"Collectors focus on hits way too much - and too little on original mint frost."-- do you
Longacre
Posts: 16,717 ✭✭✭
In another thread, an extremely prominent collector (or, as Longacre likes to say, excessively prominent) made the following statement about grading coins:
"Collectors focus on hits way too much - and too little on original mint frost. Especially for gold."
Do you agree with this comment? I find it interesting because as a collector, the first thing that I look at are the hits and physical markings on the coin. Then I sense the overall appeal of the coin and its originality. I like to think I am a connoisseur and notice original mint frost, but I cannot say for sure that that is the first thing that I look for. Also, determining original frost on an early gold coin, for instance, is pretty difficult for me.
What do you think?
"Collectors focus on hits way too much - and too little on original mint frost. Especially for gold."
Do you agree with this comment? I find it interesting because as a collector, the first thing that I look at are the hits and physical markings on the coin. Then I sense the overall appeal of the coin and its originality. I like to think I am a connoisseur and notice original mint frost, but I cannot say for sure that that is the first thing that I look for. Also, determining original frost on an early gold coin, for instance, is pretty difficult for me.
What do you think?
Always took candy from strangers
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)
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)
0
Comments
<< <i>...the first thing that I look at are the hits and physical markings on the coin. Then I sense the overall appeal of the coin and its originality. >>
I do it completely opposite.
Can't comment re gold, though, because I don't collect it.
"Seu cabra da peste,
"Sou Mangueira......."
and its grading of gold.
lack of hits and/or remaining details mean more to them then luster (original surfaces).
why i was told i was a ninny i have no idea. ;-)
I guess I do agree with that statement. When I look at a coin, I try to remember what the first thing was that I noticed. That's usually hits.
The first look, under proper lighting, should reveal the overall appearance of the coins surfaces.
A fab AU, with nice surfaces, and some luster, will beat out an AU 58 that is dark, no luster, with fewer hits and wear.
But in the MS66 and better catagory, everything should be right. Esp. for silver. And the number and placement of marks/hits are very important for grade.
A bland MS 65, with no significant hits, will never rate with a 67, that is totally lusterous, though they may be minor marks that the 65 doesn't have.
The original skin on early gold will always overcome the vanilla surfaces of a washed out example, hits or not.
of how southern gold should be graded?
since luster is basically original surfaces and an AU coin should have
siginificant luster left...
i will leave it open ended.
edited to add: makes me think the tpgs are simply net grading/
market grading it. then the dealers are simply telling their customer
a white lie by agreeing with it and having a huge price tag.
what is good for the gander is good for the goose eh?
I agree mostly but if there is a hit or a slash right smack dap in the cheek of the device that kills it for me even if there is incredible luster or frost.
I agree. I have passed on two coins because of face hits that I specifically remember well to this day--a Dahlonega $5 rare variety pedigreed to the Eliasberg collection from the Green Pond sale and a capped bust quarter eagle in original AU-58)--and still wonder whether I made the right decision.
I'm not sure what other collectors focus on. I suspect that they focus on what's most important to them. And for some, I suppose, surface condition is more important than devices dripping luster or fields in mint bloom.
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire
<< <i>-- "Collectors focus on hits way too much - and too little on original mint frost." --
I'm not sure what other collectors focus on. I suspect that they focus on what's most important to them. >>
I agree.
I also believe that if attempting to grade by images (such as in a chatroom), hits are generally obvious to all, while assessing "original mint frost" is just not possible with any degree of accuracy.
<< <i>I have passed on two coins because of face hits that I specifically remember well to this day--a Dahlonega $5 rare variety pedigreed to the Eliasberg collection from the Green Pond sale and a capped bust quarter eagle in original AU-58)--and still wonder whether I made the right decision.
I think the obvious answer is...it depends on the coin and what attributes the individual collector values more. So much of coin collecting is a personal, subjective choice in which the collector makes an assessment of the "whole" coin, good parts and bad.
I would like to see the coins RYK passed on though, either in hand or in pics.
Now when you are working at the sub-gem level you are going to see a lot more marks and luster breaks on the coins, especially in gold and silver dollars, where some coins look like they were stomped on by someone wearing golf spikes. At those levels the marks vs luster issue arises from an aesthetic choice point of view, and when someone sends in a clean coin that has subdued luster and wonders why it didn’t 65.
CG
<< <i>The coin collectors undergrade the most is a coin dripping with original luster on the devices and mint bloom in the fields but with hits >>
What you're saying is that most people don't know what is "really good," as though there is some kind of absolute measurement of that, independent of the general trend of collectors' likes. That's kind of silly.
Let's say you have a pool of buyers, most of whom prefer freedom from marks over booming luster, all other things being equal. The coins they like are generally going to sell for more than the coins they don't.
All the grading companies do is try to apply as a kind of rule the consensus of the collecting community, so that a buyer who is not confident in his own discernment can reassure himself that "most" other collectors would regard this coin as being worth X amount of dollars. That's all. The grading companies, in turn, try to lump coins into boxes: does this coin go in the box with coins most collectors would pay $500 for, or the box with coins most collectors would pay $1250 for, or in the box with coins most collectors would pay $3750 for. That's all a grade is.
Sometimes they have to make weird calls about the idiosyncrasies of a particular coin, as when a coin has whopper luster but a lot of marks, or when it is free of marks but very muted. The fact that most of us see the lustrous but marked-up coin and say "yuck" and grade it low, though, if anything ought to be a caution against buying such things in the higher of possible holders. In other words, if we look at a coin and 80% of us say "MS64" but PCGS says MS65, it no more makes us wrong than it makes us right. What it does mean is that if we are going to lay down Gem money for that coin, we better be damn sure we like the coin, because there might not be a big line of people waiting to buy it as a Gem when we are done with it.
<End rant.>
Nope - just commenting on what I believe accounts for the majority of 'why isn't my coin graded higher' or 'why is this skank in this holder' posts around here.
<< <i>I agree mostly but if there is a hit or a slash right smack dap in the cheek of the device that kills it for me even if there is incredible luster or frost. >>
Yeah, that's the thing. It all depends on where the hits are.
<< <i>"Collectors focus on hits way too much - and too little on original mint frost. >>
Maybe, maybe not. But go sell that coin to a dealer and they sure pull out the big loupe and focus on all those hits. Yes, the same ones when you're buying that tell you.... "You got to see the forest through the trees." Go sell to them and BAM, they are all of a sudden technical graders and out comes the big loupe..... that they told you you didn't need to use.
I agree.
<< <i> look for hits first. >>
I’ll bet that you don’t. I’ll bet that you don’t even ask the dealer to take the coin out of the case for a close look unless its luster and color have already caught your attention from a distance. Same thing with online pictures. You often need to enlarge the image to inpsect for marks. I’ll bet you don't do that unless the smaller image looked good.
CG
"Seu cabra da peste,
"Sou Mangueira......."
Leo
The more qualities observed in a coin, the more desirable that coin becomes!
My Jefferson Nickel Collection
(even on the rims) and few hits. That usually gets you into the PQ category. Strike plays a lesser role imo than those 2 factors.
roadrunner
Longacre: In reply to your question, I also do agree with the above quote.
Stuart
Collect 18th & 19th Century US Type Coins, Silver Dollars, $20 Gold Double Eagles and World Crowns & Talers with High Eye Appeal
"Luck is what happens when Preparation meets Opportunity"
What happens when the original mint frost is hidden by centuries of original toning?