#5633300 - 04/27/1212:47 PMRe: My 10,000th Post Giveaway Contest!!!!!!!
[Re: 123cents]
jomjom
Posting Traumatic Stress Disorder
FACT if I stop posting, trillions and trillions of transistors would be out of work.
Registered: 01/29/02
Posts: 4748
It's tough to say which is my favorite. It comes down to three.
My 1919-S Mercury Dime. I bought this in a PCGS 64 holder almost 20 years ago now (wow!) and still think it's FB. Yeah, I know some are very picky about that but I'd bet this beats the vast majority of examples that are graded FB....it's about as close to FULL STRIKE as you'll get. Also, the last I checked, the 19-S is the rarest Mercury dime in mint state (FB or not)....at least from a population standpoint. This now resides in a MS65 holder but is still way undervalued due to the lack of FB...
This 1936-D Buffalo nickel I've owned about 10 years and it's easy to see why I like it so much. In a PCGS 66 holder and this easily goes into AnkurJ's "buried" thread for me. Paid way too much but...I DON'T CARE.
Then there is this 1918-S Mercury which I bought RAW at the Stack's table at the Long Beach show in 1994. Now in a PCGS 65 holder. Not the full strike like the 19-S but still a rarer early Merc.
#5634144 - 04/27/1205:21 PMRe: My 10,000th Post Giveaway Contest!!!!!!!
[Re: x2rider]
RWBRWB
FACT if I stop posting, trillions and trillions of transistors would be out of work.
Registered: 01/03/05
Posts: 4507
At the tail end of the great silver dollar distribution in 1963 I was a high schooler and had been collecting coins since I was eight. My tiny bank account was far short of the $1,000 necessary to buy a bag of dollars form the Treasury Dept., and my parents were not about to hand me the money to buy a bag of coins “that even the bank won’t take back.” I was stuck reading the stories in Coin World and watching local TV coverage of lines a block long in Washington. My town bank had been cleaned out months before, and to “get out of Dodge” I could only beg the family car on Saturday or a school holiday.
Primary silver dollar distribution had ended by the time I got a weekday off from school so I could borrow the car and check out banks in nearby towns. I drove around all day. The answer was always the same: “All gone.”
Finally, I stopped at a rather grubby looking savings and loan about 12 miles from home. It was almost 1pm – an hour from local bank closing time. I didn’t have an account there, but I did have $50 cash. I asked if they had any silver dollars.
“Yes, we have some,” came the reply. “But you can only have five, and you can’t come back for any more, and we don’t want them back.”
“Just five? OK. I’ll take ‘em.”
The teller grabbed five coins from her till, put them in a paper envelope and I traded my $5 bill for the silver. I didn’t dare look at them while in the bank. Her warning seemed sufficient to discourage any “coin collector.”
In the car I opened the envelope. No bright shiny uncirculated coins; one common date Morgan, one 1922 Peace, another common date, and another. The last coin out of the envelope was well worn, but the date was “1893.” OK, that was good. I didn’t have any 1893s in my blue Whitman albums. I turned it over, and there was the jackpot – a nice clear “S.” I knew it was a rare date, but since I seldom looked at the Red Book prices of expensive coins, I didn’t know what I had. The drive home was simultaneously jackrabbit fast and snail slow. At home I ran to my room and looked for my worn Red Book --- couldn’t find it. But a tattered Blue Book turned up. I checked…WoW $50! That one coin was worth all the money I had in by pocket. Were there more? Did the teller at the S&L have an unknown stash of 1893-S dollars?
I couldn’t just go back and ask for more. She’d recognize me and throw me out of the building – maybe call my parents for being a pest and not listening to instructions. What to do? Then I remembered by younger cousins who lived across the road. They were kids - mere pests - but maybe I could “borrow” one of them and have them buy more dollars. I would even pay one of the pests to help me.
It was a good idea, but my being a teenage driver was not on my side. My cousin’s Mom, called my Mom and they had a private rating session of my driving skills. Apparently I passed, with some reluctance, and was permitted to take the older cousin, age 14, with me to the S&L.
We arrived just before closing. I briefed my cousin on what to do, what to ask for, how to talk to the teller and reminded him to be sure to thank her. He disappeared into the gloomy place with a $5 bill in hand. I wasn’t sure if he understood or not.
