Some interesting terms and conditions in ANR's Eliasberg sale

Longacre

Am I the only one that reads these things? This is just one of the special terms and conditions specific to the sale of the Eliasberg collection by ANR. This is Term #10, and I find it interesting for the following reasons:

1. It seems that "very important" was so important that it had to be written in 3 other languages. Pretty funny.
2. I have never heard of a "contemporary circulating counterfeit" before, let alone one that is graded. In Term #9, they refer to the fact that the only way to return an item is for authenticity. Authentic is also deemed to include circulating imitations. Does anyone know anything about these?
3. None of the coins in the sale are encapsulated (heaven help us), though they are graded by NGC or NCS. Does anyone have a picture of what these sealed plastic Eliasberg envelopes look like? How tamper resistant are they? If a coin is later submitted to be entombed in hard plastic, what does NGC do to ensure no funny business with these plastic envelopes? Do they recheck the coins for authenticity, or just process them into the holders?
4. What does it say for the value of NGC grading if a coin can be submitted for $10 (no matter what the value of the coin is)? It seems that NGC already did 99% of their work in terms of grading and authenticating, so is the true value of their service $10 (or close to it)?
5. Would a submission to PCGS be treated any differently?

*********************************

A VERY IMPORTANT NOTE ON GRADING
Muy Importante
Très Important
Sehr Wichtig
By agreement with our consignor and the Numismatic Guaranty
Corporation (NGC), all coins in the Eliasberg collection
have been assigned a numerical grade by NGC or a “details”
grade by their sister firm, Numismatic Conservation
Services (NCS). Each grade is followed by either (NGC) or
(NCS) to designate which firm rendered the grade opinion.
Those coins graded by NCS have been assigned a grade determination
based upon their sharpness, but all have some
manner of defect that prevents NGC from assigning a numerical
grade – f laws like tooling, heavy cleaning, holes, use
in jewelry, etc. In the case of contemporary circulating counterfeits
or unusual types (such as bullet money, pre-1870 Japanese,
and other oddly shaped pieces) we have assigned our
own grade designation. None of the coins in the Eliasberg
collection have been encapsulated; they have merely been graded
by NGC/NCS. Likewise, none of the coins graded by NCS
have been “conserved” or treated in any way. For those customers
who prefer certified coins and would like to have their
Eliasberg purchases encapsulated by NGC/NCS after the sale,
NGC will charge only a modest ($10) fee for putting the coin
in their holder if submitted in the original sealed Eliasberg
plastic envelope. Successful bidders should contact NGC
directly.

mrearlygold

Eliasberg seemed to have a problem with TPG as evidenced by the last sales. Imagine that. When after encapsulation, many of the coins sold for multiples of what they sold at auction for.

Has money to burn I guess.


Tom

Pistareen

Hey all:

I authored some of that language, so perhaps I can elucidate point by point.

NGC did not grade the circulating counterfeits. We applied our own grades. Since these things are widely collected, not illegal to own, and as historically interesting (or more so!) than the Mint-made items, we included them in the sale. Collectors of world coins frequently include countemporary imitations in their collections, and I have them in my own collection of world coins as well. Of course, US collectors are no different -- this is why Machin's Mills halfpence are in the Red Book.

Regarding the tamper resistance of the envelopes, all the NGC-graded pieces will be sold with photocertificates that somewhat resemble old ANACS certificates. It will be easily to confirm that the coin submitted to NGC or NCS is the same one that is illustrated in the catalogue and on the cert. The $10 is just a fee to buy the holder if you absolutely must have it slabbed. We've already paid for the grading work.

We noted that the grading clause was "muy importante" because the situation is a bit unusual. Certification is not quite so common in world coins and foreign numismatic markets as it is here -- though it is growing more widespread -- and we felt a clarification of the fact that the coins would be graded but not slabbed was important. Further, we wanted people to know who did the grading and how they could go about getting their piece in the actual holder -- this is the first time to my knowledge that a coin graded by a TPG is being sold outside of their holder since PCGS did something similar with the 1992 Nicholas sale of large cents.

If I knew how to say "very important" in a few more languages, maybe I would have thrown those in too! Alas, my Finnish and Mandarin are poor.

I'm around to answer more Eliasberg questions via email (johnk@anrcoins.com) or PM.

