***** May "Darkside Challenge" POLL: who made the "best" purchase for under $20?

lordmarcovan · June 4, 2015 6:18PM

Original discussion and entry thread

Who made the "best" world coin purchase for less than $20 this May?

Vote for whichever selection you like the most. It need not be the most valuable item, though a good cherrypick ought to count for something.

Just whatever you think was the neatest buy (or best bang for the buck, or whatever).

The winner will get to choose between two prizes (a 1580 Hungarian denar put up by me, or a 1927 Australian florin put up by Musky1011). The runner-up will receive the remaining prize.

The poll is finished and deleted, now. These were the results:

Total Votes: 50

#1- 1917-S Finland silver 50-pennia, Civil War Issue, NGC MS64 (Purchased by 3keepSECRETif2rDEAD for $20.00)
6 (votes) 12.00 (%)
#2- 1927 Italy silver 5-lire (Purchased by thatoneguy for $10.97)
9 (votes) 18.00 (%)
#3- 1970 Belize silver dollar (Purchased by AA1Coins4Fun for $18.00)
7 (votes) 14.00 (%)
#4- Ancient India (Western Satraps) silver coin, circa 4th century AD (Purchased by LarkinCollector for $18.50)
10 (votes) 20.00 (%)
#5- 1790 Dutch East India Company (Gelderland) copper duit (Purchased by GMan for $6.00)
4 (votes) 8.00 (%)
#6- Unusual 1859 (Narrow 9) Canadian large cent (Purchased by YQQ for $2.40)
0 (votes) 0.00 (%)
#7- 2006 Kurdistan 250-dinar (Eurasian Lynx), PCGS MS67 (Purchased by bcbgboy13 for $15.45)
3 (votes) 6.00 (%)
#8- China Kuang-Hsu silver dollar, Year 25/1899 (Purchased by Jinx86 for $1.00)
4 (votes) 8.00 (%)
#9- Germany (Chemnitz, Saxony) iron 15-pfennig Strassenbahn tram token (Purchased by jughead1893 for $6.75)
1 (votes) 2.00 (%)
Neutral/No Vote/Just show me the poll results
6 (votes) 12.00 (%)

ENTRY #1

1917-S Finland silver 50-pennia, Civil War Issue, NGC MS64

Purchased by 3keepSECRETif2rDEAD for $20.00

ENTRY #2

1927 Italy silver 5-lire

Purchased by thatoneguy for $10.97 (as half of a two-piece lot which cost $21.93 after shipping)

ENTRY #3

1970 Belize 1 dollar (.999 silver/.9937 oz)

Purchased by AA1Coins4Fun for $18.00

(He said he was going to withdraw his entry, but I thought it was a good one and have left it in)

ENTRY #4

Ancient India (Western Satraps) silver coin, circa 4th century AD

Purchased by LarkinCollector for $18.50

ENTRY #5

1790 Dutch East India Company (Gelderland) copper duit

Purchased by GMan for $6.00

ENTRY #6

Unusual 1859 (Narrow 9) Canadian large cent (see commentary in original thread)

Purchased by YQQ for $2.40 ($2.99 Canadian)

ENTRY #7

2006 Kurdistan 250-dinar (Eurasian Lynx), PCGS MS67

Purchased by bcbgboy13 for $15.45

ENTRY #8

China Kuang-Hsu dollar (.900 silver/.7726 oz), Year 25 (1899)

Purchased by Jinx86 for $1.00 (one coin out of a 1,500-coin dealer lot purchased for $1,500)

ENTRY #9

Germany (Chemnitz, Saxony) iron 15-pfennig Strassenbahn tram token

Purchased by jughead1893 for $6.75

Stork · June 4, 2015 11:13PM

Tough choices on how to vote! I could make a good case for voting for each one of them. This has been a lot of fun to watch.

lordmarcovan · June 4, 2015 11:19PM

Let's run the poll for three days, until midnight Eastern US time on June 8th.

For the record, my vote went to LarkinCollector's ancient Indian piece, though it was a tough choice and I think Jinx86 might have gotten the best monetary cherrypick.

jughead1893 · June 4, 2015 11:34PM

Hey LM, that's not my entry.its on page 5 of the other thread

lordmarcovan · June 5, 2015 12:05AM

<< Hey LM, that's not my entry.its on page 5 of the other thread >>

Eh. Crap. Sorry. I had a feeling I'd screw something up (hence the "glitch" apology above).

I'll try to fix it, but it'll be a few hours, since I'm on a mobile device with a sketchy connection at the moment.

Yorkshireman · June 5, 2015 12:34AM

IMO, #1 looks too bright and shiny for a coin that is almost 100 years old.

baddspellar · June 5, 2015 1:30AM

Tough call. I went with the 5 Lire, because it's a coin I don't have and I like the look and history. I was tempted to go for the Western Satraps coin, as these are among my favorite values in coins.

