JKK

So you've spent a lot of time here? Interesting. I had no idea.

I know one of those people. You probably know him as well. Apropos of nothing whatsoever, you know of anyone in Portland that might meet that description?

I don't know what a verity is in this context, but that's a damaged penny worth its copper value.

Because it doesn't look quite like the one in my guide. It looks like a sort of MD knockoff of it, in that it has doubling that might tempt one to succumb to some pareidolia, but is only about halfway there and too shelfy. It's the kind of thing that at a casual glance one would think it was confirmed, but a closer look suggests not.

Then you must use a version of the guide that differs from the one I own.

It's not a 1917 doubled die in my opinion, and while it has good detail, that pitting on the right wheat is probably going to be its downfall from a slabbing standpoint.

The question is so simplistic that the reflex answer is "for the love of God, no." The reason for that is--no offense, just honest--if you ask that question that way, it proves that at this point you are years and probably decades away from ever becoming someone who should mess with his coins. And that's okay. You asked, hopefully before you destroyed any, and hopefully will abandon the whole notion at least until you come to understand what that question conveyed. It was about like going up to random women on the street and asking them for sex. Just as the path to getting laid simply does not work that way, neither does the path to coin cleaning simply mean watching a video or reading an article and congrats, now you're a coin cleaner.

That might be a gorgon. There are a bunch of gorgon designs that look like a nasty face, and some come in a box. Not sure about the helmet idea as I don't really see enough elements of such a design.

Heh. Okay, I'm tired, but you all made me chuckle (especially the part about me being an expert...I wish). Used to be we had a special ancients forum, but someone decided it was better to just muddy all the different coin subjects up into one completely unusable forum that I almost never visit because I'm still irritated about and by that. So yeah, if you don't yell for me, I won't see it here thanks to that clever forum management decision. The coin, which I reckon is probably Greek (or at any rate let's start with that). The strike is off center on both sides, but there is evidence of a rim legend on one side. We'll take what we can get. The person_of_uncertain_paternity here is that we don't even easily know which way to orient either side. We may fairly assume that the right angle on one side is one part of a box framing some device, which is just as well because that's the only thing we can see. I have a hard time imagining the part with the faint surviving ring/rim around it as anything but a horse right, with or without rider. I think it very unlikely that either side depicts a head, which rules out about 75% of the possibilities. I suggest a Wildwinds search on the cities of Aspendos; just maybe Alexander I of Macedon; outside chance of Pharkadon, Thessaly; Skepsis, Troas, maybe. I'm assuming you inferred a hemiobol denomination from size. That's the best I have for you right now.

Oh, and the reason they sell cleaners is to make money from the vast army of new collectors who imagine a coin has to be "shinny" (they usually can't spell, either) and that if they just shine it up, it'll somehow be more valuable, and no one will be able to tell. They are incorrect. We nearly always can tell when it's been cleaned. There are times, places, and people where the stars align for cleaning to make sense. Those people know who they are. Anyone who isn't one of them should be very hesitant, and should treat off-the-shelf cleaners as dangerous to coin value.

Without going into too much detail--we do not do that here with regard to counterfeiting, to avoid giving helpful feedback to the bad guys who keep an eye on the board--the details look muddier and rougher than I'd expect. Some of that could be wear and damage; I do not know. These circulated in the Far East, as you know, and any coin that left a lot of examples in China is a major counterfeiting target. Doesn't mean that it is; it means that careful authentication is of above average importance.

It could be simply battered, but some aspects of it make me wonder about authenticity. What does it weigh? One decimal place, please. I notice a few chops on it, but those don't confirm authenticity. For one thing, chops also could be faked. Another clue is that this issue is evidently not common; there is a reason no one counterfeits, for example, 1964 Jeffs--but they counterfeit the holy living out of 09-S VDBs.

So let's see. One person has said they are inflated. One strongly suspects AT. One has even identified the seller without prompting as a known purveyor of deceptive photography. What part of any of that reflects any credit on this seller that would make you think that was a good place to spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars?

Selling it is unlikely, unless you find someone who imagines it to be an error rather than a simple damaged coin. My suggestion is not to get your heart broken too much when you are new to the world of coins. Start by assuming there's probably a mundane and low-value explanation for whatever you're seeing, and then be pleasantly surprised if you come up with an actual error.

No.

Obtain: a Red Book. Safeguard: protect loose coins from damage where they might lose value. Segregate: by country, denomination, then type is the usual way. A red book helps you know when a change is not obvious, such as the dropping of silver from most US coins in 1965. Summarize: count up the overall numbers. Document: make a spreadsheet. Consider simply totaling up types of common coins (typically bulk silver). List separately coins to be looked up, individually graded, or researched. Divide: for those that have retail premiums rather than just bullion value, take about 50% of the premium and figure that's what a dealer gives you. A private collector, more like 70% is fair. For bullion value coins, take about 90% of melt. Total it up. You now have a pretty good idea what you could expect to realize, with ID errors or grading newbism your main variables.

