Armour Coin discussion

ArmourGuy

hello out there,

ArmourPhil here looking for other Armour collectors to discuss the fine points of these plastic coins. I have part of my 55 armour set registered and will be loading more shortly.

A major problem I already see with the set registry for Armour coins is that value in this case is based both on the coin and the color. The set resistry only lets you register one coin of each player and does not take color into consideration. For instance I contend Bud Daley 1960 is NOT the rarest or most valuable armour coin. Every few months EBay is auctioning a nm Daley (red/orange or yellow) which end up selling for $450 to $550. Recently a nm 59 Banks which sells for 15 to 30$ in common colors went for $675 in pale pink.

The "rare colors" commonly auction for 4 - 10 x the common colors.

So what are rare and what are common ? Doug Stultz, guru of Armour coins who wrote the first compilation for SCD in 1987 and I recently compared notes and came up withthe following:

1955

55 common colors: red, orange, aqua, pale green, navy blue

somewhat rare: chalky yellow, yellow, 2 other shades of yellow

rare colors: dark red -translucent, dark red opaque, pale orange, dark green, lime green, black

ultra rare : gold, pale blue, tan, silver, pink

1959 common colors: navy blue (opaque), royal blue (opaque), medium green (translucent) , orange (translucent), red (opaque)

rarer colors: pale red transparent and two shades which look orange red under backlight a translucent one and a more transparent one

rare colors: pale yellow, grey green, pale blue, dark pink, pale pink; transparent medium green; transparent navy blue; dark green - opaque

ultra rare colors : yellow, blue speckled transparent; aqua speckled transparent; dark red,
pink red; cream; burnt orange; opaqe light green

1960 common colors: light blue, royal blue; lime green, dark green; red , red/orange;yellow

rare colors : pale yellow; navy blue; transparent yellow ; transparent green

very rare colors : grey blue; aqua; mustard yellow; salmon

I've attched a low resolution scan of 55 armour colors FYI

Anyone out there collect these coins ??? Your thoughts would be of interest. I'd also like to start a discussion on armour variations if anyone is interested.

theplasticman

while I dont collect these, your post was really interesting. Intriguing set for certain!

calleocho

I didnt know much about these plastic coins.

thanks for the well written analisys

A761506

I collect Armour coins... I have quite a few and I too an upset that PSA is unfamiliar with them to label them properly, as color and swirling and opacity certainly makes a huge difference on many of these.

You seem quite knowledgeable about them, perhaps you can answer a question for me...

I have a 1960 Mickey Mantle, it's a common color, dark blue, but there are a dozen or so flecks of black in the plastic. They are not huge, like swirling, but they can be seen easily upon inspection... in your opinion, would there be any premium associated with something like this?

ArmourGuy

A76,

A word on 60 MAntles - > 95% if not higher have part of the back rim missing. The PSA grader seems to think this is a minor flaw and I have seen coins graded PSA8 with incomplete back rims but I think this makes the coin junk grade. I have never seen a 60 MAntle red or yellow or royal blue or navy blue with a complete rim. The navy coin is the darkest blue and is a rare color. If your is navy and full rim it is very rare.

In terms of swirls I love them. They were formed when colors were changed in the mold but not cleaned out in between casting.

In terms of flecks, 59s are the only coins confirmed with flecks. They are only reported in pale blue and aqua and are completely transparent. I have attached photo of a 59 skinner with flecks. They are like colored confetti in the plastic mix.

Your black flecks are intriguing. The only black "flecks" I have ever seen were burn marks from heating the mold too hot (I presume) Anyway to put a scan up here for me to look at ??

ArmourPhil

ArmourGuy

Here is one of my pride and joys a dark pink 55 Podres PSA10.

CollectorChris

I would not be in favor of the PSA Registry reflecting the different colors, opaqueness, swirls, flecks, etc of the Armour coins -- there are seemingly an endless amount of variations. I believe that having different entries for varying hues of dark blue, for example, would border on the ridiculous. I am in favor of the Registry showing printing variations, as they do for cards.

You mentioned that "In terms of flecks, 59s are the only coins confirmed with flecks." A couple of years ago I saw a dark blue 1955 Duke Snider with silver-colored flecks.

A761506

Hi,

Thanks for that explanation. I am well aware of the rim problems and I also think coins with missing or partial rims are garbage. My Mantle is already graded, it's a PSA 9.