I waited and waited. It seemed like a long time, but was probably only a minute or two before my cousin was back in the car. He handed me an envelope with coins in it and I handed him a $2.50 payment for his time and trouble. “She said I couldn’t come back again,” was his only comment.
The new envelope had five circulated silver dollars – all were common dates. Keepers…well, maybe, but none would fill my imaginary extra 1893-S hole.
* * * * * I have the coin. Its humble picture is posted here. I really don’t care how many dollars it’s worth. I can look at this round piece of silver and remember the time, the people and the world as it was before Dallas, before Vietnam, before Nixon, before so many events of the adult world intruded.
_________________________
Author of “Renaissance of American Coinage” (NLG Book-of-the-Year 3 years in a row) series and “Guide Book of Peace Dollars,” NLG 2011-Best Software: “Annual Assay Commission, United States Mint, 1800-1943,” and “Silver Dollars Struck under the Pittman Act.” Federal Court-approved numismatic expert. Contributor to the Red Book, Judd Patterns and many other fine numismatic books, discoverer of two gold patterns, and author of numerous coin research articles.
#5634458 - 04/27/1207:37 PMRe: My 10,000th Post Giveaway Contest!!!!!!!
[Re: x2rider]
Hard TimesHard Times
The Post-man always rings twice. Uhm... ring ring?
Registered: 01/16/10
Posts: 1604
Loc: Tejas
Congratulations on your 10,000th Jason! The coin below is tops for me right now for several reasons. First, its history. It comes from the early days of the 49er Gold Rush, where the San Francisco Mint was in its infancy. It speaks of an exciting time of westward expansion and the boom days of Sierra gold mining. Because of the rich California Gold Rush history, I have been looking to build an 1850's S mint gold type set, and pretty much every coin one can buy within this group is rare and to pick examples that are affordable and rich in eye appeal is a challenge. This is my first of the 50's SF gold type set and am still working on the rest. The rarest S quarter eagle is the 1854-S with just a few known. No quarter eagles were minted at SF in 1855, the next two are the 1856-S and this 1857-S which have mintages of 72,000 (178 in NGC census) and 69,200 (160 in NGC census) respectively. The only other 50's SF quarter eagle is the 1859-S (15,200, 85 in NGC census). So I have been looking to buy a QE of the 3 latter dates in AU and this is the one I obtained.
Second, a few years back I had bought an 1856-S QE online in PCGS AU50. After learning more about it and a few other pieces I had bought, I realized I was buying washed out heavily dipped pieces, all of which are now gone from my collection. Online it was hard to tell this, and it wasn't until I started going to shows that I realized I have to see especially silver and gold in hand, or have someone else look at them in hand for me, before I bid or buy. This piece was obtained during a breakthrough for me in this regard - I got it at a Heritage auction (my first lot viewing on site) where I looked at 100s of Liberty Gold, and found so many to be dipped out when seeing in hand - lesson learned for sure. This one is not washed out from dipping, it has richly toned surfaces with gorgeous underlying luster. So this first auction I attended taught me the lesson of hand picking and being more careful as I build my collection and this was one of the outcomes.
Third, I am just as interested in capturing the beauty of coins in photographs as I am about having the coins themselves. I have been working on technique now for around 3.5 years, and still have a long way to go. One problem I was having with circulated gold was capturing the luster on the surfaces. I spent many sessions getting dull, non-lusterous images that did not reflect the beauty of these coins. After reading Goodman's book for about the 10th time, I found a few hints of something to do with my technique that may work. This was the first circulated gold coin where, with this new improvement in technique, I feel I really captured the richness and luster of the surfaces. I am still not quite there yet for all circulated gold as each has its own unique character and challenges to image, but this image of this QE was a big step for my technique and learning the subtleties of taking great images. This new technique had led to the purchase of another lens that should help as I reshoot all of my collection yet again. Some day I just might capture all of my collection well in images, but this QE was a big step in that direction.
Best, HT
_________________________
Successful CS member transactions with X2Rider, Mark Feld, keigwin, HollyDay Coins, gpnyc, Broadstruck, Charmy, coinsarefun
Registered: 08/08/02
Posts: 7433
Loc: The Crossroads of America
Congrats on 10,000 posts, maybe I'll catch you someday! Here is a favorite of mine, the coin that got me to finally like toned coins, one I bought from a longtime dealer in Michigan who used to dig up some of the most amazing coins. Unfortunately he passed away just a couple years after I bought it.
