• When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

How old is this holder?

Started by rynegold-migration,

24 posts in this topic

BillJones

BillJones

Posted
Posted

 

The codes will not tell you; only the style of the holder MIGHT give you an idea.

 

The grading services learned from the ANACS experience that it is best to obscure the date something was graded.

 

Many years ago (early 1980s) ANACS let their standards slip, their grading got really lose. They made a big announcement that they were tightening up their standards, and that coins graded after a certain date would be under the new set of rules. In those days ANACS papers (Coins were not placed in slabs.) had dates on them.

 

For a brief while there was a bifurcated market when older ANACS coins sold for less than the newly graded pieces. This left the door open for someone new to step in, and PCGS and NGC did just that. Before you knew it, ANACS became a "second tier" grading service and remains that to this day.

 

Simple solution for the third party grades: DON"T DATE YOUR SLABS. Those who study the style changes in slabs can give you approximate dates, but exact dates, no way.

 

By the way, the grading date should not affect your decision to buy. BUY THE COIN NOT THE HOLDER.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
CaptHenway

CaptHenway

Posted
Posted

Bill, if ANACS ever did announce that they were changing their grading standards, and I have never heard that they ever made such an announcement, it happened after I left there in the Summer of 1984.

 

Before that time we were accused of having loosened our standards because the market had gotten incredibly anally tight and we had not, preferring to keep the grading standards we had used all along. I always had this silly idea that grading stardards should remain constant. Obviously others have the idea that grading standards should rise and fall with the market.

 

TD

Link to comment
Share on other sites
brg5658

brg5658

Posted
Posted

Do you have a shot of the entire holder? That label looks suspicious to me...Just wondering if we could see a full slab shot of the coin (front and back).

 

Thanks.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
wdrob

wdrob

Posted
Posted

 

I always had this silly idea that grading stardards should remain constant.

TD

 

 

Hahaha!

 

Well that certainly is a novel approach. Bold as well. :grin:

 

(thumbs u

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
brg5658

brg5658

Posted
Posted

I'm not convinced that coin or the PCGS holder is authentic... :o

 

The label font and kerning are wrong for the style of label.

 

I'm 95%+ sure that is a fake...

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
BillJones

BillJones

Posted
Posted
Bill, if ANACS ever did announce that they were changing their grading standards, and I have never heard that they ever made such an announcement, it happened after I left there in the Summer of 1984.

 

Before that time we were accused of having loosened our standards because the market had gotten incredibly anally tight and we had not, preferring to keep the grading standards we had used all along. I always had this silly idea that grading stardards should remain constant. Obviously others have the idea that grading standards should rise and fall with the market.

 

TD

 

This was back in the late 1970s, I believe, and it was when ANACS was still issuing only certificates, no slabs. If you could get access any old editions of "Coin World" you would see ads where dealers were stating the dates on the certificates and pricing the coins accordingly. Naturally those who were holding the old certificates that had dates on them which indicated that the coins had been graded using the loser, old standards, either "deep sixed" them or went back for a second opinion. This did happen I will assure you, and from my perspective it was the beginning of the end of the ANACS dominance in the coin grading market.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
CaptHenway

CaptHenway

Posted
Posted

We started grading coins March 1, 1979. I was specifically hired to start the grading service so I know when it happened.

 

At the time the Hunt Brothers run was on, there were tons of money pouring into the coin market from silver redemptions, and the market grading kept getting looser and looser.I insisted on grading by the book standards, and dealers kept complaining that we were grading too tight.

 

Then the market crashed at the Central States show in the Spring of 1981 when New England Rare Coin Galleries had to dump inventory to pay their taxes, and over the next year the market grading standards kept getting tighter and tighter as dealers and the Greysheet tried to prop up prices by insisting on nicer and nicer coins to qualify for the grades associated with those prices.

 

A coin that we called an MS-65 during the boom got called a 66 or a 67 by the market. After the crash we kept on calling it an MS-65, but the market called it a 64 or a 63 so that dealers would not have to pay Greysheet MS-65 prices for it. It took what we called an MS-67 to get the Greysheet MS-65 prices, which remained artifically high for years.

 

It was all part of an attempt to prop up the coin market, which had fallen much further than the Greysheet prices suggested. Many common BU coins that sold for "X" before the crash were only worth 20 to 30% of "X" by 1983 when you actually tried to sell them in the real world, but according to the Greysheet they had not fallen anywheres near that much because the grades demanded for the Greysheet prices had changed dramatically.

 

As an example of the real world coin market, look at the Garrett 1804 Dollar. $400,000 during the boom, $190,000 during the bust. Common coins did a lot worse, but the Greysheet did not reflect it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
BillJones

BillJones

Posted
Posted

Yes, I knew about the game of game of tightening the grading standards to prop up an ailing coin market. That was not the last time it has been done. It's happened during the slab era too.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
brg5658

brg5658

Posted
Posted

For posterity, here are the images of the coins side-by-side. To avoid giving away all of the things that are "wrong" with the fake to the culprits, I will say nothing more than -- the coin currently for sale on eBay in the OP is a pretty bad fake and immediately looked suspicious to me even when just seeing the label. When I saw the full coin it was pretty much a sealed deal.