DCW · June 5, 2015 8:07AM

I went with #4. Love the Chinese dollar, but can we really say that it cost a dollar, just because the buyer paid $1500 for the 1500 coin lot?Maybe the rest of the lot contained worthless arcade tokens, and therefore it cost him a thousand bucks...food for thought.

lordmarcovan · June 5, 2015 11:29AM

<< I went with #4. Love the Chinese dollar, but can we really say that it cost a dollar, just because the buyer paid $1500 for the 1500 coin lot?Maybe the rest of the lot contained worthless arcade tokens, and therefore it cost him a thousand bucks...food for thought. >>

I thought about that too. I think you can look at it either way.

Aethelred · June 5, 2015 1:51PM

My vote is up for sale or trade, please contact me if you are interested in buying my vote.

Swampboy · June 5, 2015 7:30PM

<< My vote is up for sale or trade, please contact me if you are interested in buying my vote. >>

Ah, the spirit of FIFA lives on.

Edit to say #3 got my vote.
That piece would fit right in with the coins in my world silver album as would #2 my second choice.

lordmarcovan · June 5, 2015 7:55PM

<< Hey LM, that's not my entry.its on page 5 of the other thread >>

OK, my apologies to jughead1893 for the error. In the entry thread he gave an eBay auction number for his entry. When I went to go copy the information from that, apparently I accidentally clicked on one of the "similar items" listed at the top of the page, rather than than the token he had actually bought.

Hopefully that has been corrected now.

coinkat · June 5, 2015 9:55PM

I'll vote once I see some of the early returns from the Cook County precincts...

Seriously... some terrific entries

lordmarcovan · June 5, 2015 10:46PM

<< IMO, #1 looks too bright and shiny for a coin that is almost 100 years old. >>

I think it looks awesome, particularly in TPG plastic, for only 20 bucks. Looks like Gem quality to me.

If it were attractively toned, ricko would come along and dislike the "tarnish".

No single coin can please everybody all of the time. To each his own, and all that, y'know.

Diversity is one of many things that make the Darkside so great.

(Edit to recorrect the changes made by my tablet's stupid autorrect feature.)

Aethelred · June 6, 2015 3:25AM

Still waiting on the right bribe...

er, um, donation to the "Aethelred Foudation."

lordmarcovan · June 6, 2015 3:46AM

<< Still waiting on the right bribe...

er, um, donation to the "Aethelred Foudation." >>

PM sent, with appropriate bribe to entice you to begone, O Ye Dead King thing.

Now, scat, before I sic Van Helping or the Exorcist on you. G'wan. Shoo!

Edit- Van Helsing, I meant. Silly autocorrect.

Aethelred · June 6, 2015 10:35AM

There are long lines at the polling stations, can we extend the voting for a day (only in areas where I think I'm winning)?

lordmarcovan · June 8, 2015 12:05PM

One last bump before we wrap up the poll.

lordmarcovan · June 8, 2015 2:45PM

All right, I'm callin' it.

It appears LarkinCollector's Indian coin won with ten votes.

Thatoneguy's 1927 Italian 5-lire came in second, with nine.

So LarkinCollector wins first pick of the prizes.

Thatoneguy gets whichever prize is left.

Congratulations!

I must say I was delighted to see that our visitor from the card forums came in and took the top slot. The whole idea of this thing was to bring in some fresh faces.

These were the poll results:

Total Votes: 50

#1- 1917-S Finland silver 50-pennia, Civil War Issue, NGC MS64 (Purchased by 3keepSECRETif2rDEAD for $20.00)
6 (votes) 12.00 (%)
#2- 1927 Italy silver 5-lire (Purchased by thatoneguy for $10.97)
9 (votes) 18.00 (%)
#3- 1970 Belize silver dollar (Purchased by AA1Coins4Fun for $18.00)
7 (votes) 14.00 (%)
#4- Ancient India (Western Satraps) silver coin, circa 4th century AD (Purchased by LarkinCollector for $18.50)
10 (votes) 20.00 (%)
#5- 1790 Dutch East India Company (Gelderland) copper duit (Purchased by GMan for $6.00)
4 (votes) 8.00 (%)
#6- Unusual 1859 (Narrow 9) Canadian large cent (Purchased by YQQ for $2.40)
0 (votes) 0.00 (%)
#7- 2006 Kurdistan 250-dinar (Eurasian Lynx), PCGS MS67 (Purchased by bcbgboy13 for $15.45)
3 (votes) 6.00 (%)
#8- China Kuang-Hsu silver dollar, Year 25/1899 (Purchased by Jinx86 for $1.00)
4 (votes) 8.00 (%)
#9- Germany (Chemnitz, Saxony) iron 15-pfennig Strassenbahn tram token (Purchased by jughead1893 for $6.75)
1 (votes) 2.00 (%)
Neutral/No Vote/Just show me the poll results
6 (votes) 12.00 (%)

lordmarcovan · June 8, 2015 2:51PM

So, here are the prizes.

As mentioned above, LarkinCollector gets first pick, thatoneguy gets the remaining prize.

A toned 1580 Hungarian denar from me, your humble master of ceremonies:

Or...

