Why not every rare coin has been slabbed, Part CCCXXVII
CaptHenway
Posts: 32,353 ✭✭✭✭✭
There is a nice thread about a High Relief $20 that showed up at our host’s table at a show. Great story. It reminds me of a story.
Back in the mid-70’s I was working for Coin World. My friend there David T. Alexander had nice nextdoor neighbors who picked up his mail when he was on the road and generally kept an eye on his place. Good people.
One day the guy shows David a full page ad from the Dayton paper for a traveling road show coin buyer. You know the ads. They were paying $3 for silver dollars, etc. etc. Guy asks David are these good prices? David says that he could probably do a little better at our local coin shop, and what did he have? Guy says “Just some stuff my Dad left me,” and would David take a look at it? David says he has a friend at work (me) who knows U.S. stuff he can ask. I say sure and we set up an evening to meet at the couple’s apartment after dinner.
We show up, the guy sets up a card table and some chairs and goes upstairs and comes back down with an old, tattered shoe box full of old, tattered envelopes. He sits down, starts picking through the envelopes and picks one up and says “I see where they are paying $3 for silver dollars” and tips a coin out of the envelope and hands me a VF 1799!
We spent hours going through the shoe box. David went back to his apartment and got a box of coin envelopes and a coin box and we wrote up everything that was any good. There was a high grade 1922 “No D” (by 1970’s standards) cent loose in an envelope of misc. cents. There was an 1864 Half Dime loose in an envelope with a few dozen loose Half Dimes. There was half an original BU roll of a common date S.L. Quarter. It was FUN!
After the coins were put back under the mattress (!) (with some recommendations from us about safer storage), the wife is serving tea and a nice pound cake. I can see the man make a decision, and he asks us if we would like to see “the good stuff” from the bank!
I ask what do you have, and he says, and I quote: “There’s a $20 gold piece but I don’t know the date because it’s in Roman Numerals.”
Holy (Bleep!)
We make an appointment for two nights later so he can go to the bank and get the coins. Again he sets up the table and chairs while David and I await with considerable anticipation. We give him a velvet pad and he tips out the High Relief onto it. The coin is totally gorgeous. You can see a picture of it on the cover of the first two editions of the Coin World Almanac. He said his father got it from his bank when they came out.
After we have finished explaining the history of the coin and why it is so wonderful and caught our breath, I ask him what else there was. He picks up an envelope, looks down in it and starts to fold up the envelope and put it back. I ask what is that? He says "You don’t want to see it." I ask again What Is That? And he says “It no good! It’s scratched.” I opined, perhaps a bit forcefully, “WHAT IS THAT???” and he reluctantly hands me the envelope. In it is an AU Turban Head $10 with some adjustment marks across the face! He was ashamed of it! We explained to him that it was made that way.
Next coin is an AU 1795 Draped Bust Dollar. Next was a group of gold dollars, quarter eagles and a $3. Again we wrote everything up and told him to get it back to the bank. (We borrowed the High Relief for photography later.) More tea and cake.
David kept in touch with the family, including the couple’s daughter after the couple passed, and as of a few years ago the coins were still sitting in those envelopes I wrote up in a safety deposit box somewhere.
DON’T EVER TELL ME THAT THERE MUST BE SOMETHING WRONG WITH A COIN IF IT IS NOT IN A SLAB!
TD
Comments
Super story!
Sounds like a very special day.
Great write up, Captain!
Love stories like these, especially when I know the source is reputable.
Dead Cat Waltz Exonumia
"Coin collecting for outcasts..."
Proves there are still treasures out there waiting to be uncovered.
The finest 1885 trade dollar sits raw in a safe deposit box approximately 15 miles from my house. An absolutely beautiful multi colored GEM.
What a great story. And the best part is you actually held them in your hand!! 👍🏻 👍🏻
Disclaimer: I'm not a dealer, trader, grader, investor or professional numismatist. I'm just a hobbyist. (To protect me but mostly you! 🤣 )
Is this the one where you staked your claim when the owner wishes to sell?
"Got a flaming heart, can't get my fill"
I sure hope he remembers…
Great story. I'm sure there's still some amazing stuff tucked away that has yet to be "discovered". Stories like this make this hobby fun!
Mark
I enjoyed the read, thank you
It's all about what the people want...
I've been saying this for years. Just a couple years ago, I saw a collection that came in for an insurance appraisal: 500 years of British copper, mostly UNC and including proofs. 100% raw. Amazing group of coins.
Cap'n, I have always felt that those who feel "THERE MUST BE SOMETHING WRONG WITH A COIN IF IT IS NOT IN A SLAB" should spend some time working in a Coin Shop. I did that for 10-15 years and was good friends with the owner prior to his hiring me and I can tell you that there's still a lot out there stashed away. We were small peanuts yet saw remarkable coins with regularity, stuff hidden away for decades.
Aside from your enchanting story, I'd like to hear about that Pound Cake!!