John Kraljevich
ANR

ms70

Why on earth would a coin be sent to NGC for grading and not be encapsulated? That doesn't make sense. Does the market reason stated
above imply that sales would not be as good if they are encased?

Pistareen

MS70:

It does if you collect certain world coins.

A few examples:

One type of Chilean coins are distinguishable by the month of mintage, which is lettered on the edge. It's impossible to attribute them without seeing the edge.

Some types of larger gold pieces are known almost exclusively with mount marks, filed edges, etc. from use in jewelry. Let's say one is graded MS-62 and encapsulated so neither the cataloguer (i.e. me) or the buyer can see the edge. Would you want to pay a substantial premium to assume, blindly, that is one of the rare unmounted ones, especially when such marks can be delicate and difficult to discern without study?

A particular series of German coins is known with lettered edges (originals) and plain edges (restrikes from 1867). A buyer would like to be able to see which is which.

Slabbing is catching on with some markets, like British and other series. But other nations have not yet caught on. Would it be easier to have studied which nations like slabbing and slabbed those coins, and determined that coins from nations that eschew slabbing should remain raw? Though the US market is a monolith, the world coin market is more like dozens of micromarkets -- especially when a collection of this calibre appears and many of the most significant rarities may be destined for the finest cabinets assembled in the home country of issue.

This solution was certain to offend some people, but we've found that it is a good compromise solution. Our consignor was satisfied with the compromise too.

I promise we didn't do it just to tick the people on the PCGS message boards off!

Longacre

John:

Thanks for your responses. I don't want the post to get off-track, but how do you feel that your knowledge of world coins increased as a result of this collection? It seems to be a once in a lifetime (or close to it) experience.

mrfred

John, I would also like to thank you for posting to this thread. Your comments make very interesting reading, and I too would like to know what you've learned re. world coins from this experience.

A suggestion, and perhaps it is too late: you could offer to directly ship coins to NGC for encapsulation at the grade advertised in your auction, if the winning bidder wants it, and perhaps at a small premium plus the NGC grading fee. This would have a couple of advantages. First, the winning bidder would not have to worry about extra shipments (to his/her address, then back to NGC, then back to him/her) -- it's fewer shipments, fewer potential problems. Second, the winning bidder has the guarantee that NGC will honor its grade on the coin -- of course -- and NGC is even more certain that the coin has not been tampered with because they know you and your company's integrity. What's more, NGC could provenance the coin from Eliasberg and provide back to the winning bidder the original photograde cert. That makes the whole package a kind of oddly appealing collectible -- you get the coin, in a slab, graded, provenanced, and you get the photocert as well (useful for insurance purposes, perhaps).

Just my .02.

Pistareen

<< <i>I don't want the post to get off-track, but how do you feel that your knowledge of world coins increased as a result of this collection? It seems to be a once in a lifetime (or close to it) experience. >>



This was definitely a once in a lifetime experience, no doubt about that. One thing I most enjoy about working on specialized, advanced collections is the amount you can learn from them. The critical mass of coins here -- date runs of coins that are very rare as a type, for example -- allowed us to make comparisons and draw conclusions that would be impossible with just one coin in hand, or photos of a few coins that have been sold scattershot over the years. The same is true of any old-time, well-formed, studiously assembled collection.

I was lucky to have a pretty solid background in world coins, most of which was derived from being a long time amateur collector of various series. It would be hard to say if I learned more from the series I already knew something about, or the series that were totally new to me. Suffice it to say that when writing a catalogue such as this that will not be "peer-reviewed" until after it's too late to make changes, you cross your Ts and try to learn as much as you can so that you don't speak with the voice of shallow authority. I know more than when I started (the same could be said for the other cataloguers, I'm sure), but our knowledge pales in comparison to some of the folks who have been doing world coins for 30 or 40 years without pause (or distraction from things in the Red Book).

If I had to pick a favorite section, it would be the colonial-era and Age of Independence pieces from Latin America, one of the areas that I had some familiarity with before getting to catalogue this collection. I used to collect Brazil pretty avidly and had a lot of fun with that section also.

Regarding submitting things to NGC for holdering, we discussed this and determined that it would be easier for them to be a clearinghouse for the process than us. They'll be happy to put the pedigree on the slab and let you keep the photocert, I'm sure.