A 1927 Australian florin from Musky1011, whose idea this whole thing was.

lordmarcovan · June 8, 2015 11:30PM

LarkinCollector chose the Hungarian denar prize, which I will send.

This means thatoneguy gets Musky1011's Aussie florin.

Thanks again to all who participated. I enjoyed the enthusiasm.

Maybe we can do this again sometime.

LarkinCollector · June 9, 2015 12:23AM

Thanks for putting this together, LM, and for all the help from others choosing which coin to enter in the contest! I'm still shocked that a newbie to coins could actually win and was just looking forward to learning a bit about this side of collecting. The other entries have given me quite a few ideas of coins to keep an eye out for. I'll definitely be checking out the dark side on occasion and have been keeping an eye out on all the NEWP posts (and finally figured out what NEWP stood for). I see more ancient silver in my future

YQQ · June 9, 2015 12:51AM

LordM,
thank you for doing this. Great fun!
perhaps you might consider doing it again soon? Maybe more specific , more restricted to certain countries or coin types?
what do others think?

lordmarcovan · June 9, 2015 12:53AM

LC, I think others will agree with me that you (and several of the other contestants) showed some great natural instinct here.

Kudos to Musky1011 for the initial idea. (And for putting up the other prize).

I think the $20 limit was a good idea. It kept things inexpensive and "entry level" and helped some newer folks get their feet wet without risking too much.

I also think we should do this again sometime. Maybe before the year is out.

GMan · June 9, 2015 2:07AM

I enjoyed it but frankly found the $20 limit very difficult. It's hard to find a nice piece for that little amount. I think if we do it again, we should up the limit to $40 or $50 and let the final purchase price be the tie-breaker. (i.e., Cheapest purchase wins in the event of a tie.) Let me know if you do it again. I've got some Canadian mint/proof sets and I'd offer one of those as a prize if we can up the limit a bit.

nicholasz219 · June 9, 2015 7:55PM

Yorkshireman, you would be surprised how many of those late Empire pieces from Finland show up in high mint states. I do not know if people were hoarding silver because of the civil war/break from Russia/Russia going communist, but I would think so if prior history applies here. But yes there are many good looking coins like this out there. I am surprised at the fact that he was able to buy a slabbed piece at that price though. That is impressive.

I wish I would have participated in this. I know I bought an ancient or two that could have given some old school competition in this category.

GMan, I know that the limit could be maddening depending on what type of coins you are familiar with and specialize in. Like even Russian Empire in general anymore would be hard to find winners under $20 so I would not even try. Ancients, British India, British Farthings, Halfpence and Pennies, those would be where I would be looking. It helps that I collect all of that anyway.

Musky1011 · June 10, 2015 8:34AM

The $20 limit was on purpose.. Just to see who could come up with the nicest coin.. It was to be an entry level coin contest.. Once you get up into the $50 limit some entry level people would not be able to participate... It has been an awesome contest.. I myself had a blast looking on ebay for a coin under $20. .. The florin I put up as a Prize is better looking than the picture.. Very nice coin for $16.

I am happy my friend Lord M put this together from my simple idea.. Hats off to you

Musky

lordmarcovan · June 10, 2015 8:41AM

As I said before, I think the $20 limit was perfect for entry-level folks and entailed a low risk for them.

For those more seasoned buyers who complained that there's nothing sexy under $20, I say, "that's what made it a challenge!"

(And I think our novice contestants were up to the challenge and proved the seasoned naysayers wrong.)

Maybe next time we can cap it at $25, but not much more than that. I like the $20 ceiling.

GMan · June 12, 2015 1:31AM

It just seemed like I couldn't find anything I liked under the limit. I like slabbed coins and it was difficult to find anything worthwhile, slabbed, and under $20.01. Of course all I did was look on eBay. I still had fun and would be happy to play again. I will even contribute a prize!

nicholasz219 · June 13, 2015 5:54AM

Gman, I understand the frustration. It seems that when I solely rely on eBay to buy stuff I will find myself in a funk sometimes of not being able to find or win anything for two or three weeks at a time. Either I am not free when auctions end or I am perpetually the under bidder. In that case I have a few friendly dealers that I go to to get a discount for several coins at a time and still only spend like $30. Takes the thrill out of getting a coin super cheaply but then again it is nice to just know a coin is coming in the mail after losing a hundred auctions in a row.

Musky1011 · June 14, 2015 4:46AM

Pkg sent to winner

AA1Coins4Fun · June 18, 2015 7:36AM

Congrats to the winner and runner up as well as all entries.

LM - Great contest and thanks for holding it. Nice to see how creative folks were to find entries and stay within that limit. I think the $20 cap was about right. I requested to be pulled because I had bought my find before I read about the contest. Although it met the criteria I felt it was luck and would have been much harder to have found something agreeable having known and consciously looking for an entry, so hats off to those that did just that.

***** May &quot;Darkside Challenge&quot; POLL: who made the &quot;best&quot; purchase for under $20?

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***** May "Darkside Challenge" POLL: who made the "best" purchase for under $20?