The flecks in it are not nearly as obvious as the flecks in the Skinner you put up. I made this scan, the big ones show up, but they look more like surface wear and they aren't actually black, they are more of a dark amber color. They are not surface dirt, marks, wear or defects, they are definitely embedded in the coin itself. I count a total of 8 on the front, including the most obvious one on his cheek, and at least 10 more on the back. Only 3 of them are somewhat large like the ones in your Skinner coin. Do you think it's of any significance or think it's a meaningless detail that someone unfamiliar with them would just mistake as wear. Clearly PSA could tell it wasn't wear or else it would have never graded a 9 with a black mark right smack in the middle of the coin on his cheek and the two bigger ones on the back also.

ArmourGuy

collectorChris,

I respectfully disagree about the colors. To Armour coins the colors are just as important than the white letter 69 variations in Topps or the green tint variations in 73?? get my drift. A black 55 Ford is worth > 5x a pale green Ford and all the true collectors know it.

Im not saying the set registry should have 17 different colors listed to complete the set, but rather that it should have a column for color and when the coins ae slabbed the color should be noted.

For instance my goal is to get a complete 55 set in black. In current system this would have no more weighting than a mixed common color set. This just is not justified. Sets with rare colors should have a higher weighting.

FLECKS - do you recall who had the Snider with flecks?? I'd love to see that coin or a scan of it. What I mean by confirm is that a copy of it has been seen by Bob Lemke who does the Std catalog of BB cards. He won't catalog it utill he has a scan of both sides in his hands which is a good way to go.

ArmourGuy

A76,

nice coin with complete rim. this is the light blue. The specs are obviously NOT burn marks and were incorporated into the plastic when it was molded. This may have been accidental, unlike the Skinner 59 flecks which as ou can see were obviously incorporated intentionally.

CollectorChris

Armour Guy,

I saw the dark blue '55 Snider with silver-color flecks at a convention in late 2003 or early 2004. I don't recall the name of the guy at the booth, but I remember he had a big supply of Armour coins. I believe he appears at several of the big conventions and deals mainly in raw stock (versus graded cards), and if I heard his name I would recognize it. I'll report back here if I come across it. We call them flecks, but I seem to remember that they looked more like imbedded metal shavings.

Chris

CollectorChris

Armour Guy,

The name just hit me:

The dealer who had the dark blue '55 Duke Snider with the silver flecks was Bob McAvoy. He used to have tons of Armour coins on his web site too. I just noticed that they're all gone, although the search categories remain. I suppose you could ask him who he sold the Snider to. His web site indicates he has a table at the National Convention which ends tomorrow.

http://www.mcavoysportcards.com/index.asp

I just noticed that he lists 28 Armour coins at a linked Naxcom web site (but no Snider). He used to list much more than this at his own web site

donnnster

Welcome to the boards armourphil! I have been checking up on armour coin auctions and noticed your name as a winning bidder here and there. I have my 1960 armour coin set registered and they are all common colored coins. It is neat to hear how much you know about these coins. When I first started selling some of these coins on ebay I remember you emailing me whether the rims were intact and I didn't know what you were talking about at the time!

Well I guess I am not a huge collector but would like to always learn more. I obtained a whole lot of these coins as a kid at a garage sale. I remember paying 25 cents for a hand full. They were all from 1960 and light green and green colors. I have since bought coins on and off to try to complete my 1960 psa registry set.(Thanks A761506 for selling me the Kaline. Its at PSA awaiting grading). It is neat to collect the different colors too(but not sure if I would pay 5-10x for rarer colors). Oh btw, I haven't seen a Daley coin on ebay in ages(except for the one Mike Wheat keeps on trying to sell for $1150). I will be short the Daley and Drysdale condensed after I send in all my coins for grading although I would like to upgrade some of the condition of some of my coins.

oh btw, armourphil u working on the 1960 set? hopefully I won't have to compete with you to get my set completed! Thanks for all the great insight thus far!

milbroco

ArmourGuy,

Welcome to the boards. Thanks for you post. Very informative. I have some of these coins, mosty Aaron, Mays and Mantles as I was just buying these on ebay without much knowlwdge of them.

On your color chart, what color is the first column third down. It is the lightest blue. Is that pale blue? I have a Yogi Berra in that color and was wondering if that was a rare color or not.

Thanks,

Bob

ArmourGuy

collectorchris,

thanks, I'll check with McAvoy

ArmourGuy

donnster,

in terms of premium for the rare colors I guess my take is that things are worth what someone is wlling to pay for them. EBAY has made clear what the values of these coins are. I have been tracking prices weekly for the past 3-4 years so I can see variation I the pricing. For instance 35 of the '55 blacks have changes hands in the past 3+ years with a low price of $86 for a Simmons an a high of $384 for a Snider. Of the 35 coins 33 have sold for over $100 and 11 for over $200. I think that is is a large enough population to tell you what they are worth.

