A Christmas gift for my Indians: freedom
ziggy29
Posts: 18,668 ✭✭✭
For a while, I've been pondering whether or not to crack all the Indians in my collection out of their plastic. A few months ago I had to kill some NGC submissions, so out of curiosity I thought I'd submit some of the better dates since I had nothing else to use them on. (IMO, most of them were overgraded a bit, but I'm more used to Fly-In grading standards than the "commercial" standards, and commercial AUs are often Fly-In XFs.)
Anyway, the one reason I didn't -- well, two -- were (1) I was afraid of damaging coins on the crackout, and (2) did I really want to crack out the 1877, a date for which authentication is critical on resale, and on sane person would pay full price for when sold raw by an unknown seller? I guess the deciding factor is that I have no plans to sell this 1877 any time soon, and if I ever do it would probably be in trade for a minor upgrade (say VF-35/XF-40 to AU-50ish) and I know it would be easy to recertify as genuine since it's very obviously genuine to someone knowing what to look for.
Well, after thinking it over for about a week, I decided to do it. I had 11 in all to crack out. I actually started with a really cheap coin in an NGC slab to practice on. (Whoever recommended wire cutters and such -- thank you! That made the crackout SO much safer and easier!) Having done that easily and successfully, I started cracking out the other coins. I waited on the '77 until I was confident I had enough experience cracking out with ease and without endangering the coin. With this improved crackout method I got the 11 coins out in well under an hour. I put them all back into an old deluxe Whitman album (#9402) I've had for about twenty-five years. Well, I don't have the 1856 (and probably never will), the "1869 Over 1868" (which, of course, is known today as 1869/9 or a repunched 9) or the 1909-S (the only one I REALLY need to consider this a "complete set").
So hereby on this day, December 23, 2004, I hereby grant freedom for my Indian set and welcome 57 coins to their new, "old" home. This set is much more enjoyable in the raw. Here is all that remains of the slabs:
Anyway, the one reason I didn't -- well, two -- were (1) I was afraid of damaging coins on the crackout, and (2) did I really want to crack out the 1877, a date for which authentication is critical on resale, and on sane person would pay full price for when sold raw by an unknown seller? I guess the deciding factor is that I have no plans to sell this 1877 any time soon, and if I ever do it would probably be in trade for a minor upgrade (say VF-35/XF-40 to AU-50ish) and I know it would be easy to recertify as genuine since it's very obviously genuine to someone knowing what to look for.
Well, after thinking it over for about a week, I decided to do it. I had 11 in all to crack out. I actually started with a really cheap coin in an NGC slab to practice on. (Whoever recommended wire cutters and such -- thank you! That made the crackout SO much safer and easier!) Having done that easily and successfully, I started cracking out the other coins. I waited on the '77 until I was confident I had enough experience cracking out with ease and without endangering the coin. With this improved crackout method I got the 11 coins out in well under an hour. I put them all back into an old deluxe Whitman album (#9402) I've had for about twenty-five years. Well, I don't have the 1856 (and probably never will), the "1869 Over 1868" (which, of course, is known today as 1869/9 or a repunched 9) or the 1909-S (the only one I REALLY need to consider this a "complete set").
So hereby on this day, December 23, 2004, I hereby grant freedom for my Indian set and welcome 57 coins to their new, "old" home. This set is much more enjoyable in the raw. Here is all that remains of the slabs:
0
Comments
My Auctions