fs jeff collectors - PAK and RTC auction pedigrees

larrynj

does a pedigree from a PAK auction (quarterly from circa 1978 thru 5/85) or an RTC sale (ramapough trading company, rich and sue sisti - from 1986 thru about 1998?) add any value to you when considering a fs nickel purchase? i was attempting to put together a complete pedigreed set from these two, but rtc went bust long before i completed the task, and i rarely see any mention of either when fs jeffs are sold. i wonder how many of the pedigrees have been lost thru slabbing.

do you place any value or have any interest in the publications from these two pioneers? are you aware of the goldmine of information on the series that was contained in the monthly PAK newsletters? the PAK monthly printings , while an english teacher's nightmare, contained population estimates, member surveys, rarity listings, strike characteristics by date/m.m., and RTC put together a date/mm auction history by step count!! of the entire series, as well as a quarterly pricing guide based on auction prices realized called the pink sheet.

some great sales were offered , including a gem fully struck 54-s with full steps that adolf weiss owned, sold and was last offered publicly in the early nineties for $1200. and there were no takers! probably the finest offering ever sold was the jay ess sale in 9/93. jay was attached at the hip to adolf, and probably had the finest set ever assembled.

nicknut12

Larry.

I don't believe a PAK auction history has any value.
The only thing anyone cares about is the number on
the PCGS holder. Anything else seems to be irrelevant.
PCGS marketing seems to be king.

I do own a couple of the big PAK auction items,
the 49-D 6 stepper and the 39-S var. 2 - 6 stepper.
Both are still raw.

Probably will be slabbing them in the next year or two.

Regards, Steve Kent.

nicknut12

Larry.

Oops, I forgot. I have allready slabbed the
49-D 6 Stepper some years ago.
It is in a PCGS-65FS holder, at the moment.

Ray has allready viewed it, so if he sees that
1st response, he might have corrected me.


Regards, Steve Kent.

larrynj

steve,

judging from the response to this thread, i wonder how many people are even aware of how much work adolf and the sistis put into amassing info on jeff fs'ers. i've been meaning to put together a comparison of pak and rtc graded coins vs. their current pcgs grades. they nearly always come in higher from pcgs. seems there isn't much interest here, maybe coin world or nnw would like the idea.

NIckelCollector

Larry

I was never a member of PAC but did participate in the Sisti auctions. In fact one of their sales featured my duplicates at the time - The Jacksonville Collection. I did purchase at auction a collection of PAK newsletters. There is definitely some interesting information and reading.

Frank

seanq

<< <i>Larry

I was never a member of PAC but did participate in the Sisti auctions. In fact one of their sales featured my duplicates at the time - The Jacksonville Collection. I did purchase at auction a collection of PAK newsletters. There is definitely some interesting information and reading.

Frank >>



I'm in more or less the same boat, I wasn't collecting when PAC was active but I bought a big pile of PAC literature from someone in a private sale. I also bought a bunch of coins from Rich and Sue (being in CT, I used to see them in person at some area shows), I'm pretty sure I remember my '45P DDO#1 came from the Bill Fivaz auction. Their grading was spot-on and often conservative, every coin I bought from them that I have since submitted to PCGS has come back with the FS designation. I've mentioned the RTC pedigree when I've sold some of those coins, but I doubt their mention meant much to most of the bidders.

Oh, I still have a dog-eared copy of the PINC sheet (Pricing Information for Nickel Collectors), dated January 1998, that I bring with me to shows. If nothing else it is a useful guide for what dates are harder to find in FS than others.

What happened to the Sistis anyway, they more or less fell off the face of the earth back in 1999.


Sean Reynolds

larrynj

rich and sue sisti are still around but not very active. i try to pry loose some of their coins now and then but haven't been successful so far. their grading was actually tighter than adolf's. many of their 63's will get a pcgs-65, and i've had some come back 66. any of their 65's will come back as a 66, unless there's a big price jump and pcgs nearly always goes for the grade just under the that price jump. as far as pcgs fs, it's literally hit or miss. a nick or two in the steps back then was perfectly acceptable, and clean steps were always noted as such. in fact, their grading was so tight, that i stopped consigning to them and became a buyer only.

the pak sales always pulled in super strong prices and i was often outbid. pak auctions drew some fantastic coins out of the woodwork, while rtc's sales often had less than the best. as mentioned above, it seems most people were consigning their duplicates, and it wasn't often that a first rate collection was offered. lots of nice stuff, undergraded, but also lots of common dates. it was the only buying source for many years and they kept the thing going for as long as they could.