 

Thanks casman for the link to the original (authentic) sale of the coin with that cert number.

 

1893-S_Morgan_Fake_comparison_zpst2ila6pf.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites
casman

casman

Posted
Posted

Whelp, for one I think the complete lack of a hologram on the reverse of the slab is definitely a bad sign...It looks like you can see the glue holding the insert in. Can't believe there are bids on that thing.

 

 

Looks like seller canned the listing, er sort of...says sold for 1 cent? Maybe some sort of strategy thing to avoid paying FVF's?

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
rynegold-migration

rynegold-migration

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Ready for a story???, here'tis....

So yes; the coin "was" on ebay; removed apparently at the last minute. I saw the auction and surmised that the coin was at one of several locations of "Goldwiser"; a company here in the Houston area that owns several gold and silver buying operations so, at 9:00 this morn, I gave them a call. Turns out the coin was at a location but 16 miles from my house so I went to view the coin. The person on duty as manager (I suppose) was very nice and showed me the coin. As a note to the story, I've been collecting coins now for over 45 years and have had a retail/manufacturing/bullion jewelry business for 38 of those so in that vein, I did a little homework (not much is needed really) and came armed w/ my visor and a loupe. The coin is fake no doubt but I had to see it for myself. The person managing ask what I thought of the coin and, .... I said I thought it was a fake. She took it rather well. I pointed out that the "T" in Liberty's hair ribbon had no die crack and since ALL 93s were struck from just one obverse die; (they had two for the reverse) it had to be there to be genuine. Mattered not. There were the other usual suspects of fake Morgans but I offered just that one as proof of such at which point, she produced a "2nd" 93s that they had (she said) bought from the owner of the one in the auction which, is/was on consignment to them. They didn't own the PCGS coin or so it was told. This second 93s was.... also a fake! No die crack and, apparently from the same faked die! I had'em both in hand and indeed, they were from the same die save that the second one had a more "pocket worn" look to it and obviously was a raw (fake) coin. There's way more to the story as indeed I talked with the "owner" for a good 15 min. on unrelated (to things numismatic) topics and finall,y talking to other old colleagues of mine later in the day, deduced exactly "who" the owner really is. Another story for another day. Hey; it was fun! Nothing like a little detective work to start one's day no?

 

regards, m

Link to comment
Share on other sites
brg5658

brg5658

Posted
Posted

I contacted the eBay seller today also, and he was very genial and said that they would be taking down the auction until they could verify the coin's authenticity (or not).

 

Seems a good dealer in general to do such a thing. I'm glad they took it well. Thanks for the update rynegold.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
rynegold-migration

rynegold-migration

Posted
  • Author
Posted

"Seems a good dealer in general to do such a thing. I'm glad they took it well. Thanks for the update rynegold. "

 

Sometimes motives/responses are not what they seem:

 

http://www.houstoniamag.com/news-and-profiles/articles/gold-and-silver-buyers-and-graymeiren-llc-hit-with-five-suits-september-2013

 

 

http://www.ripoffreport.com/r/Gold-and-Silver-Buyers/Houston-Texas-77002/Gold-and-Silver-Buyers-Brian-Culwell-Gold-buyer-is-a-three-time-felon-who-scammed-basketba-779595

 

http://blogs.houstonpress.com/news/2012/09/brian_culwell_former_gold_and.php

 

Were I this fellow, the last thing I'd want to see staring me in the face was a felony indictment for fraud @ $10k+ whether it be coin, car,..... whatever!

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
brg5658

brg5658

Posted
Posted
"Seems a good dealer in general to do such a thing. I'm glad they took it well. Thanks for the update rynegold. "

 

Sometimes motives/responses are not what they seem:

 

http://www.houstoniamag.com/news-and-profiles/articles/gold-and-silver-buyers-and-graymeiren-llc-hit-with-five-suits-september-2013

 

 

http://www.ripoffreport.com/r/Gold-and-Silver-Buyers/Houston-Texas-77002/Gold-and-Silver-Buyers-Brian-Culwell-Gold-buyer-is-a-three-time-felon-who-scammed-basketba-779595

 

http://blogs.houstonpress.com/news/2012/09/brian_culwell_former_gold_and.php

 

Were I this fellow, the last thing I'd want to see staring me in the face was a felony indictment for fraud @ $10k+ whether it be coin, car,..... whatever!

 

 

Yikes...well...I'm speechless. :o

Link to comment
Share on other sites
rynegold-migration

rynegold-migration

Posted
  • Author
Posted

brg, believe it or not, my first love is militaria.... all of it.

 

I own some oft the scarcest edged weapons, medals, awards and of course, firearms, from the axis powers as well as the U.S. military: civil war forward to the second world war. I can tell you this one thing that I've learned above all else:

 

" The more it's worth, the better fake one can afford."

 

Buyer beware is an understatement. I couldn't help though, seeing the coin!

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Go to topic listing