What's the half-life of a PR70 coin?
Steve27
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Over on the Registry forum there are pictures of quite a few PR70 cents, all with obvious flaws. I believe that when these coins were slabbed they met the "perfect under 5x magnification" requirement for a PR70, but they "went bad" in the slab. So how long will a PR70 stay a PR70? (I would think that copper coins would go bad first , followed by silver, then gold, but they will eventually all go bad due to environmental conditions.)
"It's far easier to fight for principles, than to live up to them." Adlai Stevenson
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There were a bunch of PR 70 DCAM Jeffersons slabbed several years ago. About half of the ones I looked at didn't deserve the grade, I sent them back to PCGS who subsequently downgraded them. It seems they did not go bad in the holder, they were just graded too high to begin with.
<< <i>Over on the Registry forum there are pictures of quite a few PR70 cents, all with obvious flaws. I believe that when these coins were slabbed they met the "perfect under 5x magnification" requirement for a PR70, but they "went bad" in the slab. So how long will a PR70 stay a PR70? (I would think that copper coins would go bad first , followed by silver, then gold, but they will eventually all go bad due to environmental conditions.) >>
I'm not sure about the half-life, but "going bad on it's own" is one reason why I would NEVER pay big bucks for a PR-70, especially one in copper or copper-nickel. The darn things are just too fragile, especially down here in humid Florida. I rather imagine that the 1963 PR-70, Cameo cent that caused all the stir at the two most recent FUN Show auctions was perfect when it went into the holder too. It started to grow spots after it was slabbed, which cost in this case PCGS, a lot of money.