Best Of

Fraisse bronze. Bought it just because I like it...

There are a total of 49 of these in this MS63 grade (26 by PCGS and 23 by NGC). Of those 49 in this grade, ONLY TWO merit a CAC sticker! Some die cracks on the obverse, including the so-called “Scarface” die crack.

I bought the below 1838 as a 64. I liked it so much when I got it in hand, I sent it back to PCGS for Reconsideration. Sure enough, despite the booger coming out of her nose, lol, they agreed, and added on a plus. That little plus doubles the value!

Steve

OK, now I’ll post this one…

Good morning. It is Sunday, February 22nd. Today we move into the quarters.


Our type today is the Capped Bust Quarter (1831-38). This is the smaller diameter subtype.


Since this is a virtual 7070 album and not a physical one, I say you could also post the earlier (1815-28) larger diameter coins as well. These are excluded from the physical album because they won’t fit in the hole.


I presently have only one coin of this type. It is in my holed 19th century type set.






Here is a large-diameter piece I had. My previous “best of type” was an 1815 in PCGS VF25, but this 1818 F12 CAC is the only one I have photos of.





This small-diameter piece was a PCGS VF25. I do not think I have ever owned a Capped Bust quarter of either subtype which graded higher than VF25.

@TomB said:

@TheMayor said:

@TomB said:

@jesbroken said:
I would feel that with Laura's expertise(and I know her only from posts) she would not need to send to CAC or place her own sticker. If she didn't bother to send to CAC, then that would be good enough for me. She would be keeping the price down for the same quality with or w/o another sticker. I would rather have paid $22,5k for the T$ than $40k with a CAC sticker. It's the same coin for goodness sake. I realize that $40k was only TDN's opinion. But I feel that CAC would be for ebay, online buying with unknown sellers. Someone like Laura, Rick Snow or another qualified seller's opinion would be enough without driving the market up without improving the coin. JMO
Jim

This is an interesting thought, but I see a problem with your strategy. If a coin is fine to buy from a source such as Laura or Rick when it doesn't have a CAC sticker, but is not fine to buy from ebay or some other seller without the CAC sticker, then what happens when you want to eventually sell the coin yourself?

All coins that are purchased are eventually sold (generally true) and if you aren't Laura or Rick then you are faced with the CAC obstacle that you have just mentioned that they can avoid. Are your choices to either offer the coin back to the source, if they are interested and/or still in business, or to face the uphill battle of selling it yourself as someone without their reputation and having a coin without a CAC sticker?

The strategy works if you are able to get into the non-CAC coin at a compelling, non-CAC price. Then, of course when you sell, you will receive a non-CAC price as well, but you are not really losing in this scenario. If your goal is to own nice, problem-free coins that fit your taste and collecting goals, this isn't a bad strategy.

Of course, if you buy low you can sell low and be fine financially. However, the post I was quoting was specifically stating that high end dealers such as Laura or Rick could sell non-CAC coins, but essentially everyone else would likely need a CAC sticker on such pieces. So, we already know that Laura or Rick are not going to sell you a wonderful, non-CAC coin at bottom of the barrel pricing, which means that if you bay a coin from them, unless you can get it into a CAC sticker you will take a loss upon resale since the vast majority of buyers are unknown, anonymous, no reputation collectors who will have to sell on ebay or to other dealers.

I see. Laura offered me the 1883 in this thread for $25k, so my previous response was colored by the knowledge that she would in fact offer non-CAC coins for non-CAC prices. I viewed the coin in-hand and didn't spot anything technically wrong with it, but the toning pattern didn't match my preferences. For proofs of that era, I prefer more fully or evenly toned coins, or black and white with contrast. This one was somewhere in between. I eventually ended up buying the much more expensive 1883 PR67CAM CAC that Bruce referenced when he sold a few of his dupes last year. Unfortunately, a worse value but it more closely matched a look that I enjoy, so to me it was worth it. Forgive the crappy iPhone pic:

Sorry man, I gotta bend the rules on this one!!!