EagleRJO

I doodled with those a long time ago. Maybe security features resulting from counterfeiting problems?

Nice coins. Very unusual appearance and texture. Very smart move! Btw, for those into UK coins the Royal Mint is releasing the first series of King Charles III coins October 3. I usually don't go for the UK coins, but these look pretty nice.

XF and possibly cleaned lightly agreed. I only buy from online dealers with a solid reputation and no questions returns if at a fair price. I'm more concerned with no die indicators to use as a guide (difficult to replicate) and the off color. I'm on the fence with this one.

I came across the attached raw 1891-CC Morgan Dollar which appears legit and in the XF to AU grade range (current market grading). I was thinking AU at first because of the limited wear for things like the hair, cap details and eagles breast feathers, but there are a number of dings particularly around the rim which I think knocks it down a peg to maybe an XF or XF+. All the features and characters appear correct, and it looks like it may be a VAM-4 with the date shifted left and mint mark shifted right, without die cracks near the "We Trust" on the reverse but it could be an early die state. The only thing that bothered me a bit was a little greenish brown discoloration, particularly on the reverse, but that may just be from a light cleaning as some point which is common. Any thoughts or comments?

Interesting that the photo seems to show a little bit of a shelf like appearance, but that is not the way it actually looks. What is the saying ... a photo is worth 1,000 words, but a coin in hand is worth 1,000 photos. Good luck posting it on the other site more dedicated to errors. I hope you don't get AC/DC'd (Shot Down in Flames).

Just for my own edification how would die deterioration result in a well-defined secondary serif of the letter D mint mark (highlighted below) and not other things. My first gut reaction was strike doubling with the shelf like appearance of the mark, but there are no other signs of that anywhere around the mark or in the other close-up photos. Is that maybe the result of the hand punching with multiple strikes of the punch, where perhaps the first or last hand strike was off resulting in only a partial depth re-punching of the mark?

Nice! But I thought Gollum liked his coins "raw and wiggly".

I am just starting to expand my collecting now to include errors/varieties, and it's not about the money at all. But it would be nice to find an 1878 8TF "Mr. Happy" eagle feathers variety.

Okay, that's what I thought. So, in my mind that nickel seems like it would be an RPM as there are no other signs of doubling that you may get from machine doubling. What am I missing here?

Then you almost get the bends deep wreck diving for treasure coins and switch back to collecting coins and go with modern circulated dollar coins with edge lettering like me where you don't have to worry about looking for ones with date/mark errors because after a few minor dings you can't read the years or mint marks anyway. Joking aside, for a 1964 nickel didn't they punch the date/mark separately? And if it was strike doubling wouldn't there be other signs of doubling from the strike?

The attached diagram really helped me in understanding the difference between common machine doubling (aka "shelf" doubling) and more valuable doubled die errors or attributes. Also keep in mind that sites like eBay have countless coins with common machine doubling being falsely represented as having more valuable doubled die attributes.

Yes, you were given or have false information. That error doesn't exist. If you post the pictures of these example errors, it may help in trying to figure out how you mistakenly believed the posted coin had errors. Although at this point with how you have reacted to people just trying to help you it may be a lost cause.

Yea, add that to the list too. CG elements with the weak strikes creates like a mushy fake like appearance to some of the coins. And then you have the rocket scientist who decided to only put the year and mint mark on the lettered edge of some recent coins where after some usual dings from circulation those things become unreadable. Smh

One quick question since we are talking about doubling, even though I'm not really into errors. Did switching from just having a master die for a year to having a master hub and multiple master dies made from that to accommodate the increased coin production for the times result in more doubled dies, at least until they switched to the single squeeze method of die production. It seems like it would since there would then be more steps where that could occur.

Good point. I don't submit coins since I have and want to keep mostly raw coins but was more just curious about that.

Btw, I still don't get that you have to assign a value (not just some ballpark ranges) and identify varieties you may want to have attributed to a coin. How is a non-expert going to establish those things without a grade or extensive knowledge about a coin series, and isn't that part of the point with submitting coins to an expert TPG service.

And ....... the under pays out. It was only a matter of time before this thread went sideways with everyone berating what the "dealer" was saying about errors the coin supposedly had, and as expected the description of the "errors" by the "dealer" changed yet again to being the mythical "planchet strike through edge rim error", which naturally doesn't exist except in eBay listings that are trying to rip people off. You just can't make this stuff up. 😜

Thats how I started out and progressed to more serious collecting. An important thing to get early is how coins are made and what can happen during the process. The US Mint has some good basic info and vids on this ... Production Process | U.S. Mint (usmint.gov). And there are coin error site that also discuss the minting process like here ... Wexler's Coins and Die Varieties (doubleddie.com). Also see Sandon's post above with some further info and books you can get, and ones about grading are particularly important for newer collectors as that is a really tough area to get a good handle on the basics. Bringing the coins to a local dealer listed with ANA or PNG may be a good option to get an opinion of if it may be worth sending any of them in for grading, but as others have said it's pretty rare to find coins from pocket change or roll hunting worth sending in.

