When buying pre-1934 US gold

[CSdot]

When buying pre-1934 US gold, do you prefer raw, or stabbed, or whatever is available at the correct price? Do you pay less if the coin is raw? Have you had much success getting a raw coin slabbed?

 

How do you store your raw pre-1934 US gold? 2x2s, capsules, Albums? Do you ever carry one as a pocket piece? I would think that having a Saint as a pocket piece would be fun.

 

I like certified coins, preferably high grade, but I have a few raw coins in my Dansco 7070 album.

[wdrob]

 

Do you ever carry one as a pocket piece? I would think that having a Saint as a pocket piece would be fun.

 

Hahahah! Wow! What a pocket piece.

 

I would point out that every single day this country comes closer to being a police state and even the average citizen, that has never been arrested for anything, might find themselves arrested for something as simple as defending your own property boundaries or your family.

 

A cop can, and will, arrest you for anything and then make up a reason later. Kind of like the 'Kill em all; Let God sort them out' mentality.

 

I can assure you that ANY gold coin that you have on you when entering the jailhouse will mysteriously come up missing when you leave.

 

Hell, they stole my shotgun and told me it was lost (out of the evidence room) when I went to pick it up after all charges were dropped. I even went down there and physically searched that entire evidence locker. I am sure some cops kid is using it for hunting and has been for the last 10 or 12 years.

 

 

 

 

 

[BillJones]

Unless you are an expert at counterfeit gold detection, I would STRONGLY recommend that you buy NGC or PCGS certified gold. Counterfeits are an on-going problem with gold. If you are looking for low grade (less than AU-50), common date $20 gold pieces, there are some reliable dealers who sell raw pieces. Such items are really bullion gold with a minor numismatic premium. But even so, I'd recommend buying the modern U.S. gold bullion coins instead.

 

As for carrying a $20 gold coin as a pocket piece, I think that is kind foolish. Look at it this way. You will be carrying around something that is worth over $1,000 all the time. Do you really want to do that? I won't.

 

As for storage as soon as soon as you buy the item in a slab, you have your storage device. It's as simple as that. Beyond that, I would recommend hard plastic holders that don't allow the coin to rattle for storing raw gold coins. Gold is soft and can easily pick up marks or a rub if you are not carful.

 

[CSdot]

For clarification, and before that one small part of my comment becomes the tail that wags the dog in this thread, I am not advocating that people carry a $20 Saint as a pocket piece.

[James_OldeTowne]

When buying pre-1934 US gold, do you prefer raw, or stabbed, or whatever is available at the correct price? Do you pay less if the coin is raw? Have you had much success getting a raw coin slabbed?

 

How do you store your raw pre-1934 US gold? 2x2s, capsules, Albums? Do you ever carry one as a pocket piece? I would think that having a Saint as a pocket piece would be fun.

 

I like certified coins, preferably high grade, but I have a few raw coins in my Dansco 7070 album.

We pay the same for certified or un-certified gold coins, and by doing so, we assume all the risk for the raw pieces. That being said, in any grade of AU and above, I think a collector is playing with dynamite if he buys un-certified gold. We've seen accumulations of Indian gold where half the coins were fakes. It just doesn't make sense to take a chance unless the coin(s) is so low grade that it's price is around melt.

[GoldFinger1969]

When buying pre-1934 US gold, do you prefer raw, or stabbed, or whatever is available at the correct price? Do you pay less if the coin is raw? Have you had much success getting a raw coin slabbed?

 

I'll probably be the least useful responder to your post since I just started in the last year or so but my strategy is generally to go for the nicest, highest-graded coins I can afford.

 

I would be very wary of buying a raw or ungraded coin unless the seller was someone I knew and/or someone like the experts on these Forum Boards vouched for someone.

 

How do you store your raw pre-1934 US gold? 2x2s, capsules, Albums? Do you ever carry one as a pocket piece? I would think that having a Saint as a pocket piece would be fun.

 

Considering how many times I lose my billfolds with a cheap bond coupon and commemorative coin, respectively, not sure how I would feel about having a $1,400 coin (even in sub-AU grade) dangling around in my pocket.

 

Though so far I have done a good job protecting my Galaxy S4 smartphone from scratches, drops, etc.

 

I like certified coins, preferably high grade, but I have a few raw coins in my Dansco 7070 album.

 

All of my Saints are in PCGS holders, I will probably only buy them in PCGS/NCG holders for the foreseeable future. Then I have the slab itself in those nice glass-covered Lighthouse wooden display units. They're pricey, but I don't have that many pricey non-bullion coins so I bought a few that should last me another year or so.

[GoldFinger1969]

That being said, in any grade of AU and above, I think a collector is playing with dynamite if he buys un-certified gold. We've seen accumulations of Indian gold where half the coins were fakes.

 

What is Indian gold ? Are you talking about gold coins from private entities or the Indian government ? Or are you talking Indian Head coins ?

[BillJones]

That being said, in any grade of AU and above, I think a collector is playing with dynamite if he buys un-certified gold. We've seen accumulations of Indian gold where half the coins were fakes.

 

What is Indian gold ? Are you talking about gold coins from private entities or the Indian government ? Or are you talking Indian Head coins ?

 

No he's talking about coins like this:

 

 

An maybe this:

 

[GoldFinger1969]

Showoff !!

 

Thanks Bill ! (thumbs u

[Crohnos01]

Dang.... Warn me next time Bill before you flash that 1913, would you? The luster hurt my eyes even with just a photo! Sweet coin!

[Nutmeg Coin]

I only buy from other dealers as ads in the local paper have not turned up anything significant being offered for sale. So the material has already gone through one set of analysis and rarely do we disagree much or miss a counterfeit which is not hard to do with all the fake Indian gold floating around.

