Bowers and Merena "graded" coins in flips

logger7

I bought a collection of Morgan dollars from Bowers and Merena in flips all graded "MS63" at auction. Sent in to grading at ICG, most all graded MS63 a few graded MS64. It was called "the Princeton Collection". Here is one of the coins, a 1921 Morgan dollar they called "prooflike":

Would one of the other services call it prooflike? ICG seems to be very strict on pls.

seatedlib3991

Beats me but thanks for the flashback. Been working all nighters the past 3 weeks. Saw the name Bowers and Merena and for a minute lost track what decade this is. James

oih82w8

Do you have any of the B & M flips left over? That's another space vacant in my certified coin holders collection.

jacrispies

NGC is loosest when it comes to distributing PL designations on 1921 Morgans. PCGS is difficult, but there is a significant premium with those that are accepted at PCGS.

Walkerguy21D

Not sure if this counts or if it pre-dates the official graded B&M flips:

oih82w8

@Walkerguy21D I am pretty sure Bowers & Ruddy predate Merena. Nice holder!

Walkerguy21D

@oih82w8 said:
@Walkerguy21D I am pretty sure Bowers & Ruddy predate Merena. Nice holder!

Duh moment on me…Lol, good catch!!

logger7

@oih82w8 said:
Do you have any of the B & M flips left over? That's another space vacant in my certified coin holders collection.

I asked ICG if they saved the flips soon after they arrived and they said they don't keep submitter's material, though in the past they have. They were all in Bowers and Merena flips with "MS63" on them.

oih82w8

@logger7 what i meant was if you had any of the coins in their flips left over, or did you send them all to ICG?

WinLoseWin

@logger7 said:

@oih82w8 said:
Do you have any of the B & M flips left over? That's another space vacant in my certified coin holders collection.

I asked ICG if they saved the flips soon after they arrived and they said they don't keep submitter's material, though in the past they have. They were all in Bowers and Merena flips with "MS63" on them.

That's OK, They only threw away a few thousand dollars of your value.
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I'm kidding........I think.

logger7

@oih82w8 said:
@logger7 what i meant was if you had any of the coins in their flips left over, or did you send them all to ICG?

I sent them all in, I was frankly surprised they'd toss them all out. And now I've spent $15 a coin with common MS63 ones going for $70 and MS64 ones going for around $80, talk about a "hobby business"! In this case when you factor in costs there is not profit provided that they sell.

These were not in sealed flips; they seemed informal as someone at B and M was trying to satisfy a collector's interest in a sequence of common date Morgans.

124Spider

I'm curious why one would choose ICG to grade coins, and not PCGS or NGC.

Yes, I know that ICG is reasonably well thought of; but neither ICG nor ANACS is on the same level as PCGS and NGC.

Is ICG cheaper and quicker, so you felt, given that it was a questionable financial decision to get common-date Morgans grated at all, that was a good way to go?

logger7

In retrospect selling the coins in the Bowers and Merena flips would have been far smarter than getting the common dates graded. You just lose a lot of money trying to certify common dates; do the math, MS63 common date Morgans are selling around $70 on ebay in MS63 with shipping included. Ebay costs 10%, shipping $4, materials, etc.. You'd have to buy the coins for less than $50 to even break even. With PCGS or NGC you're paying $20-$30 for certification.

291fifth

The photos make the ICG 1921 look undergraded.

logger7

@291fifth said:
The photos make the ICG 1921 look undergraded.

I don't see the typical PL surfaces but with the 1921 they are more subtle: https://www.pcgs.com/coinfacts/coin/1921-1-morgan-pl/images/7297

I'd just have the question why B & M's representative, unclear who that was who graded the coins in flips that were called "the Princeton Collection", would have called it "prooflike" if it wasn't. The 1921 pls seems to have more subtle characteristics. Most all the coins had a similar look, original skin, scattered marks in keeping with MS63. My understanding is that a coin if a coin is "cartwheel" with luster it cannot be PL.

logger7

This was the larger plastic container for the Morgan dollars. There were a few other Morgan dollars graded "MS63" too:

WinLoseWin

@logger7 said:
This was the larger plastic container for the Morgan dollars. There were a few other Morgan dollars graded "MS63" too:

That answers that they were from their auction and not their retail holders.

