Engraved slugs to "complete" an album?

lkenefic

I'm looking at the last (mostly) completed albums of Lincoln Cents I kept after selling off pretty much everything. The lone blank space is for the 1955 DDO. But even if I bought one, I would prefer it to be slabbed thus still leaving a hole in a now "completed" set. Does anyone sell engraved slugs of the size to fit the coin's slot in an album? I could see having US Cent sized slugs engraved with 1955 DDO, the grade, certification number of the coin you have... heck, it could be a new revenue stream for some enterprising young TPG... I'd much prefer that to the cardboard plug they had in the Whitman folders when I was a kid. Mercury Dimes had a spot for a 1916-D like that. It just gave the impression that it was unobtainable... so why bother. But if I had a dime sized piece engraved with the information of my certified 1916-D, I could plug it into my album and get that sense of accomplishment... or at least a reason to keep the rest of the common dates... lol...

Thoughts?

Jzyskowski1

Buy the d.Carr 55dd. Their awesome and only $30. Looks great and Mr.Carr is not a bad provenance 😉🦫🙀
Grove Mint as I recall, partnered with d. Carr, that’s where I got mine Grove mint website

DRUNNER

I use blank planchets. An engraver can (cheaply) put the date/grade/slab cert right on it and you are set.

Drunner

JBK

Or use a Chinese counterfeit.

PerryHall

Take a small cent sized pic of your slabbed coin and glue it to a piece of round cardboard and put it in your album.

ricko

Empty holes in an album can be mental hell for those with OCD I have a couple of albums from my collecting years ago... they have some empty holes - I never look at them anymore. My collecting philosophy and practices have changed. Cheers, RickO

braddick

My three-cent silvers slide around the Dansco 7070 type set, so I had to place them in flips and gently taped to the album's inside cover.
I also had to do so with the half-dimes.
Does anyone have a better solution?

FrankH

@braddick said:
My three-cent silvers slide around the Dansco 7070 type set, so I had to place them in flips and gently taped to the album's inside cover.
I also had to do so with the half-dimes.
Does anyone have a better solution?

Tiny slivers cut from the album slides make excellent shims.

FrankH

Could you stuff two 1955s in the hole? Thus having a 55 ...literally... over a 55!

lkenefic

@FrankH said:

@braddick said:
My three-cent silvers slide around the Dansco 7070 type set, so I had to place them in flips and gently taped to the album's inside cover.
I also had to do so with the half-dimes.
Does anyone have a better solution?

Tiny slivers cut from the album slides make excellent shims.

I've done this to help stop my Large Cents from rotating in the album... works well.

braddick

@FrankH said:

@braddick said:
My three-cent silvers slide around the Dansco 7070 type set, so I had to place them in flips and gently taped to the album's inside cover.
I also had to do so with the half-dimes.
Does anyone have a better solution?

Tiny slivers cut from the album slides make excellent shims.

You're thinking little bits of the plastic slide on top and bottom of the coin or at the sides?
Either way, I like your thinking!

Mr_Spud

I usually just put in a substitute coin in an album if it is a key date and/or expensive variety and keep the actual coin in its slab. Like, I’ll put a 1916 dime with no mintmark in the album in the place of the 1916-d that is in the slab. This way the album looks complete and when people turn the page, the reverses aren’t labeled anyway.

For the 1955 ddo, I have a poor man’s 55 with machine doubling in the album, but I’m considering putting in one of these on top of a regular wheat cent in the album so that if you view the obverse it’s the reproduction 55 ddo, but if you turn the page and look at the reverse you see the wheat reverse. Not to try and trick people, but just to make the album look more presentable. If I ever wanted to sell the album, I’d remove these kinds of substitutes.

MarkKelley

Here's a composite of what others have said: buy a cheap Chinese counterfeit and engrave that with your info.

FrankH

@braddick said:

@FrankH said:

@braddick said:
My three-cent silvers slide around the Dansco 7070 type set, so I had to place them in flips and gently taped to the album's inside cover.
I also had to do so with the half-dimes.
Does anyone have a better solution?

Tiny slivers cut from the album slides make excellent shims.

You're thinking little bits of the plastic slide on top and bottom of the coin or at the sides?
Either way, I like your thinking!

Trim a strip the depth of the album hole off the end of the plastic slide.
Curl it into the hole. Push the coin in.

Don't eat bacon while doing this. But it does make nice fingerprints.

braddick

^

BStrauss3

You can have a service bureau laser cut them out and engrave anything you want. You can also buy "Certified Coin" proxies on eBay.

lkenefic

@BStrauss3 said:
You can have a service bureau laser cut them out and engrave anything you want. You can also buy "Certified Coin" proxies on eBay.

Thanks! I had no idea these even existed.

124Spider

The vast majority of the coins in my collections are raw coins in Whitman or Dansco albums. But I have certified coins (I'm unwilling to spend big bucks on uncertified coins). I just use a coin of the same denomination, but different series, to fill the hole in the album. For instance, the holes in my Lincoln cent album (Dansco, so no slot for the 1955 DDO), I fill with nice-looking (but common date) Indian head cents (I enjoyed using a 1909 IHC to fill the 1909-S VDB slot).

braddick

All the above are wonderful workarounds, yet I'd be bothered having a coin in the slot that doesn't belong. I have learned to live with the empty spot in the album.

Sapyx

I've never understood the compulsion to "complete the album", but I appreciate that many collectors do. The "blame", if blame must be laid, ought to be directed towards the album-makers who put those holes in their albums, with the unrealistic expectation that people will buy super-expensive coins and stick them in their album alongside the worth-face-value coins in the set.

People who buy slabbed coins to "complete a set" in an album have three options:

1. Smash the slab open and put the newly-deslabbed coin in the album, and hang the expense.
2. Make or purchase some kind of "substitute" coin to fill the hole; note that you don't actually need to own a genuine coin in order to do this.
3. Learn to live with the gaping void in your life.

None of these options are optimal.

BStrauss3

Lacking creativity?

4. Take a picture of the certified coin(s) and place that as an endpaper or in a pocket in the album
5. Use a proxy coin - solely as an example https://www.ebay.com/itm/304188482820
6. Have a proxy made at a laser printing service - you send them a pdf and some money they send you the disk. You can design it on almost any program, the ones I'm aware of use two different colors to differentiate between cut and engrave, so you can put your own legend like the grade & cert#

PerryHall

Take a pic of your slabbed coin the same size as the coin. Cut it out and paste it to a common cent and stick it in your album.