Anyway, keep putting up with my messages about complete back rims, maybe now you understand what I'm after. I think whoever is grading these does not understand these coins.

I do pick up 60's when I can confirm their condition. My current best coins are a PSA10 Ford in mustard yellow ( the dark yellow coin for the red/orange, yellow group) an ungraded mustard yellow MAys and a ungraded aqua MAntle (complete rim).

ArmourGuy

milbroco,

sorry I forgot to label the colors.

dark red (trans) dark red red black
pale oj oj chalky yellow deep yellow
aqua pale blue unk blue navy blue
pale green dark green lime green tan

donnnster

Armourguy- yeh it seems that ebay is dictating what these coins are going for these days(this week ebay doesn't have many coins up for auction). I remember seeing that mustard yellow whitey on ebay months ago that you won. NIce coin indeed. Well if you come across any 1960 daleys, colavitos, or drysdale condensed let me know! oh btw i dont think i have seen a 1960 aqua coin. . Nice find! one last thing, have u ever contacted ljsarmour aka sflayank(he has a pretty high rated set in the 55 registry which u might overtake once u log all your coins). I see him bidding on some of the rarer color coins on ebay on and off. too bad he doesn't have scans of any of his registry. i think i emailed him once commenting about his set but never got a reply back. oh well.

qualitycards

ARMOURGUY - Nice write up. I always liked the coins, though I found it odd that they were produced in '55, '59 & '60. Would of been cool if they made them in '56, '57 & '58. Perhaps a Williams, Musial & a Clemente would have been made.

Over 20 years ago, I bought over 1000 '59 Armours off of John Broggi when he had his store in central Jersey. It was the players that were available through a mail in offer. 10 of the players were in this offer. The lot had something like 100-175 Blassingames, Cerv's & Sievers, and a little less for the HOFers like F. Robinson & Aaron. The smallest amount was about 10 for the Ashburn. The 4 major colors were equally represented Blue - Orange - Green - Red. I did notice some coins that were a tad lighter then the rest in that color range, so I suppose they could be called variation in colors too! If so, there must be a multitude of different colors available for each player.

When I had my store, I always had some of these in 2 x 2's for sale. Most people thought they were poker chips...jay

ArmourGuy

donnster,

I know south florida yank quite well. He is also an expert on the 55 colors. I bought the bulk of his set from him last fall but he just has not removed them from his registry.

ArmourGuy

Jim,

interesting story on the large lot of 59s. This is without question the easiest set to finish in common colors and I agree they are red, oj, 2 blues and green. The tough colors are grey/green, dark and light pink, light blue and the speckeled coins. In addition there are many variations of opaque vs translucent vs transparent and shades of colors as you said. What are called navy blue and royal blue are very distinct differences which are as dfferent as red and orange. The toughest coin is probably Banks because he is popular and the coins are tucked away.

donnnster

Jim-

My guess is the coins I purchased were of the same mail in type because I didn't come close to having a complete set but I had like 10-20 dups of certain players. My lot included 1960s malzone(both versions), crandall, fox, mantle, aaron(both versions), banks, and triandos. Armourphil, I always wondered what the sfla in sflayank meant. thanx! oh btw, how did u end up starting collecting these coins? just curious.

ArmourGuy

Donnster,

had about a dozen '60s in a cigar from my youth in NYC. In the md 80's I started trading with Doug Stultz and nearly finished the 60 set. In the late 90's with the advent of EBay I became enamoured with the color variations now available weekly through EBAy and started to concentrate on these coins.

ArmourGuy

Donnster,

here is the MAntle aqua

ArmourGuy

here is a rare salmon in a Malzone BRS

donnnster

wow those are two beauties. You sending them in to get graded or keeping them raw? I wonder if PSA treats coins with specs or swirls in them as being a flaw in the coin(almost like a print dot for grading cards?).

ArmourGuy

I just sent a batch in to get graded and I'll see how they come back. I still do not trust the grader. I have a few 8's that look like 10s and then I see coins with partial back rims getting 8's ??? I cannot get them to pin down what their standards are. There is no question, though that when they are graded they are worth more. The Banks you have up ther in green is at $86 now. If I sold it unslabbed and called it nm it would neer see $40. Same for Aarons and MAntles. I was shocked last week when the '60 Stuart red/oj went for 50$ . Unslabbed you'd never get $15 for it. So I think the grading is a good idea if they can show some consistency.

