

It would be my pleasure, Mark.  I apologize for not doing so when I actually posted it. This coin is an orichalcum sestertius of Roman Empress Faustina the Younger, also called Faustina II and Faustina Jr. in numismatic circles.  It is RIC#1388B in the Spink Roman Imperial Coin reference.  I hope that this helps 

~Tom

Very cool, thanks!  There is a remarkable romance around an ancient coin, especially one that obviously circulated for a while; if only it could talk!

Mark

On 8/22/2021 at 5:48 PM, Mohawk said:

I just won this pretty little lady:

 

 

Could tell us uninformed folks what this coin is?

Thanks.

Mark

On 8/26/2021 at 8:40 AM, VKurtB said:

The 7070 is a very early concept to learn in this hobby. We are in danger of losing a generation of collectors’ knowledge to Dansco’s production weakness. They haven’t actually done a production run of 7070 albums in years. Maybe the  scarcity is soon over. The supplies dealer at the Dalton show had gotten 8 new cases of albums. 

I drove up to their new production facility in Sumas, WA a few months ago to buy some albums.  They definitely are in production, but COVID restrictions have hampered their rate of production.

Mark

On 8/25/2021 at 7:48 PM, Woods020 said:

I am of the same school of thought as @Coinbuf  I am fortunate to have some nicer coins, and some top pops, but I assure you the joy is real. Each and every one I have poured over hundreds of similar coins waiting for the right one. I have agonized over minuscule details to try and find the one that I felt was the nicest I could find or afford. I have bugged several members here asking for second or third opinions on coins before I bought them. That’s the whole joy of collecting to me is the hunt. Not because it costs a lot of money, albeit often times it does. It’s about learning a coin series, reading all you can on them, understanding where strike weakness is common or where design elements aren’t full, and then apply that learning and skill to hunt down the nicest you can find/afford. If the learning and the hunt brought me no joy I’d put that money in the stock market and enjoy a much quicker growth (atleast for now). Sometimes skilled collectors can amass very impressive collections without breaking the bank by having knowledge and a good eye. 

I appreciate the adult way in which you educated me into what I was missing.  Thank you.

Mark

On 8/25/2021 at 4:30 PM, Coinbuf said:

In all honesty this post; as well as some of your other posts in this thread; smack of jealousy and envy.   Very few collectors; be they wealth or poor; strive for the worst coins they can find.  I say very few because those that collect low ball coins buck the trend and do just that.   I can remember a time when I thought as you are suggesting in this thread, that there is no joy in attaining a top pop coin just because you can afford it.   I was wrong and you are wrong, sure for an investor who is just buying a balance sheet item they may indeed be very little joy associated in a high level  high dollar coin purchase.   And yes there is some chest thumping mine is bigger/better than yours that goes on between the whales.   But it is wrong to paint everyone that buys a top pop coin with the same brush, I was wrong when I did so and you are wrong now.   I have many top pop coins, for example I own a 1916-S Lincoln cent in MS66BN.   This is the highest graded coin in any color designation for that date/mm, was a one of one now one of two, and in addition mine is the only CAC approved coin.   I am not wealthy but I receive great enjoyment every time I view that coin, in fact the same level of enjoyment that I get when I view my circulated coins.  Not because I can flaunt it in front of anyone and flex my lower appendage; but because I find it and most of my coins to be very beautiful.

I think if you got to know some wealthy collectors, or even modest collectors that enjoy collecting high grade coins you might be very surprised to find that they are more like yourself than they are different.   Yes the money allows them to buy those high priced high grade coins, but to assume that they receive no joy from those purchases and the ownership of those coins is just flat wrong. 

Without responding to your gratuitous personal attack, I will point out (i) you then went on to validate much of what I said, and (ii) if it is your intention to help/educate the less fortunate, being demeaning and nasty is not an effective way to do that.

Good day, sir.

Mark

On 8/25/2021 at 12:23 PM, zadok said:

different strokes for different folks, sometimes its more of a matter how big of a pong ur swimming in....in some cases its the journey rather than the conclusion thats the driving motivation...for example, in some of my collections i strive for every coin to be top pop if its at all obtainable n in others the goal is to acquire the highest graded coin i can find and/or afford....in some instances this has taken 40 plus years....

I do the "best I can afford" route, and I manage (if I'm patient and spread the purchases out) to "afford" non-ugly coins.  So, for instance, acknowledging that there are no "rare" Jefferson nickels (at least not talking of varieties), I decided some time ago that merely having every slot in my Dansco albums filled wasn't satisfying (ugly coins don't do much for me, emotionally), so I slowly upgraded all the old, ugly nickels, at least to AU58.  Now it gives me pleasure to look at the album and see all the coins are appealing, and it didn't cost a lot of money.  But if I had gone after every one in the top grade (80+ years of that!), it would have cost a great deal of money, and not have given any greater emotional pleasure (and possibly less, since I like looking at albums more than looking at slabs).