Ebay is the worst place to go for information as there are all kinds of garbage, counterfeit and damaged coins being falsely sold as genuine or valuable errors coins, as well as the more insidious ones with common strike doubling being regularly sold as more valuable die doubling. The site is full of coins that are overpriced, impaired, damaged, counterfeit or falsely misrepresented as being more valuable than they are with sellers just waiting for a sucker to come along and buy the coin. And unless it's in a known grading companies' holder (e.g. NGC or PCGS) it has NOT been authenticated. There are some very unscrupulous people on eBay that go as far as creating multiple accounts and constantly selling lower value items between the accounts to generate volumes of positive reviews to then hold themselves out as "reputable" sellers. If you are relying on what eBay sellers are saying it is only a matter of time before you get ripped off, if that hasn't already happened. You have been given some very good advice and references where you can start increasing your knowledge in multiple threads by multiple people who have quite a lot of experience. If you don't agree with them and would rather believe what sellers on eBay trying to rip you off are saying fine, spend your money however you wish and move on to another forum. But berating people who are just trying to help is not going to change the cold hard facts about the coins you have been posting and is just going to end up with very experienced collectors not even bothering to read your questions, let alone actually take the time to try and help you.

It was suggested by a member in another thread, where this coin was posted later on, that a new thread be started for each coin, so I have to give them that.

P.S. The only subscriptions I am keeping (for now) are low end inexpensive sets or proofs, such that when (not if) they start botching those too its not such a big deal or loss. 😉

Prior to 2021 I may have agreed with this based on the reputation of the mint. If they wrote down that a certain coin was in fact the very last T1 or the very first T2 ASE it would have had some credibility. Now, I'm not so sure. It appears the US Mint has gone woke, like many other US agencies, and the quality of products and reputation of the mint is now just a passing thought. Lack of planning and attention to details, mishandling of blanks and mistakes in the minting process have resulted in coins with very poor strikes, capsules that coins simply fall out of, dollar store like presentation boxes, botched blank orders (with preference going to DEI coins while collector coins like the Morgans are scraped), and now milk spots appearing on ASEs. Given the poor reputation of the mint lately how does anyone really know if the new coin press operator they hired to meet DEI quotas didn't just grab a coin out of the bin and call it good after mistakenly cranking out dozens before realizing what they did. I have looked, but have not been able to find any credible documentation of these reportedly special coins with unique identifying information about those coins that would be sufficient if you actually took these coins out of the slabs and held them in your hands. And I seriously doubt any such documentation exists given the way things at the mint have been going lately. Sorry for the rant, but in addition to throwing in my 2 cents I wanted to vent a little as a long time ASE collector so completely fed up with the US Mint to the point where I am canceling almost all of my subscriptions.

PCGS and NGC took completely different approaches to the massive price spikes earlier this year, with PCGS ending up with egg on their face (no matter what they do at this point) and NGC coming out looking a lot more reasonable not going with a lightning-fast knee-jerk reaction to that spike. Savvy dealers realize the current market conditions and are being flexible on prices or auction reserves, and even going with break-even to clear their inventory quickly which becomes even more important with market conditions falling. Less savvy dealers who hold out hope to get top of the spike PCGS values (plus a markup sometimes) will just end up with stale overpriced coins which just sit as prices continue to drop and their inventory continues to lose value. Sellers stuck in the past with stale overpriced inventory are becoming easy to spot using NGC values and when the listing was posted as a guide, and I just immediately move on or just switch to bidding the coin on Great Collections if there is a reasonable reserve.

Your numbers are not too far off for common date Saints (I just wish someone would let PCGS know). And as to what the Mets charge for a hot dog and a beer they recently jacked them to catch up with the Yankees and you now need a home equity loan to attend a game and have a hot dog wirh a few frosty ones. 😜 You can list all the recent auction prices in the world, but if you don't adjust your values which a lot of sellers follow for retail prices (trust me it's like pulling teeth lately), then what is the point. You can talk about auction prices being down lately with them all day long and it's like trying to explain a counter point to World Colonial [duck]. 😉

I am going to take the under on this one that additional details of what the dealer was saying will not be forthcoming even though proper terminology and descriptions for what was observed on the coin were provided, or the story is going to change to fit the narrative.