Morgan interview with James Sego (video)
cladking
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This is of course @segoja and Charles Morgan. It's pretty good but there's a sound issue.
It's never a very good idea to argue with James Sego unless you want to be wrong but I do disagree with him about the '75 mint sets and '76 type I dollars. He said the choice coins are no longer in the sets because of cherry picking but I doubt this is really true because there are still a quarter million sets in the hands of the original purchasers and these set tend to flow onto the market without being picked over. Indeed, because of the huge tendency of mint sets to be destroyed shortly after they are cherry picked it's likely more than a third of the sets on the market are "fresh".
Back in 1975 it was hardly worth picking through these unless you were pretty fast or very focused. Only about 7 or 8% of the Philly Ikes were what I'd call "chBU". About 60% of those in the sets in 1975 could be wholesaled today as "chBU" but there has been cherry picking and today this is down to about 40% and almost all of them will have to be soaked in alcohol first. These wholesale at $84 per roll.
Gems were tough even back in the day. About .5% were "gemmy" but true Gems were quite a bit tougher: Probably in the .25% area. I haven't looked recently but would guess they are ~.1% or a little lower. Of course, these will need soaking as well.
Long and short of it is I would contend most of the difficulty of finding these is more related to just how bad they were and time has been less than kind to the few survivors. The coins are plagued by planchet scratches and weak strikes. Luster is generally poor under the tarnish and always has been. Scratches and scrapes are more common than some other dates. Most specimens display multiple severe deficiencies.
It never occurred to me that chBU type I phillys would be tough but with most of the sets gone, no significant wholesale market, and the widespread degradation this is the situation today.
But if you have enough sets to check (1000) you should be able to find a solid MS-65.
Things will start evolving now since mint sets are much less likely to be destroyed just because they've been cherry picked. The new higher prices make it expensive to cut up sets only to get picked over coins. The bad sets will accumulate in the market making scarce coins even harder to find.
@segoja is always insightful and I learned a couple new things. Charles Morgan always asks some good questions.
Comments
Interesting interview.
Educational
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@cladking... Thanks for the information and the link. Interesting. I have watched about half, will finish it later. Cheers, RickO
I wonder if and when the market will begin to differentiate between nice fresh mint sets and those that have been kicking around because of the new higher prices preventing their destruction. It's a fascinating question since as time goes by the picked over sets will accumulate in huge percentages and only the fresh high quality sets will be cut up. By "high quality" I mean those with coins that are worth more than the value of the set. Usually this will mean a very high grade coin meaning some nice sets will not be destroyed. But the time will come that you can't easily find even a nice chBU '75 t I and this is about the minimum grade most modern collectors demand.
Of course just like real coins (morgan dollars) you can't really tell whether a set is fresh or picked over. All you can tell for sure is whether there are any nice coins or varieties in it. With a grouping of sets then you can be sure whether it's fresh or not.
Very few people collect intact sets but this could change as well going forward and nice sets become much harder to find, more and more are destroyed, more sets become tarnished, and ugly sets accumulate in the marketplace because demand has caused higher prices.
Right now mint sets are still being treated like a commodity. But I doubt many buyers are going to want a shipment of ugly or heavily picked over sets and retail buyers certainly won't accept dark and corroded sets.
I have to believe this is temporary anyway because the rate at which mint sets are flowing into the market has been dropping for many years as there are very few original buyers left. Pretty much all the pre-'70 sets have already hit the marketplace leaving only what is in the hands of collectors and dealers. Wholesalers used to stock only a few hundred sets of each date and likely still do. You simply don't need bulky expensive stock when dealers buy them five or ten at a time and retail customers buy very few. These are continually flowing in from dealers and if they run low they can just offer a little more and they can quickly rebuild stocks.
These are interesting times for mint sets and for Ikes. Demand from the public is insatiable. Supply seems ample but more and more sets are picked over so supplies are much smaller than apparent. Perhaps @segoja is right that there are no Gems in mint sets but even if I'm right the fact is that with a quarter million sets surviving and 1 : 1000 being Gem this leaves a mere "250" Gem '75 t I Ikes to dribble onto the market for the next 50 years!!!
People didn't appreciate the rarity of modern coins in 1975 and today they don't appreciate the much greater rarity. But with all the new found demand for chBU I think the market will soon have to respond. With the increasing difficulty of finding nice coins in mint sets there will be increasing demand for singles that even wholesalers don't have in meaningful quantities.
The '76 t I Ike is the canary in the coal mine.
I literally had to turn it it off immediately after Charles completely botched his discussion of the fascinating and highly collectible proof Ike dollar series. James didn’t show it the complete disrespect Charles did although James (who I respect on the subject of Ikes) did unfortunately utter what I heard to be a few erroneous details about the proof Ike series (e.g. you can build a complete 70 set for about $6,000 or so, and around 80% of the proof Ikes are grading 69DCAM upon submission-if I misunderstood James on these 2 points my apologies in advance). First, please sell me a bunch of PCGS 70 sets at $6,000/set any time this year (this will give anyone enough time to “dust off” the proofs and get them into PCGS). Hey- to increase the priority of the project, let’s just round it up $10,000/set. Please sell me a few of these before the year is out at $10,000/set for the 11 PCGS clad/silver coins (first come, first served - I’ll buy 3 total sets please for inventory). That’s my open invitation to pay over $900/coin on average for these 11 pc PCGS clad/silver proof sets (3 of them before year end for my stock) that have no future (to paraphrase) while they discuss in this chat the highly collectible $100-$500 Mint State examples (LOL). The Ike proofs obviously must have some future - anyone out there want to make an “easy” $10,000 for $11 face value?