leothelyon

Amazingly, I was just doing some number crunching last night with what I had bought through the RTC and what's left that remains with my collection today. I was thinking about starting a thread but I can see Larry has already done the for me. I've had a few collectors ask me the same thing over the past few years, "what happened to the Sisti's?" I haven't been able to answer that other than to say, I don't know why someone hasn't dropped them a note to find out. Wasn't there an annoucement of some sort that they retired from the nickels? I don't really know as I kind of fazed out towards the end of the 1990's with their auctions.
Here are some numbers from 14 auctions that I could find that I had my fingers in.
Out of 14 auctions, I won 69 nickels for a grand total of $4092. Results from one auction were returned while another was lost in the mail. So this total drops to 62 coins for $3183. 36 of those coins have found there way into oblivion as I can't recall them is any form whatsoever. The good news is that they only costed me $591 and that I likely made more in resales. A few were likely resold or I have them somewhere, they just weren't anything I can remember or have kept track of over the years. The remaining 26 or fewer coins ($2592) that I believe I can account for, may be playing some role in my collection today. For instance, there was a 1938-D MS65 that I paid $47 but I believe that coin was replaced with a $200 coin I bought from Ray Overby. The description said it was a stunning coin but I don't believe I have it anymore. There was also a $171 1944-S that's now in a PCGS MS66FS holder. The 1950 is in an ANACS MS66 holder. And a $203 1951-S was recently graded MS64FS. And there are two other coins I believe that I still have. Interestingly enough, those coins came from a consignment of coins Frank Corso had with the RTC back in the mid 1990's. That was one of my better auctions. There are others that I didn't do too well. In a 1994 auction, I believe I have 1 or 2 coins from 6 coins that I won that included a 1938 proof and a 1983-D. In another auction, I think I still have this MS60 45-P/P for $2 but they rest were resold.. The Bob Jerich auction provided several coins for my collection that included a 1939-D A66 5s T2, 1942-D A67 6s, a raw 1947-D 6s that's now a A65 6s, a 1950 that I now believe replaced the coin from Corso that's in a A66 holder. Also an 1952 5s that has been recently certified by PCGS MS64 but no FS designation (rats), a 1960-D with nice steps that I've shown here in other threads, a raw 1981-P that now resides in a A66 5s holder but has failed twice at crossing with PCGS, a raw deep cameo 1953 that was certified by ANACS as a PF CAM and lastly, a 1952-S A65 5s that I sold last year for $200, the strike was really weak, had to get rid of it. It's likely a crown jewel in someone's registry. Another auction landed me a 1964-D for $42 that I still have but it would never FS due to a nick on the steps. A 1941-D and 1945-S are long gone from another auction. A raw 1948-D that 's now a MS66FS, a raw 1949 that ANACS once graded MS65 but no 5 steps and it's a raw coin again. A raw, colorful well struck 1950-D that's now a A65 5s, a raw 1982-D that's now a A65 5s. I was 4 for 4 keepers in that auction. I believe I got better at my selections as the years grew. Paid a whopping $745 for 2 low pop 6 steppers, a 1942-S and 1947-D both A66 6s that are still with the collection and why not? Well, that's 20 coins that I can think of that remain with my collection today......and there's a nice 1968-D from the Bill fivas collection.
I think Darryl Crane or Bern Nagengast may be able to provide an answer. Perhaps I do know. Maybe there's something in Bern's book, "The Jefferson Nickel Anaylist" But whether or not a pedigree on a coin makes that much of a difference in it's price structure, I usually noted the previous owner to help give the coin some credentials to help date a coin's existence to back whence. But much of that is lost once the coin is not a low pop anymore or had a unique quality about it. When PCGS started grading Jefferson nickels, with the inexperience they had starting out, the choice of coin still remains with the true collector. As time goes by, so do many of the collectors of that time.
I had some insight on who had great collections back then and had hope to meet a couple of them someday but that's about as much as it amounts to. If they played a role in your time, it might not matter much to today's collector's. I've had the chance to meet Adolf Wiess before he passed away in the late 1990's. I've also met Bill Fivas on a number of occasions. And there's Jim Ragsdale and Bern Nagengast who I've talked with on a number of ocasions. There was also a great Jefferson nickel collection get together in Chicago that took place in the 1990's. They were all great collectors who had a passion for nickels but that time is gone and many of us new serious collectors have replaced them. Of course, I don't have anyone calling me up several times a month asking for my advice but that's life. I just like upping the anti on what other's collect but that's just me.