Mark

On 8/25/2021 at 12:10 PM, zadok said:

prices n grades often correlate exponentially not incrementally...

Yeah, I have long understood that for non-common coins.  But it surprised me to see that happening even for quite plebeian coins at the top of the grading scale. 

On 8/25/2021 at 12:06 PM, gmarguli said:

I'm not sure about it being limited to those  "exceedingly wealthy", but there are a lot of people who are willing to pay for the best. This is true at all levels. A coin that is scarce in MS67 and sells for $100 may bring $1000 in MS68. No need to be exceedingly wealthy for that. 

For big money coins, there are several known billionaires out there competing for the best coins. I suspect it is a large part ego and a smaller part that the price difference is meaningless to them. 

Certainly, many people can pay $1000 for a coin, and one does not have to be "exceedingly wealthy" to do that.  But one must be quite wealthy to do that for every coin in a set (e.g., buying the top coin of every Lincoln cent would be very, very expensive in aggregate), and I don't understand the logic behind doing it just for one or two coins in a set.

Yeah, for billionaires, it must be a bit of a challenge to figure out how to feel like you've accomplished anything (beyond having the money), when you can buy any little thing you want without concern for its price.  A "first world problem," to be sure, but it does, I suspect, lead to an acquisitive streak of "mine's bigger than yours" to grab all the best of the best.  But I'm not sure it leads to the same kind of pleasure that I feel when I spring for an expensive (to me) coin that I've wanted for a while.

Mark

Hi,

I had reason recently to look fairly closely at the NGC values for lots and lots of American coins.  And I found something that I found interesting.

For virtually every coin, whether rare or completely common, the value given for the top graded grade was much higher than for the next lower grade (often ten times--or more--greater.

I can only conclude that there are a significant number of exceedingly wealthy people who don't much care what they pay for "the best," as long as they get "the best."

Is this a correct conclusion?

Thanks.

Mark

Hi,

In the frenzy to try to get an order through during the 20 minutes before they sold out, I got an extra new Morgan "O" and one less "CC than I wanted.

Obviously, I don't have my "O" coin yet, and I know nobody has a "CC" coin yet, but I'm just hoping that someone might have done the opposite of what I did and want a trade the other way.

Thanks.

Mark 

On 8/24/2021 at 9:53 PM, GoldFinger1969 said:

I notice that on those holders -- nicely done, BTW -- that they give 2 grades:  strike and surface.

I take it this is because you are dealing with coins that are 500-2,500 years old and are not in any condition comparable to coins minted since 1800 or so ?

If you look at a lot of these coins (and I looked at a LOT of them before choosing to buy this one), the three variables graded are (i) how worn; (ii) quality of strike, and (iii) quality of the surface.  What is not covered by the grading is how badly off-center the strike is.  For whatever reason, this particular type of coin, struck over a long period of time, was struck on a planchet that was too small for the die, so almost all of them have some portion of Athena cut off (usually a huge portion of her helmet/crest and/or her nose and/or chin).  So you can have a well struck coin, uncirculated, with an excellent surface, with low visual appeal, because Athena is missing some important part and/or the owl is way off center or missing part.  This one isn't quite "full crest," but almost, and it was by far the best of the examples I saw that I was willing to pay for.  So I bought it.

You'll note that it is graded for wear, just like modern coins.  Perhaps modern coins should be graded for quality of strike and quality of surface, also. 

Mark

On 8/23/2021 at 8:18 PM, Quintus Arrius said:

You are a very responsible, cautious collector.  The prevailing melt value of a Rooster is above $300.  Get a load of this:  I have never seen any buyer, never spoken to any buyer, never actually seen a Rooster unpixelated. I used my wife's phone and pressed SEND or sent a bank wire (once to Serbia) again, an individual I never met or spoke to -- and only found out much much later that FREE delivery in a landlocked country invariably means over-the-road travel, transfer to an unnamed tramp steamer, and eventual delivery. The raw coin I received, beyond an eBay photo representation and Western Union transmittal, ultimately was graded MS-65 (1903) and there was only one other like it, with none graded higher.  I believe the actual retail price I paid was $289.+ a very minor fee. Clearly, the seller, did not appreciate the significance of what he had, and neither did I.

Cool; great story!

I'm not a risk-taker; yes, I understand that one has to risk something significant to get significant gains, but I'm not looking for anything but having fun, and to get fair value for my money.

Enjoy your game (as you obviously are).  I am quite happy to plod along as a "responsible, cautious collector." 

Mark

On 8/23/2021 at 5:32 PM, Quintus Arrius said:

Now hold-on wait-a-mi-nute...

