does having the name eliasberg on a slab make ...
JTMC
Posts: 253
it worth paying a large premium? i saw a 1935 buffalo nickle in a ngc 64 eliasberg slab for over $150 and it only books for $40 on pcgs price list
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I paid a $150 premium for an Eliasberg 1883 No Cents PCGS MS64 because it comes with two stories.
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john
jb
if i didnt pay thru the nose for a 1938 d/s earlier i would have probably bid on that one. it was a really nice coin. too bad you didnt get it.
al h.
All the above are great numismatists, but they ALL had their share of dogs in their collections.
"Binion" isn't really even a pedigree, just an NGC marketing tool. Binion wasn't a collector, numismatist, or anything even close.....just had a big stash of random, mostly common date coins in a vault somewhere.
Who are those guys???? When you get a REAL pedigreed coin like "V. Brand Collection", let me know :-)
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I've handled a couple of Eliasberg coins that were OK, and the premium was not outragious. But it seems that the name can get tied up with "trap" offerings that can cost collectors too much money.
An "Eliasberg" provenance DOES add a legitimate premium to a coin.
He was one of the great numismatists of the 20th century, and I would gladly pay extra for a coin from his collection in the same way that I would pay extra for a famous autograph. Perhaps it isn't about the coin, and perhaps that's not necessarily a bad thing.
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Others just had their noses in the air and would not give a guy like me the time of day. And frankly with an attitude like that, I'm not rushing to join their fan club.
I've held on to some coins because of the memories that I associated with them, either though a specific person or the circumstances. Others that were less important and don't matter to me.
As for what the former owner premium should be, that's in the eyes of the buyer. For me the price difference between an MS-61 and an MS-65, which is several thousand dollars is too high of a price to pay just because this coin was one of several thousand that big collector X once owned.
I might point out that it is only the US collectors who have totally adulterated this concept so that less significant things (tiny differences in technical grade, etc.) have come more into play. European collectors, etc. are much more into the history of things. As they should be.
There is, in the current Heritage Signature Comics catalog, a oil painting of Snoopy ostensibly drawn by Charles Schulz. He did not sign it, but there is very strong evidence that he created it. Anyway, the thing is what it is regardless of who painted it. BUT, if we can attach his name to the thing, all of the sudden it is worth a lot more money becasue of all the associations we now have with the work - it is a truly a piece of "Americana" then, even though what is physically is hasn't change one iota.
It's the same thing with coins. An 1884 trade dollar is still an 1884 trade dollar, but if it is the one that Eliasberg owned, then it somehow has a bit more cachet. Unless you are Laurie, then it is still a "wannabee classic rarity", and well, who would want to own that
I still rate pedigreed slabbed coins as being worth between 0-15% extra of the market price of the same coin without the pedegree.
Yeah, I caught the wink, Coinasaurus. Nevertheless would you prefer to own 18th-century Joe Shmoe's signature or Thomas Jefferson's? (Never mind the fact that he owned slaves.)
It is indeed in the eye of the beholder, and to prove the point, let me say that I collect Notgeld.
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