How often has this happened to you before?

[World Colonial]

I recently bought the coin in the link below from Heritage. It is a 1756 Peru pillar one real.

 

http://coins.ha.com/c/item.zx?saleNo=231340&lotNo=62142&lotIdNo=12001

 

The same day, I found and bought an NGC MS-61 from a dealer. I do not have a picture but it is darkly toned and somewhat "crusty".

 

The Heritage coin, I received it a week ago and while I still like it, I suspect that it might not grade. I believe the Coin World holder is probably accurate in terms of detail, but under magnification, the surfaces are not quite as nice as the Heritage image.

 

The reason I mention it is because I have not bought a high quality specimen from this mint in this series for a long time; I believe 2008. It is also very unusual for me to encounter two coins from any of my series in close proximity, except for the more common ones.

 

What about the coins you collect?

 

 

[coinman1794]

Personally, I do not find the patina to be natural or attractive, and would never have bid on it through Heritage as a raw coin.

 

Having participated in a number of auctions, I would also note they were not very enthusiastic about the grade, calling it simply an "AU," when the coin is housed in an "unofficial" holder labeled AU58. A dipped-out or murky, stained, AU-details coin seems about right for this lot.

 

 

[wheat'swheats]

I have recently seen the same thing in my Lincoln series. I had been wanting to up grade one of my common dates which is very difficult in ms 65 or above. for months I saw a MS65 red with a CAC sticker(I have not seen one of these in about 8 years) which I won after bidding $150 more than the srp. Since that time there has been one every month since with a CAC sticker. All look great with nice color. That's just the way things work out I guess.

[World Colonial]

I do not mind buying the coin, only the price I paid for it. I think I would have been able to buy it for less if it had been correctly described. It is probably actually worth about half what I paid for it. It was a risk that did not work out.

 

The other coin that I did not picture is better but I decided to buy both anyway, since I do not mind buying duplicates of coins I want. But if I had been able to inspect the Heritage coin in advance, I would not have paid this price and just bought the other one since both were available.

 

Normally though, even the Heritage coin is infinitely better than what is available. My reference manual (Gilboy) lists this coin as "Normal" meaning that he estimated 501 to 1000 survivors in VF or better. He provides no specifics in higher grades. The meaningless NGC and PCGS census data list two each in MS and none in lower grades (or maybe one).

 

While I believe this coin and others like it are more available that the census data indicate, I do not believe it is anywhere near as common as Gilboy claims. I have no idea where he came up with any of his estimates. Many of the plate coins throughout the series are very nice and I have never seen others like them. This indicates to me that either he had access to some very nice collections. Or in a few instances such as with the 1760 Chile 4R which sold as an "XF" in 2000 for $54,000, he had access to auction images.

 

However, if Peru and Bolivia minors were as common as he claims, then I would expect that he would have been able to more easily find better plate coins for coins he claims are common. Many of these are terrible.

 

Also, in looking through both public auctions and on eBay, I almost never see these coins at all. They are not even close to a VF when they show up. I happen own a decent number of these in better grades (AU-58 to MS-65), but only because aI have bought a disproportionate number of those I have seen. This is in 11+ years of collecting the series.

 

So yes, while I understand what you are saying, sometimes you just have to buy what is available or not at all.

[AcesKings]

I just did this at a recent show. I went in wanting a certain date to fill in my SLQ collection, not a rare date or mint mark, just something to fill the slot in my collection. After walking through 80-90% of the show and only seeing every other date and mint mark for the series, I finally seen one. Not bad condition, but its surfaces were questionable. Being the only one I seen there till that point I got it, only to find a stand a few tables down with several better quality ones. So, I got an "upgrade" right away too. If I had seen that stand first, I could have bought one of their certified FH examples.

[coinman1794]

I completely agree. Sometimes there is no other option and you have to buy what is available.

 

It would be interesting to hear others' opinions on how they would react if the coin they have wanted for a long time is now available, but of mediocre quality.

 

Personally, I place the quality of a coin over the idea of needing it to fill a hole in a set. Many others will take what they can get and hope for something better. With my strategy, I often find myself not filling very money holes

[World Colonial]

My opinion is that it depends upon the series you collect. If I collected the most widely collected US coins and even most others, I would not bother buying coins I did not really like. I would "hold out" for the one I really wanted. There is no reason to do otherwise most of the time assuming it is one you can afford.

 

With this series I profiled, if I did that, I would hardly ever buy anything. I can get away with that somewhat with the pillars from Mexico (except the 4R) but not Bolivia, Guatemala and Peru except for some of the Bolivia and Peru 8R. Regardless of what Gilboy claimed in his reference book, the coins simply do not seem to exist.

 

This is something which those who collect US coins do not encounter except in very limited circumstances. The only reason why they apparently do is because of the narrow criteria they apply because the coins are in actuality not scarce at all. They are almost always actually common by any sensible standard.

 

To take an example, in the Heritage listing of the Newman 1796 NGC MS-67 quarter, they claim that somewhere between 56 and 70 individual MS pieces exist with several "gems" as recorded in the combined census today. The total number in all grades is supposedly in the vicinity of 700. I have seen this coin in a variety of grades as a collector over the last 35+ years but it never would have occurred to me that this coin was that common because only the most common among those I collect have this many in MS or “high grade” and the same applies to the grade distribution. It is possible than in the Peru 2R series (a coin of the same size) dated 1752-1771, that the total number of MS and "high grade" survivors is less than it is just for the 1796 quarter. The highest grade I have ever seen is an MS-65 (once).

 

The typical US collector is fortunate that they have been preceded by others who saved a large number in high quality. I wish the coins I collected were more available. Paradoxically, it is also one of the reasons why they are and are likely to remain much less valuable than US coins with comporable numismtic merits.