I bought a dark green (rare) 55 Ransom JAckson from SFLAYANK . It was graded PSA9 and when I got it PSA had labeled it Randy Johnson !!! Can you believe that ??? look on the PSA set population report. There is a Randy Johnson listed ! I have it....how sloppy can you get. I think I will try to get them to reslab it for me free.

donnnster

oh that banks is from a different seller..although i did sell a bunch of green banks way back and I am quite suprised at the price that it is at right now. I can recall selling a psa10 one for ~90. I do agree with you that if you try to sell it raw you won't get nearly as much as selling it graded. We will see how my batch comes in too.(i should get grades this week or early next week).

donnnster

Armourphil-

I was wondering how do you store your psa graded coins? in sheets? a nice box? I still have them in that blue psa box that psa sends when you have coins graded from them but I want to find other options that might do a better job. Thanks

ArmourGuy

donnster,

don't really have a good way to display these. The rare ones I keep in the bank the rest I just have in a drawer. There really is no plastic sheet that they fit well in. I keep the unslabbed coins in a Dansco coin albumns which fit 9 to a page and can be labeled.

donnnster

Armourguy- I saw that eagle makes some kind of plastic sheet for graded coins...not sure if you have tried those out:

LINK

I am thinking about buying some but not sure yet. It looks like several black 55s have hit ebay this week eh?

ArmourGuy

donnster,
thanks for the input. These pages look like they might work. I'll look into it.

Yeah...saw the new 55 listings. Did you catch where the guy says he "dug them up"! They look like they have been hiding in the ground for the last 40+ years.

ArmourGuy

Donnstrer,

just looked at the photos of yor 60 set. Nice group of greens. You list the MAntle light green and the others green. Are you inferring that these are different colors ?? The two acknowledged green colors in 1960 are the lighter green (lime green to compare to the 1955 rare color) and the dark green which is really really dark.

Stultz and I agree that there are indeed shades of most of the 60 colors. I will post a few examples. Here is Banks in what I call lime green and as yet unnamed 1960 light green. Hope you can see the difference, it is clear to my eyes but we all have different color perceptions.

when you list "2X light green, green" does that mean the two light greens or the lime green and the dark green ?


I finally had them clear the coins that I bought from SFLAYank a year ago, but now I cannot access my 55 set to load these coins !! They said they are working on it.

I have loaded my graded 60 coins, but a few of them also pop up as being registered by someone else. This deregistering when cards/ coins are sold must be a royal pain in the butt for them.

ArmourGuy

Here is the complete 60 color palete (sp?) as I know it.

the colors are :

navy blue (rare)....royal blue....light blue....blue grey (rare)....aqua (rare)
red....red orange....salmon (rare)......transparent salmon (rare)
mustard yellow (rare)...yellow....transparent yellow (rare)....light yellow (rare)
dark green...green (rare)...lime green...transparent green (rare)

ArmourGuy

rarest of the rare....shades of red orange Bud Daley !

ArmourGuy

registry set has now been updated with rare color coins that have been graded. Set 74% compltete with a 9.3 !

donnnster

Hey armourphil-

sorry I was out of town so I didnt read your message til just now. When I say 2x, that means I have two of the same grade of a particular color but with different colors. Since you can only register one coin of a player, I scanned the color of the one registered but have another of a different color. From looking at the scan of the two greens that you listed, the normal green in my eyes is the banks on the left while the lime green is the one on the right. I should be getting some new coins graded soon and will hopefully get them scanned when I receive them from PSA. Wow those are some nice Daleys! I wonder when will be the next time I see one of those on ebay. I hope to eventually buy a Daley and have it graded so I can finish up my PSA registry set! My guess is that the Daley will be the last coin that I will need. Will see. If I have time later this week I will try to scan both coins of the 2x that I have listed and make the description no so confusing!