While at ANACS we once received in an Uncish Turban Head $5 wrapped in a folded piece of very heavy paper on which was written in old style ink something like:
"To Freddie.
An American Guinea
Christmas, 1799"
or whatever the year was on the note. Obviously Freddie had kept the gift and it passed down in his family as an heirloom. Since we were not slabbing back then it might still be wrapped in that note.
Classic Exonumia!!
Stories like this are why I always take the time to allow someone to show me their coins when they say "I have some old coins around here but no idea what they are". The hunt continues.
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Wonderful and entertaining story, thanks for sharing!
Thanks for sharing the story. Very Neat. I wonder if they have a copy of the coin world almanac with the featured cover coin in the collection too.
When I lived in Ohio, the elderly high school music teacher gave lessons after school in his home. One day I had to pick up my daughter from her clarinet lesson and was invited in to wait while they finished up. Afterwards he was giving me a small tour of all the plants he was overwintering in his basement when I noticed a large stack of Coin World magazines, so I quickly changed the subject Lol!
Long story short, he had an aunt who worked at the Cleveland federal reserve many years ago. He was able to acquire original rolls of all dates, mints and denominations going back to the 1930’s, and maintained the run up to the present day. He had other collections too, but the roll set was his pride and joy. I called dibs on more than occasion, but never heard back. No idea if it’s still intact or not.
I love stuff like this. One of the coins I’m hanging on to is a 1795 FH dollar that came my way a few years back. Just before I bought it, an older fellow showed up at a B&M coin shop with it loose in his pocket. The owner (a member here that I haven’t seen in a while) bought it, got it slabbed, and now it lives with me.
Great story, nice read.
You should follow up. I'd be insanely interested in knowing what is in there.
I'm pretty sure we gave them a copy of the First Edition.
And now, the rest of the story.
When David and I were done cataloguing everything for them, the gentleman said "What do I owe you?" We of course said "Nothing," as one would do with a friendly neighbor. However, he insisted that we take something, so we each took one of the BU Standing Liberty quarters, worth about $80 each at the time. But I got my reward.
As a Coin World staffer I was often asked to serve as an Exhibit Judge at coin shows in west-central Ohio. One of the members of a coin club I belonged to had an exhibit on St. Gaudens $20's that I saw several times at various shows. He displayed obverse and reverse of regular coins, but one case had a tribute to the High Relief coins illustrated by pictures, not an actual coin. I knew from talking with him that he lusted after the High Relief $20's, but could never bring himself to spend the $3,000 or so that one would have cost back then.
This blankety-blank was a pirate! His profession was a house painter, and when he was working in people's homes for a few days he would schmooze them, get to know them and on the last day casually mention that he collected coins, and did the people have anything they might want to sell? One coin club meeting he came in with a handful of Seated Liberty coins and bragged that he had only paid the little old lady 60% OF FACE VALUE because "we don't use those coins anymore!" I hated his guts, but hid it well.
At the next meeting where I saw him, I told him pretty much the story you see above, except that I deliberately lied to him about where the coins were so that he would not harass the people. I also left out the part about giving them values and telling them to put all of the good stuff in a safety deposit box.
When I got to the part about the High Relief, he literally groaned in agony at the lost opportunity to steal the coin. When I finished the story, he assumed that David and I had done what he would have done, and he said: "So how much did you give him for it?"
I carefully put a shocked, shocked look on my face and said: "Why, we didn't buy it! We told them what everything was worth and told them to put it in a safety deposit box!!!"
He shouted "WHAT?????" He literally could not believe that somebody would do the right thing, because he sure as hell would never have done it!
I smiled all the way home!
Every once in a while the stars align perfectly, resulting in the a situation like that described by CaptHenway above.
He read the tea leaves and used the opportunity presented at the next coin club meeting to hit the pirate house painter right where it hurt the most (telling him portions of a story; leaving out particulars that would give the pirate house painter a possible way to figure out who the owner of the 1907 high relief double eagle was; and telling the pirate house painter that he did the right thing).
The pirate house painter probably thinks about "what might have been" every hour of every day, to his torment.
Fun story!
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That's honestly disgusting. Is there a lot of those kinds of dealers in the profession?
What a piece of work. Was this guy a real house painter or a house painter in the mafioso sense?
Philippians 4:4-7
I don’t think it’s impossible you could find an estate like that but in my my experience very improbable at this juncture. Many estates looked at recently the good stuff (if any) sold off years ago.
That painter guy (what a lowlife - probably an ex con) did not exactly even try fly under the radar nor get a copy of NN or CW get an idea what the coins even remotely worth. Somebody painting my house like that would just BS them don’t have any / as they there to steal. Watch out for screwballs like that. You don’t know if it’s the owner (businessman) or some dipx employee xcon. Either way would not reveal anything.
This person was not a dealer. He was a collector.
That said, there are honest people in life and dishonest people in life. You will find them on both sides of the table. Neither side of the table has a monopoly on integrity.