Usually there are not grades on the auction flips. Their retail holders are more likely to have grades on them.

If the grades were written by hand, then that may have been by the buyer or a later owner rather than the company. It may or may not match the auction grade. And auction grades themselves were often all over the place accuracy-wise, which became obvious as a consignor in the raw days.

I had undergraded, overgraded and accurate grades with no easy way to guess what a lot would be assigned. Sometimes an undergraded lot would do better than an overgraded one. Pre-auction lot viewing was critical and a big advantage in those times. Even the same company may have given different grades when the same item re-appeared in another of their auctions.

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Here is their intro to that auction. The title to the auction back then didn't mean that was the owner of all the coins unless otherwise stated or pedigreed in the lot listing. It was most often a significant consignor or a more marketable name. Various company's writings often noted that a some sales represented 50 to 100 different consignors.

https://archive.org/details/princetoncollect1986bowe/page/6/mode/2up

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Below is a link to the page with the lot for holder in your photo where the company did grade each piece.

2082 Small group of circulated Morgan silver dollars: 1878-CC Choice Extremely Fine-45; 1878-S AT T-50; two 1879-S AU-50 and Choice Extremely Fine-45; 1890-CC Extremely Fine-40; 1891 Extremely Fine-40; 1894-0 Extremely Fine-40; 1896-0 AU-50 and proof¬ like. (Total: 8 pieces)

It sold for $247.50. This catalog has the prices realized scanned in just after the front cover which is where they usually appear on the NNP if the PR was available.

https://archive.org/details/princetoncollect1986bowe/page/128/mode/2up

logger7

@WinLoseWin said:

@logger7 said:
This was the larger plastic container for the Morgan dollars. There were a few other Morgan dollars graded "MS63" too:

That answers that they were from their auction and not their retail holders.

Usually there are not grades on the auction flips. Their retail holders are more likely to have grades on them.

If the grades were written by hand, then that may have been by the buyer or a later owner rather than the company. It may or may not match the auction grade. And auction grades themselves were often all over the place accuracy-wise, which became obvious as a consignor in the raw days.

I had undergraded, overgraded and accurate grades with no easy way to guess what a lot would be assigned. Sometimes an undergraded lot would do better than an overgraded one. Pre-auction lot viewing was critical and a big advantage in those times. Even the same company may have given different grades when the same item re-appeared in another of their auctions.

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Here is their intro to that auction. The title to the auction back then didn't mean that was the owner of all the coins unless otherwise stated or pedigreed in the lot listing. It was most often a significant consignor or a more marketable name. Various company's writings often noted that a some sales represented 50 to 100 different consignors.

https://archive.org/details/princetoncollect1986bowe/page/6/mode/2up

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Below is a link to the page with the lot for holder in your photo where the company did grade each piece.

2082 Small group of circulated Morgan silver dollars: 1878-CC Choice Extremely Fine-45; 1878-S AT T-50; two 1879-S AU-50 and Choice Extremely Fine-45; 1890-CC Extremely Fine-40; 1891 Extremely Fine-40; 1894-0 Extremely Fine-40; 1896-0 AU-50 and proof¬ like. (Total: 8 pieces)

It sold for $247.50. This catalog has the prices realized scanned in just after the front cover which is where they usually appear on the NNP if the PR was available.

https://archive.org/details/princetoncollect1986bowe/page/128/mode/2up

Thanks for finding that. These may have been auction lots in the group of coins I bought then, possibly there were some mixed in with others but they were all in B and M flips, none of them sealed. If a company is going to assign a grade then I'd think the flips would be sealed. There was an 1891 and an Unc details 79-s; the others were all other dates..

ldhair

I had PVC problems with many of the coins I bought in B&M auction flips. My fault. I should have replaced the holder after receiving them.