Leo

nicknut12

"in fact, their grading was so tight, that i stopped consigning to them and became a buyer only."


In a lot of ways the current PCGS grading is the "tightest" yet.
This is dissapointing in some ways, but man, buying some of
the current PCGS slabs is giving me some immense collector joy.

There are some incredibly high grade fullsteppers being sold
for peanuts if you just look around a bit.

Regards, Steve K.

BigDowgie

I finally got my password to login and chime in! I have to say it is too bad we, as the Jefferson Nickel collector community, don't keep track of this history. I started my Nickel Craze at the end of PAK and lucky for me participated in all the Sisti RTC Auctions. I picked up quite a few awesome pieces from those early collectors; Ess, Jerrich, Ragesdale and others. That lone MS67FS 1954-S came from one of these guys and only a few of us know which one. Not that it's going to add numeric value to the coin, but it should be a reminder who was the lucky discoveror and even the subsequent luck owners! I've read a bunch of beefing about the their grading standards, but do you see it much different today, 25+ years later? I will keep track of the pedigrees as long as I own my collection.

larrynj

welcome, bd. have you already or plan to have your nickels slabbed by pcgs? i've kept the flip inserts from rtc and pak and a file listing the pcgs cert #'s to match . the catalogues were so detailed in descriptions that the coins are easily identified. how about posting some of your rtc purchases?

nicknut12

"That lone MS67FS 1954-S came from one of these guys and only a few of us know which one."

Now that would be an interesting story, any one have the details,
and care to share?

I do have a few very high end coins, but they are mostly 6 steppers
and of course PCGS does not recognize 6 steppers.
So, I have not slabbed them as yet, for the most part.

I haven't as yet owned a nice 54-S or 53-S, outside of a few
weak strikers with fullsteps. Maybe one day.

Regards, Steve Kent.

larrynj

steve, re: the 54-s. i'm sure i knew the details and history of that coin ( the pak specimen), but i have long forgotten the specifics. bigdowgie, fill us in on the details assuming we are both talking about the same coin. this is not sensitive or personal info any longer.

Ronyahski

Adolf Weiss certainly was the pioneer of Jefferson collecting. I met him in 1978 and was one of the first members of PAK. I still have some of the PAK newsletters and grading guides here at my desk and hope that I find the box that has the rest of my material that I stored away somewhere. Adolf would come to the coin show in Albany, N.Y. and I would sit with him and learn what I could. I would send him coins and he would take the time to grade and comment on them with letters back to me. One of my favorite nickels is a 1943-S that he didn't send back to me right away, and I ended up retrieving on his next trip back to Albany. He liked it so much that he wanted to buy it. It had a $ die break through the 'S' and said it was the nicest he had ever seen. Still have it.

RTC's first auction was in November 1985. I bought three coins out of that auction. I'm not sure if pedigree to these original auctions would add much in the way of value to the coins. I didn't keep great records when I sent a good portion of my nickels to PCGS for the first time a year or two ago, but I do recall that most of the RTC coins were pretty much spot on with the numerical grade. Regardless, I am now going to go back and trace these coins back to PAK and RTC.

One thing I noticed with current standards is that there is more emphasis on downgrading steps based on nicks. Back then, a nick that did not completely violate the horizontal lines was considered full steps, but the nick was called out. Today, that same nick can knock the coin out of full steps. I still grade based on the way Weiss taught me, and that apparently makes me a bit liberal. For instance, the now infamous 60-D full step coin, in my opinion, is full steps.

I remember a 1954-S full step nickel being for sale at $1200. This was back in 1980. I think the Sistis had it, but I'm not sure about that. What I do remember is Adolf looking at the coin and telling the sellers that it was not full steps, in his opinion. In my opinion, it was close. Don't know when the now 67 coin first surfaced, but doubt it was the same coin I remmember. I own one of the PCGS 65FS coins, and wish somebody could trace all of these coins. I have a hunch the population reports are overstated.

larrynj

adolf owned a fully struck 54-s with full steps, free of nicks, that was a gem. he found it himself in a roll. it was part of the "pak collection", i assume owned by adolf. he showed it to me on numerous occasions. i seem to recall it being offered in one of adolf's auctions, but i don't recall if it was sold or not. i do know that it was the same coin later offered by the sisti's for $1200. and that was definitely after 1985. i must have the catalogue of rtc's in which it was offered. when i get around to it, i'll check out the facts and post here if anyone is interested.