TD
Why would you say probably an ex-con? He was a well-respected local businessman who owned his own business and had probably been doing it for 30-40 years. As I said above there are honest people in life and dishonest people in life. Their station in life means nothing so far as their integrity goes.
TD
Great story for sure. Thanks for sharing it.
Donato
Donato's Complete US Type Set ---- Donato's Dansco 7070 Modified Type Set ---- Donato's Basic U.S. Coin Design Set
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CaptHenway, I have the utmost respect for you as a numismatist, and I always enjoy reading and learning from your posts on this forum so please don't take my comment the wrong way. However, I am having a hard time squaring your story above with your comment below. If this gentleman truly was a well-respected businessman, that respect was misplaced. Anyone that would pay a little old lady 60% of face for any coinage, let alone Seated Liberty coinage because "we don't use those coins anymore" is a crook plain and simple. I wish they would have been prosecuted for elder abuse and were a current convict rather than an ex-con.
Philippians 4:4-7
This was raw, unknown and came out of nowhere. Discoveries are made often in all collectible categories.
Don't tell me either. I collected a lot of my coins in the pre-slab era. They are still in the bank either in an old album or 2X2. But many potential buyers will use this as an excuse to get good coins at a cheap cost. This will not happen to me. I know that there has to be many, many coins that just simply did not get slabbed yet. I am 71 years old. There are people 20-25 years older then me that have likely done the same.
edited to add. Some of my album coins I de-slabbed to put in the albums.
Same here. When I resumed collecting in 2005, I chose to collect coins off eBay that were not TP graded as I wanted to fill Dansco albums. I'm glad i did as there were some nice coins out there. I'm halfway through grading the more valuable coins now, which is bittersweet because the Danscos are now full of holes. Nice, raw coins have become harder to find on eBay and I'm not helping things.
At the LCS an old disheveled man with very large ears, that served him well to brush the dandruff from his stooped shoulders pulled out a capitol board from an ancient crumpled brown paper bag, it was filled up with all the keys in UNC. Then he proceeeded to pull out all the whole Educational note series in high graded pmg plastic. Turned out he was the treasurer for Covina Coin Club...
Know that feeling. Don't know why I hang on to the old Dansco RED album I used.
Lots of holes.
From there to:
And thence to selling off. Mixed opinion about the selling off.
Ever see Leo Young's type set? KEYS KEYS KEYS
Still, that is a scummy thing to do.
That's because you aren't looking in the right place. Last I checked, the 1802 half dime had 17 graded, excluding PCGS "details" coins where the data isn't public. The three NGC coins are all AU-50 and possibly not three coins, maybe one. The itemized survivors are 35 or near it, per prior Heritage auction descriptions.
If this many of this coin aren't graded, it's almost certainly not unusual of most others.
In a prior Coin Week article, Jeff Garrett wrote an article sharing your sentiments. In the same article in the reader comments, Harvey Stack basically told Garrett he was wrong.
1802 half dimes are unusual.
Almost all of them are details or very low grades.
So the missing counts for the details coins are quite significant in the overall total.
I have a story about an 1802 Half Dime.
For many years before I went to work for Coin World's Collectors Clearinghouse the department was run by James G. "Jim" Johnson, a retired teacher from New England who had had to take early retirement because of his deafness. He came in when Coin World was new and started Collectors Clearinghouse. When he retired from that in 1974 that created an opening that I moved into, though he stayed on a few months to clear off his desk. (Yes, it took that long.)
Before coming to CW Jim was an enthusiastic old-time collector on a teacher's limited budget. He had set out to build a complete collection of non-gold and non-Proof U.S. business strikes in "affordable" grades. His 1894-S Barber Dime was only Good, but he had one. He passed away in the 1980's.
While I was at Harlan Berk's table at a Denver ANA (1996?) a man came up and handed me what may be the worst full date 1802 Half Dime in existence. The coin had been bent down below the bust long ago so that as everything else wore smooth the date remained fully readable. I did not want to buy it for inventory so I politely said that it wasn't for us, but that I used to work with a guy who it would have been perfect for. I said that this guy has a complete collection of non-gold business strike coins in low grade and his name was Jim Johnson, and the guy blurts out "That was my Father!"
Sure enough it was Jim's son, maybe 60ish at the time, and he still had most of the collection. Can I call them or what! Anyways, he sat down and we had a nice long chat about Jim.
What a cool story!
It was an example only. Use any other you want, like the 1878-S half dollar. Heritage provides conflicting estimates of 48 and 60 in two listings, maybe others in more recent sales. The combined TPG data at the time was 39, once again excluding all "details" coins.
If even one 1878-S 50c, 1802 half dime, or similar coin is not accounted for in the TPG data, yes, it's entirely believable that most other coins have many more survivors than the TPG data indicate.
Most US coins are either common or very common.
For me the reason for certification is to interdict fraud.
Clearly there are many great coins that are neat to examine raw and to have in a safe place where they can be shared out of a holder.