Second, regarding the difficulty of obtaining true 69DCAM coins- one would not know this unless one submits the quantities of proofs I do, but not only are a number of the dates in the series not grading out at 80% in 69, there are date(s) grading out as little as 5%-10% (and even as low as 2%-4%) on fresh set submissions! But, again, you can’t discuss these matters unless you are “walking the walk” which James acknowledged he has not been doing with the proofs (fair enough and I can respect that) and Charles (for some unexplained reason) isn’t interested in doing or even studying up on (listen to his evaluation of the proof Ikes and tell me if I misunderstood his (lack of) interest in that series).
The discussion of the rarity of “monster deep, deep cameos” throughout the proof Ike series was also largely ignored beyond a comment that 1978’s come nice. Lol.
The discussion of the fascinating proof Ike varieties was ignored entirely as well.
You really can’t have a serious discussion about Ike dollars without discussing in depth (or at least strongly considering) the incredible proofs.
As always, just my 2 cents.
Wondercoin
I noticed this as well.
I just completed selling a lifetime accumulation of blue and brown Ikes that were cherry picked from large and small accumulations both. Of course I saved out 20 or 30 very high grades and varieties for slabbing. These coins were far from 69 or 70. Most needed soaking just to get full wholesale. I'm sure the buyers are happy but they might not have much better luck than I did. Even rare moderns tend to go begging unless they are highly desirable varieties or among the finest graded. There just aren't many collectors who care about high grades and the few who do collect pop tops and ultrahigh grades. I'll be surprised if more than a couple or few of the ones I saved will go 70. The blue Ikes I saved look like mostly 67's and a few 68's.
High grade blue and brown Ikes are very pretty but there aren't that many that are clean, well struck, and attractive. indeed, most brown Ikes are pretty if they aren't too badly tarnished but they do have little marks and they aren't all well struck. Clean blue Ikes are tough but most are at least Gem (MS-65).
I shouldda saved all the varieties but I had no clue as to their scarcity.
I figured he had a little poetic license and just took it to mean that these come nice. In "high grade" the blue and brown Ikes are easy even if they are not easy in the two highest grades. In "high grade" most of the Ikes made for circulation and the '73-P & D are tough. Some are tough in the three highest grades and it would be more if they all existed in MS-67 & 68.
A complete set of Ikes a couple grades off of pop top would be very desirable, very scarce, and very inexpensive. With a lot of effort such a set could be assembled for less than $300 ungraded, or graded for a little more money and a lot more time and effort.
‘’In "high grade" the blue and brown Ikes are easy even if they are not easy in the two highest grades.’’
CK: Keep in mind two things. First, there are exceptions even in these “easier” blues and browns. And, second, if our job as true Ike collectors is to tuck away the nicest 1% or 2% of the coins for each date we can find, there is the same challenge facing us whether the coin is a 1971-P MS or a 1971-S Blue MS. Let’s quickly discuss.
First, you mention blue and browns are easy in grades up to MS68 and more difficult in 69 and 70 grade. But, this is simply not the case with respect to the 1971-S 40% Silver Blue. For that coin, I believe about 1% of the coins in the existing material in the marketplace grade MS67. Indeed, only about 5% of every graded coin at PCGS has achieved the grade and the vast majority are never submitted as the quality is so bad (or fail to achieve the Min. Grade of the submittor). In grades of MS67+ and higher less than 1/10 of 1% of all submitted coins grade out there. Probably less than 1/50 of 1% exist still in the raw.
Second, finding true 69DCAM “browns” with “monster” deep cameo surfaces for some of the dates and metals are like looking for a needle in a haystack. The same as trying to find a high grade monster DCAM Franklin or Lincoln cent from 1951. Information is just coming out on what the showstopper dates and metals are. And, it’s no secret 1978-S Ikes come with the deepest cameo surfaces. But, I could still show you the top 1% of the 1978-S DCAM coins and the coins would almost bring tears to the eyes of Ike $1 DCAM enthusiasts!
Just my 2 cents
Wondercoin
As a rule of thumb I think you just about nailed it: The top one or two percent of moderns look really great.
It's not that the others are ugly or uncollectible but some coins like a mid-range '76 type I Ike or '69 quarter really is ugly. '66 quarters were so bad that you need to get up into the 80th percentile just to get a "chBU".
Of course it varies from year to year and some dates the top 10% are great looking coins. Others it's less than .5%
But as a rule the top 1 or 2% are very attractive coins whether they are Unc or BU.
20 years ago there were lots of nice worn coins in circulation. Even a poorly made clad will look great after years and years of nice even wear hides the manufacturing defects. But in the last 20 years the coins in circulation have been scratched up pretty badly and the oldest coins are seldom seen and heavily worn.
Mint and proof sets (blue and browns) are corroding and hazing so finding attractive clads and silver clads is becoming decidedly more difficult.
Great video! I know I've bought at least a couple of IKEs from Segoja.. I wish they talked more about the 1972 Varieties..
James Sego is a good guy! I remember buying a few high end Morgan dollars from him at shows way back when, and I also remember him being quite friendly and having fair prices.
Your hobby is supposed to be your therapy, not the reason you need it.
Excellent video
Tom