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What is a "widget"?
RYK
Posts: 35,799 ✭✭✭✭✭
And please, give an example or two from your collection.
Can a key date be a widget?
Can a key date be a widget?
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A widget is a mythical product used in examples in economics classes.
And as nankruat points out, the technical name is a thingamajig.
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and it sets us apart from practitioners and consultants. Gregor
A coin and grade that is extremely easy to locate.....They all look the same.....Everyone's got one.
I'll offer up my:
1) 1909 VDB cent in MS-65
2) 1883 no cents Liberty Nickel in MS-64
My definition of a "widget" in the context of numismatics is a coin that could be relatively easily replaced. And can a key date be a widget? I say, "Yes!" My 16-D merc dime in ANACS Fr-2 is a widget. Disclaimer: what is a widget to me might be a treasure coin for someone else, and what is a widget for someone else might be the best coin in my collection.
doohickie
thingamajig
thingamabob
gizmo
gadget
Semper ubi sub ubi
<< <i>Okay, I will help you guys out.
My definition of a "widget" in the context of numismatics is a coin that could be relatively easily replaced. And can a key date be a widget? I say, "Yes!" My 16-D merc dime in ANACS Fr-2 is a widget. Disclaimer: what is a widget to me might be a treasure coin for someone else, and what is a widget for someone else might be the best coin in my collection. >>
That's a curious definition of which I've never heard. Where does it originate and when was it first used in that context?
Semper ubi sub ubi
In coins it is a common date or a coin that is plentiful in supply. I spose the lowest mintage coin in the state quarter series could be a key date if mintage was 25 million and all of the others were 500 million. The key date would in all probability be a widget.
I would say that most of the ms66 graded coins in my set mite be widgets.
<< <i>What is a "widget"?
And please, give an example or two from your collection. >>
I'll bite. A widget is, a DHeath said, an unremarkable coin. It is one that is readily replaceable in identical condition at most any show, anytime, anywhere. It can be relatively expensive or it can be dirt cheap. It is never rare.
I'd give an example or two from my own collection but I don't have any widgets. I sold (or never bought to begin with) any coin that was just a coin.
To me the classic example of a widget is common date and mint Morgan in MS64 / 65, or a Commem in like grade.
<< <i>Can a key date be a widget? >>
Only if that particular key is actually a common coin, readily replaceable in identical condition at most any show, anytime, anywhere. In which case an S-VDB may qualify.
Tom
Coin's for sale/trade.
Tom Pilitowski
US Rare Coin Investments
800-624-1870
J/K
Semper ubi sub ubi
<< <i>Sadly, I have a widget in my collection. A totally unremarkable 1877 MS64 trade dollar. Somebody sell me the MS66!
Tells ya' what I'm gonna do. Just for you, and because you're so depressed, I'll give you BOTH my '09vdb and '83 Lib Nickel for the '77 Trade.
Bajjerfan, yes, wannabes sell widgets, but guess what? Real dealers also sell them. I have purchased widgets from real dealers.
Sadly, I have a widget in my collection. A totally unremarkable 1877 MS64 trade dollar. Somebody sell me the MS66!
<< <i>I've always thought a Widget was just another name for a thingamajig.
Yes, the two terms are interchangeable. Many people also interchange these two terms with the term whatchamacallit, though that usage is technically incorrect.
It's graded PR68DCAM. Examples in that grade come up for sale quite frequently, and can be had for between $250 and $300. However, examples that display the extreme contrast of this piece are really quite rare and seldom offered. So, while you can readily replace the grade on the holder, you will wait a long, long time for a coin of equal caliber.
Here's an example that is a widget:
It's graded PR69DCAM and is readily available for under $200, even for very strongly contrasted high-end examples.
Russ, NCNE
dizzyfoxx
Widget:
1. A small mechanical device or control; a gadget.
2. An unnamed or hypothetical manufactured article.
Thingamajig:
Something difficult to classify or whose name has been forgotten or is not known.
Technically, this means that a numismatic widget/thingamajig is a small coin gadget that might be approved by the U.S. Mint at some point, which will be difficult to place in any numismatic category and whose name we will never know.
Glad I can help with the clarification...
Bajjerfan, yes, wannabes sell widgets, but guess what? Real dealers also sell them. I have purchased widgets from real dealers.
Of course I was jus bein a wiseguy but its good to know that Wannabees and EssoBees and BigBees all sell widgets.
<< <i>I just loaded 10.4 (Tiger) for Mac and they have a new program called Widgets and it is a bunch of little programs and games. >>
<< <i>I always thought it was 10 lbs. of sh
No, that's a "blivot"
Cheers,
Bob
In my opinion, a widget is something that, to a layman, will appear to be rare (for example, a common gold coin), but which is really not rare. It can also be a coin that is common in lower grades, but then become a rarity in higher conditions. I don't particularly like the term, because a lot of beginnig collectors collect "widgets", and not everyone has the means to collect non-widget material.
Didn't wanna get me no trade
Never want to be like papa
Working for the boss every night and day
--"Happy", by the Rolling Stones (1972)
Rodney Dangerfield: "What's a widget?"
Economics Professor: "It's a fictional product. It doesn't matter."
Dangerfield: "Yeah, tell that to the bank!"
Photos of the 2006 Boston Massacre
I agree to an extent. A widget is in the eye of the beholder. For TDN, a widget is an 1877 Trade $1 in MS-64. For me, it is an 1877 Trade $1 in VG-08. It has an elitist connotation which I like, but others might find off-putting.
Edited: Widgets are like...uh...ears. Everyone one has a couple, and it is not polite to speak ill of someone else's.
<< <i>My definition of a "widget" in the context of numismatics is a coin that could be relatively easily replaced. >>
That's it -- the essence of widget-ness is interchangeability.
I disagree with whomever it was who said widgets don't move in price -- take a 16-D merc in Good, or any GSA-date CC dollar for instance. All kinds of movement, but you can get as many as you can pay for, any time you want.
When you come right down to it, wouldn't it really mean any coin which exists in sufficient numbers at any given preservation to develop a trackable, trendable price in the market, like a commodity?
The only things that aren't widgets are those coins which are nearly the only one of whatever they are to come to the market within a certain timeframe.
Take a hypothetical example. Say I have for sale an 1894-J $17 gold piece in MS64PL. As far as I'm able to find out, the last time anyone sold an 1894-J was last year, and it was a non-PL MS61. The last one I know about before that was in 1988, and it was a badly marked AU50. Obviously, the prices realized in those sales will have nothing to do with what I should net in this sale. Prospective buyers may be aware that a wealthy aristocrat in Lima is rumored to be considering the auction of his extensive collection, in which there are not one, but two 1894-J's, both of which are superb gems. My coin is not a widget, because it is sufficiently dissimilar to any other examples which have come or will come to market to make apples-to-apples comparison impossible and irrelevant.
Joe.
Rainbow Stars