Thanks for posting the pic of all the colors of the 60s. I still have trouble with distinguishing some of the yellows and red/orange colors.oh btw, whats the difference between the 2nd and 4th coin on the 2nd row of that pic of all the colors of the 60s? it seems pretty subtle.

donnnster

ok my subs came in. I'm overall happy with them

LINE # CERT # CARD CARD CO. CARD # CARD NAME VARIETY GRADE
1 31206431 1959 ARMOUR COINS FRANK ROBINSON N/A 10
1 31206432 1959 ARMOUR COINS FRANK ROBINSON N/A 10
2 31206433 1959 ARMOUR COINS HANK AARON N/A 9
2 31206434 1959 ARMOUR COINS HANK AARON N/A 9
3 31206435 1960 ARMOUR COINS ED MATHEWS N/A 10
3 31206436 1960 ARMOUR COINS ED MATHEWS N/A 10
4 31206437 1960 ARMOUR COINS WHITEY FORD N/A 10
5 31206438 1960 ARMOUR COINS WILLIE MAYS N/A 10
6 31206439 1960 ARMOUR COINS AL KALINE N/A 10
Date Received: 08/03/2005
Date of Grades Posted: 08/08/2005
Date Shipped: No Date Specified

Bought most of them raw(bought the Kaline from A761506). all of them have full rims. Can't wait to get them in my registry!

ArmourGuy

WOW great grades. Hope mine come out as well.

your question on the red/oranges. coin #2 is the normal red orange and #4 is a transparent color between the redorange and the salmon. If you hold in your hand they are very diferent. Inthis pic, I agree they look nearly the same.

Phil

donnnster

ah ok i think i have seen the transparent one...i might have one or two in green. When you look at it in the light, you can see the text on the back quite clearly even thru the head portion of the coin. post those grades when ya get them! did you do a bulk submission?

ArmourGuy

Donnster,

just got my grades in and have updated my '55 Armour registry set.
set in 20 coins and got: '55 Armour (7) 10's & (5) 9's; '59 Armour (6) 10's and (2) 9's

will be sending in some more end of the month.

donnnster

Nice grades! Are you going to request a 59 armour coin set to be registered? I would but you need three items in the set graded in order to request the set be added(I only have 2).

ArmourGuy

yes, I asked for the 59 set to be loaded.

sflayank

what r u doing phil
looks like youre making my rare color graded collection into a million bucks

A761506

I have a 1959 Kuenn translucent green which I sent to PSA... any idea what something like that is worth. I am guessing it'll be graded a 9.

ArmourGuy

Larry,

only worth a million bucks if I can sell the set for a million bucks. Anyone out there willing to part with a million bucks for the complete set in rare colors...I think I might be talked into selling it!!

ArmourGuy

A76,

the medium green translucent 59 is the normal color for the 59's. If it is substantially lighter than the normal green it is rare ( I cannot tell from the scan ) and if it is dark green (like the 60 dark green) and opaque it is rare. ( see 1960 color scans in this thread) . I track the EBay prices for these coins in nm. Last 3 Armour medium green Kuenns went for $8, $8 and $20. ope that helps.

ArmourGuy

A76,

sorry the 59 colors were not posted. Here they are. I think your coin is row 4 coin #2. If it is the lighter coin #3 it is worth more.

DirtyHarry

I read this thread with great interest and kudos to the experts. I don't own any Armour Coins, but thought I might just throw in a little background info for the heck of it.

If you were to dig up a Fortune magazine from the 50's - you would see that Armour was in the top 5 - yes TOP 5 - in their Fortune 500 list. I believe they were #2 in Fortune's first issue. Meat producers were huge companies back then, and there were very few of them. Imagine...no tech companies on the list. Swift was also in the top 5. Feeding the country was where all the money was!!!

Anyway, over the years, all these meat companies got bought up by other companies. I worked for the company that bought both Armour and Swift from 1991-2003....and during this time I never knew about Armour Coins. I have a bunch of cards sets and auto's from when Armour relaunched their hot dog brand in 2000 as "Armour Stars"...tied into Major League Baseball. It was exciting for me because I picked up a lot of auto'd stuff being associated with it....Bonds, A-Rod, Clemens, Mussina, Maddux, Alomar, Kendall and Lieberthal were the lineup they had under contract. Somewhere I have a box of their 8 card sets that were mailed to consumers as a come-back offer. Meeting Bonds, Clemens and Mussina in person was a a thrill. Regards.

ArmourGuy

dirty Harry,

do you know any old timers who are still with Armour? I'd give my eye tooth to talk to one of them and get straight what went on back then.

Questions like how many molds were available for each coin?, were there multiple sites around the country making the coins. Were all the colors intentional? Does anyone have a list of all the colors made, ect. ect ect.

In this day and age of the internet, it is amazing to me that there can be this many unanswered questions about what went on only 50 years ago.

Come to think of it I guess this is the 50th aniversary of the 1955 set !

DirtyHarry

Nobody who is still there from those days, but I do speak with quite a few ex-Armour folks. If I can find anything out, I'll drop you a note.