Are we talking about two coins, virtually look-alikes, same denominations, displayed in close proximity to each other -- possibly even in the same display case -- and encapsulated by the same TPGS?   🤔

This has become a bit far-reaching, which is fun, but I'm not sure what you're referring to.

I started this thread, after finding that the photos of a Mercury dime I was looking at for possible purchase graded by NGC at AU50 showed a coin (both obverse and reverse) that was, at best, comparable to a very similar coin I own that was graded by NGC at XF40 (and clearly inferior to two other Mercury dimes I own graded by NGC at XF45 and AU53).  So, no, I wasn't able to look at them next to each other.  But I was able to compare high-resolution photos of both.

Does this answer your question?

Mark

On 8/23/2021 at 5:12 PM, Quintus Arrius said:

[Unsolicited editorial comment]:

Someday, preferably before rigor mortis sets in, I would like to chime in on this somewhat derogatory tune: "Buy the coin, etc.

I am in New York City. To my admittedly limited knowledge, I must depend on experts with experience relying on what that are able to see in an encapsulated coin. One, upon confidently taking possession after bestowing a bribe, wrote me, "She is beautiful," the assumption being her reference was to the obv-  verse of an NGC MS-67 graded Rooster. I wired her for that coin, and three others, sight unseen. I never saw her, spoke to her or her coin emporium -- in fact, in her haste, she neglected to give me an order number, etc. proceeding strictly on faith. Upon receipt, I beheld  something I had never set eyes upon -- near perfection, with none graded finer. Granted, I had to cross-grade it because all my top-tier coins reside in my PCGS Set Registry.

I understand my revered colleague's admonition, @Coinbuf, but unfortunately demand provided by the likes of me, greatly outstrips supply. If my gem lies in an encapsulation, there is a simple procedure one can utilize to achieve uniformity. I am not risk-averse. If it does not measure up, all I have to do is my darndest to make sure our resident critic, @VKurtB doesn't get wind of it.  Easy-peasy.

Would he have done what I did?  Not on your life!)

I'm guessing here, but it sounds like you play at the very pointy-end of the bell-shaped curve of price/quality, where I never tread with any significant coin.  When you're buying a rare coin literally at the top of the grading scale for that coin, the grading has (i) been done by PCGS (or NGC), and (ii) the entire scale of the transaction (and the quality of the vendor with whom you are dealing)  is such that you probably feel pretty confident that you're going to get what you paid for, sight unseen.  That's great, and perhaps "Buy the coin, not the holder" does not have any applicability for such a transaction.

I, on the other hand, own only 32 certified coins, out of well over 2000 coins in my collections (and those are recent additions to the collections).  When I venture into the deep water (which, for me, is anything above around $300, and only rarely even involves a mint state coin), seeing good photos of the coin before I write a large (to me) check (especially given that I care more about subjective appearance than about the grade) is very important to me.  Heck, after enough disappointments with optimistically-graded coins on which I spent $50 or so, I'm reluctant to buy any significant coin without good photos.

I have great awe and respect for people with the means and desire to buy the very best of the very best coins.  But I think it's fair to say that most collectors are snagging a $10 Mercury dime from an online vendor, not bidding for that 1909-S VDB at MS67RD, and most of us want to know, when we venture a bit into the deep water, exactly what that coin looks like before we buy it.

On 8/23/2021 at 4:54 PM, MarkFeld said:

My comments have been based upon actual transactions (during the course of 40+ years in the business,) not price guide prices. I feel like we’re going round and round on this subject, so will step off of the merry-go-round. 

It was not my intention to assert that you are wrong; sorry if it came across that way.  My intention was to provide objective evidence backing up my subjective impression that I almost never see an AU58 version of a coin priced higher than an MS60-62 version of the same coin by the same vendor; citing the NGC price guide, which I assume is based on lots of data, was meant to assert merely that my subjective impression is not any less valid than yours.   

I just looked through the NGC price guide for the old series which I collect: Lincoln cents, buffalo nickels, Mercury dimes, standing Liberty quarters, walking Liberty half dollars, Morgan dollars and Peace dollars; I found exactly one coin for which MS60 had a lower price than AU58, and every other coin had the MS60 with a higher value (often much higher) than the AU58.  This comports with my experience exactly (which is why I own lots of AU58 coins, and very few MS60-62)..

I have tried to make it clear that I am not an expert, or even a long-time, serious collector.  But I have spent a great deal of time in the last year prospecting for coins all over the internet, and I am very certain that I routinely see AU58 for less than any MS coin (usually significantly less), throughout the series that I collect (Lincoln cents; buffalo nickels; Jefferson nickels; Mercury dimes; Roosevelt dimes; standing Liberty quarters; Washington quarters; walking Liberty half dollars; Morgan dollars, and Peace dollars).