_________________________
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it’s natural manure - Thos. Jefferson
"I think our coinage is artistically of atrocious hideousness." Theodore Roosevelt, December 27, 1904.
Here's the coin that started my half a decade obsession with 8 Reales and, more specifically, with fascinating issues of Mexican War of Independence.
It's an 1814 8 Reales minted in a provisional mint of Guadalajara. The opening of the Guadalajara mint was caused, as in the other provisional mints, by the War of Independence. It closed in 1815 and was re-opened in 1818, due to the efforts of the President of the Council, Field Marshal Done Jose de la Cruz, only to be closed again the latter part of the same year. Official records state that this mint was not re-opened until August 21, 1821.
Because adequate dies were not provided in the beginning of the war, the mint (as many other provisional mints) had to cut it's own set of dies which were much cruder than what we used to seeing on portrait 8 Reales of Ferdinand VII from Mexico City.
The harsh environment and strain under which these provisional mints operated with the war raging all around the countryside make for an incredibly interesting area of numismatics.
#5639620 - 04/29/1211:01 PMRe: My 10,000th Post Giveaway Contest!!!!!!!
[Re: TwoKopeiki]
WalkerfanWalkerfan TOTAL NEWBIE, makes no sense and seems very paradoxical and counter-intuitive.
Is it a very lame attempt at sarcastic humor??
If you have a dream about out-posting me, you better wake up and apologize.
Registered: 10/07/09
Posts: 2852
Loc: USA
Here is one of my most favorite coins!
A 1920 D Walker in MS 64. I have always been very fond of this issue and I was looking around for a good example for a LONG time (about 5 years or more). It took me quite a while to find the right one. I thought about buying a MS 65, briefly, but they are VERY pricey. I once found an MS 65 but I didn't like it, b/c it was too dark and the luster seemed a bit off to me, although it was clean and very well struck.
I was very lucky to get this coin for around bid. SUPERTOOTH and I both have agreed upon the fact that this issue is very undervalued and it is a 'sleeper' and has a good upside investment potential. It is the rarest coin produced in 1920 and it is ranked 5TH in MS rarity in the entire series, which is pretty darned HIGH. Mintage is just 1,551,000. There are about 150-200 coins known (PCGS/NGC) in MS 64 with just 55 higher and this issue is not known in any grade above MS 66.
JOM was kind enough to send me the well known Pryor article on Walkers that appeared in a CDN from years ago, the mid seventies, I believe. It was a VERY interesting and enjoyable read and much appreciated. It stated that this issue is tough to find with a fully struck head. I like the full head on my example, although I have not found this statement to be entirely accurate, as I have encountered a few other coins with full head details. This issue is not really a strike rarity BUT it tends to have only moderately well struck central details and the strike varies from soft to quite sharp and most examples fall somewhere in the middle.
I like my coin because the thumb is about as full as I have seen for this issue and I like the center skirt line details, as well. The luster on this coin is above average and it is starting to retone VERY nicely with a beautiful golden hue. Luster on this issue varies from softly frosted to satiny. I would say that this example is more towards the frosty end of the spectrum, for sure. The fields are mostly clean on my coin with just a few wispy abrasions. I have seen some MS 65s with the same and even MORE abrasions above the motto, so it is quite acceptable to me. The reverse of this coin has nice breast feather definition on the eagle, too.
I am very happy with this coin and I admire it and it is decent, overall, in the luster, strike and surface preservation categories.
Thank You, Jason, for this fun contest and generous opportunity!
And Congrats on 10,000 posts!!
_________________________
-Walker Aficionado-
The journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step.
#5644933 - 05/01/1209:51 PMRe: My 10,000th Post Giveaway Contest!!!!!!!
[Re: physics-fan3.14]
robec1347robec1347
I was posting here when you were in diapers.
Registered: 08/09/06
Posts: 3905
Loc: Central California
Congratulations Jason!! Man that's a lot of talking in just a few short years. You've got 6 months on me along with 6,000+ more posts. You've been a very busy boy.
Like others here, I don't have a favorite, but a lot of favorites.
I'll pick this 1812 CBH for today. No real reason other than I love the colors, it's a cool year and I just happened to be in the right place at the right time when it became available.