[GoldFinger1969]

I only buy from other dealers as ads in the local paper have not turned up anything significant being offered for sale. So the material has already gone through one set of analysis and rarely do we disagree much or miss a counterfeit which is not hard to do with all the fake Indian gold floating around.

 

Were Indian Gold coins particularly prone to being counterfeited, more so than Saint Gaudens or Liberty's ?

[Nutmeg Coin]

$2 1/2 Indians in particular were counterfeited.

[James_OldeTowne]

I only buy from other dealers as ads in the local paper have not turned up anything significant being offered for sale. So the material has already gone through one set of analysis and rarely do we disagree much or miss a counterfeit which is not hard to do with all the fake Indian gold floating around.

Were Indian Gold coins particularly prone to being counterfeited, more so than Saint Gaudens or Liberty's ?

Yes, most definitely, as someone has noted the $2.50s were heavily counterfeited.

[RWB]

Even the light $2.50s were counterfeited.

[GoldFinger1969]

Yes, most definitely, as someone has noted the $2.50s were heavily counterfeited.

 

Easier to counterfeit, relatively higher premium to underlying gold content (assuming they used actual gold), or was it because there are more buyers for a less-expensive coin like the $2.50 Indian instead of a Liberty or Saint $20 ?

[BillJones]

Yes, most definitely, as someone has noted the $2.50s were heavily counterfeited.

 

Easier to counterfeit, relatively higher premium to underlying gold content (assuming they used actual gold), or was it because there are more buyers for a less-expensive coin like the $2.50 Indian instead of a Liberty or Saint $20 ?

 

It probably had something to do with getting a better mark-up, and from what I have seen, they did use real gold. The gold dollars would have been the best mark-up, of course, and there were a lot of fake examples; but they are too small for many collectors. The 1853 coins were very dangerous because there were a lot of fakes of that date around.

 

An even "kooler" profits could be made from Three Dollar Gold Pieces. There was a time before certification when collectors thought that very every Three Dollar gold coin that was offered was fake. In the late '60s and early '70s you would hear people say that over half of the three dollar coins offered were bad.

 

One dealer told me a story about how he was playing in a poker game one night when some three dollar coins came out on the table. He ended up with a few of them, and where he had a chance to look them over in some good light he found that they were bogus.

 

Counterfeiting $20 gold coins was done too, but in the '60s the "bargain selling price was $49.95 when gold was pegged at $35 an ounce. That didn't leave much room for an illegal profit. As a kid I paid $75 for the double eagles that were in my type set. That was full strapping retail, but at least I knew the coins were genuine at time when I could not tell the difference.

[Nutmeg Coin]

My understanding is that $20 gold coins except for the super rare ones were pretty much considered bullion until the 1980s? Perhaps the long-term dealers can enlighten us on that.

[BillJones]

My understanding is that $20 gold coins except for the super rare ones were pretty much considered bullion until the 1980s? Perhaps the long-term dealers can enlighten us on that.

 

All I can say is that the price in the 1960's in the main numismatic magazines was $49.95 sometimes $48.95 as a dollar really made a difference. The few coins I saw for that price were usually very baggy AUs and low end Unc,s. I remember in the 1970s when the retail price hit $130 because it made the national news, and the news people claim they were "in short supply."

 

Gold coins were not considered to be "where the action was" in numismatics. Numismatic writers called them "safe investments" with no much implied up side.

[GoldFinger1969]

In the late '60s and early '70s you would hear people say that over half of the three dollar coins offered were bad.

 

At first glance, that's surprising since the price of gold wa still relatively low back then. You'd expect the counterfeits to surface a decade later or so after gold had risen 10-20x.

 

 

Counterfeiting $20 gold coins was done too, but in the '60s the "bargain selling price was $49.95 when gold was pegged at $35 an ounce. That didn't leave much room for an illegal profit. As a kid I paid $75 for the double eagles that were in my type set. That was full strapping retail, but at least I knew the coins were genuine at time when I could not tell the difference.

 

Wish I had been old enough back then to buy !!

[BillJones]

At first glance, that's surprising since the price of gold wa still relatively low back then. You'd expect the counterfeits to surface a decade later or so after gold had risen 10-20x

 

There were big bucks to be made on counterfeit $3 gold coins. For about $7.50 worth of gold at $50 an ounce or less, you could sell the Three Dollars gold coins for anywhere from $250 to $400 apiece. Even if you were fencing them to distributors at $150 a throw you were doing well. The Three Dollar gold piece and Type II gold dollar have long been the "key" coins in the twelve piece gold type set. The Three Dollar gold was sexier to a lot of people because it was larger, and well there is phrase "phony as three dollar bill" except that the Three Dollar gold coin really was issued.

 

Wish I had been old enough back then to buy !!

 

No you don't. If you were, you'd be as old I am, and I was kid who thought that $100 was lot of money. If you will old enough to have a few thousand to buy those coins, you might not be with now.

[GoldFinger1969]

My understanding is that $20 gold coins except for the super rare ones were pretty much considered bullion until the 1980s? Perhaps the long-term dealers can enlighten us on that.

 

I'm not one of them, but I do know from QDB's Red Book that some of the harder-to-get coins (like a 1926-D, not a near-impossible one like the 1927-D) were already trading at 10-20x the gold content by the 1950's. So you already had the 'separation' with the coins between the commons, specials, and hard-to-gets (putting the super-tough mintmarks, the 1907 EHR, and the 1929-32 series aside).

 

For someone intent on getting a complete type set, and with the $$$, I am sure they would easily pay tens of thousands for the right coin in great condition.