adolf had a fantastic source of rolls from firstcoinvester's in long island. they were a major force in the business back then, and allowed adolf to visit their facility and search many,many rolls. he would pay the pro-rated roll prices for the singles he cherrypicked! adolf told me he was concentrating on the warnicks at the time, and i don't know what else he may have found there.

another mystery i'd like to hear about is the events following adolf's "breakdown". i know he walked off into the snow one night ca. 1985, and no one heard from him until maybe 1995-1996. he left with his briefcase full of consigned coins. did anyone ever recover their coins? i assume he had the pak collection with him. the sisti's who were working with him producing the newsletter and auction sales know best, but they are really tightlipped on the subject. i've told rich and sue about this bulletin board in the past, hoping they would start posting, but to no avail.

maybe i'll give them a call and invite them here again.

leothelyon

The coin that sold for $1200 and the coin JHF has are two entirely different coins.
There's also the question about a coin that appears in Bern's book, The JNA. And there's the
lone ANACS MS66 5 step coin that JHF also has. There are other fully struck, high quality 1954-S
coins residing in collections that have not been broken up yet. Until a comparison can be made
with several of those coins, we'll never know who has the best 1954-S example in their collection.

Leo

BigDowgie

"Now that would be an interesting story, any one have the details,
and care to share?"

1954-S MS67FS Pedigree:
Raw => Jim Ragsdale (MS65 Old Green) => Mike Dingeldein => Al Rosen (got FS designation, never disclosed if he was the one that upgraded) => JHF (MS67FS).

A few of my RTC purchases:
Ess - 1939-D raw MS65FS => PCGS MS66FS
RTC - 1946-D/D ANACS65FS => PCGS MS66FS
Ess - 1947-S raw MS65FS => PCGS MS66FS (6 steps)
And a bunch more that graded just as advertised.

Till next time!

BigDowgie

One other thing on that 1954-S.....it kicks butt!!!!

seanq

I was able to trace one of my submissions back to RTC, it was a 1952-D which they graded MS63 full strike, PCGS liked it for a MS65FS. I think the 1951-S that went MS64FS on the same submission might be from them as well, but I didn't note it back when I logged the purchase.

Based on some of the other grades posted in this thread, I'm thinking the RTC pedigree really should mean a whole lot more to people, their grading was excellent.


Sean Reynolds

leothelyon

There was a 1954-S coin that Adolf Weiss discussed with me at length saying he had sold such a coin to someone on the condition that he would sell the coin back to him when this person decided to sell his collection. Instead, this individual opt out of that agreement and sold the coin through the RTC. He was very upset about that. Unfortunately, I don't remember the exact coin, whether it was the $1200 coin or another nor do I know the name of this collector or if Adolf was known for throwing names around, I don't recall that about him. He also mentioned that there was a real pesky collector in Nevada that was always searching for the ultimate Jefferson nickels. Both of my relationships with Adolf and the Sisti's ended on some disagreement with how they were grading their coins. They both graded very similar, more at a middle ground, so to speak, to entertain a more versatiled group of collectors, from the beginner to the advance.
We could never get on an equal ground as to what descriptions were meant for what or their meanings. But this is one of those things that you end up accepting as you continuually see the same problem with the way all auction houses write up their descriptions for the coins they sale. The same problem holds true for TGS who didn't have the neccesary experience to make the right call when they started out grading this series. Oh, how well have many of us learned the eventual truth to this fact today.

And welcome to the boards thar' BigDog!

Leo

larrynj

leo, the sistis were never in competition with adolf. they were helping him produce the newsletter and auctions until he walked away one day and never came back. rtc started up at that point.

leothelyon

I was comparing their grading abilities, how they compared to me IMO. Has anyone figured out the who? and when? of the $1200 question?

Leo

nicknut12

"$1200 sure seems cheap by todays standards."

But, correct me if I am wrong. Back in the 80's the standard
was that the "nice" coins were graded MS-65. There was really
no higher grade used by the PAK auctions and Ramapo.
At least prior to the early 90's. (PAK folded early 86-ish?)

Being able to see those coins in person before bidding on
them was a major major advantage. Which is why people
who were local buddys with Adolf had high end collections.

The two high end coins I have from the PAK auction days were
sold to me after PAK folded when the collector that owned them
gave up on the full step market.

Regards, Steve Kent.