If you had a Red Book, you would be less afraid. You would be able to look up the issue (meaning date/mint combo), see the relative values (high retail) across grades, and answer your own question. Not that I'm discouraging you from asking, but I hate to think of someone being afraid. The more sought-after errors are listed in the price tables, so that will alert you. Let us take the nicest of those Barbs, the 1902. No mint mark. Now my red book is way out of date, but it will serve the purpose. I look up in Dimes and come to a stop at the Barbers. I see that the 1902 has a much higher mintage than 02-S or 02-O, and that the S is not exactly expensive but is worth neighborhood of triple the Philadephia coin--and that's in G-4. I see that there are no well-known errors in this issue, nothing like the three-legged Buffalo nickel or the 42/1 Merc overdate, etc. I see that this coin's high retail was about $8 in VF when my version came out; jumped to $110 for MS-60. So what that tells me is that unless I think this dime is uncirculated (which it manifestly is not, not even close), spending $50 or so to have it put in plastic makes no financial sense. It might make numismatic sense if you just loved that coin for some reason, but you'd never make that $50 back in value unless it were up above MS-63 ($170). Even in that case, well, it's questionable. Mine gives it $500 for a PF-63--if you had one of those, yeah, most people would say that's a good way to keep it PF-63 and make sure it really gets that grade, perhaps better. But it manifestly is not. The Red Book has basic grading information and that part would certainly tell you so. This is why people nag everyone to get a Red Book. It can bridge the gap between "omg could I be sitting on treasure" and "I should not spend too much time on this one." It's where fear goes away.

Seems reasonable. Other examples easily viewable have the diacritical.

Hey there again, SG plates. Yep, that's a legit error and people seriously collect those. By the way, I'm looking at trying to get back home sometime this summer. I've never really coin shopped back there, but I'll definitely be getting down toward Hutch and Wichita with most of the time spent around Chase and Lyon Counties. Any shops you respect along the turnpike's surrounds?

Respect for being realistic about the probabilities.

Sorry, your coin has PMD.

If I understand the distinction--and I might be totally off base here--DDD is indicated when the shelves are toward the rim side of devices even when they appear on opposite sides of the coin (as in left of device vs. right, not obv vs. rev). I think normal MD is more imitative of the way a doubled die happens, in that the planchet moves and creates the smooshing so that it's very pronounced on one side and less so on another depending on where the center of the strike is/moves relative to the planchet's center (in a proper strike, the two are exactly the same). Key difference, of course, being that a doubled die happens to the die, whereas MD happens to a strike by a die. Again, if that's all wet, someone should correct me. Since I do not much care about errors, I've only paid attention to the subject in order to distinguish MD from DDs and am not expert on the minting process.

It is doubling--mechanical kind. Some spots near the rim seem to show some, which might be DDD; I'm not very good at spotting the difference.

G-4. Can't even see half the wheat lines.

Odds are very good, as others have said, that a couple zeroes need to come off your overall value estimate. Four figures would be pretty normal. Five would be kind of special. Six probably is not happening. Seven, well...even less likely. Start off sorting it out. Sort, sort, sort. First by US, modern international, and anything you think is medieval or ancient. See the magnitude of each grouping. Once you get the US coins segregated, subsort by denomination and then by type. Put all the mint/proof sets together for the moment. So you'd find all the pennies, say, and then sort out the Lincs into wheat and memorial reverses; Indian heads; then Flying Eagles if you have any. Large cents in their own group for now. You'll probably get the half cents mixed up with those, so sort those out too. Do this until all your US coins are sorted by type. Set the ancients and medievals (that you believe, anyway) into their own group because they'll be intensive to attribute. With the world coins, if it is a large amount, try sorting them by country. If you can, subsort by the century you think they're in. Don't assume that rough ones not quite round, rimless, or not uniform diameter, must be ancient; they can definitely be from south Asia or 1600s-1700s Spain, among others. Make a pile for all the IHNFI (the first letters stand for "I have no") coins. That'll keep you busy for some time. While you're getting an idea of the magnitude of what you have, you can start to think about how to record all this. I use spreadsheets. As for unloading it, unless you have a bunch of big money stuff, your choices are private collector or dealer. Private collectors might pay more but have less deep pockets and are less likely to take it all. In any case, you can't have any idea what it will take until you have the collection quantified. For example, if you come back and tell us there are 500 Morgan dollars, we know for sure those are worth a minimum amount just for the Ag if genuine, and depending on issue and condition some might be worth much more, but we could at least give you the bottom range. Expect dealers to pay half what they expect the coins to sell for or about 95% of the metal value. Remember that you don't have to liquidate it all in one go. There is no rule against you selling part and keeping part.