Have you ever held two examples of a rare coin...

tradedollarnut

... in your hands and not been able to decide which was the better of the two? I'm not talking white/gold modern widgets where they all look the same ... but two classic coins of differing character that all summed up to exactly the same desirability.

It's only happened once to me ... every other time my brain has managed to sum up the various positive and negative attributes into a favorite of the two.

PerryHall

So you bought both coins?

intocoins

I've never held one in my hand at a time! Lucky for you, by the way you have some great coins

tradedollarnut

<< <i>So you bought both coins? >>



I owned them both and was trying to decide which to sell. It gave me headaches!

GoldenEyeNumismatics

Not particularly rare, but I've held 3 raw USAOG Slugs before at the same time (kinda hard to hold 3 with only 2 hands, but I managed ). Each had its own character and charm.

charley

I hesitate to comment because I don't want to be embarrassed about my thoughts on the definition of a rare coin. Respectfully, John Curlis

speety

Yep, 1851 seated dollars in low ms. Unfortunately both were overgraded and ugly, but it was tough to decide which of the two were 'nicer' (although neither were nice ).

P.s. TDN, this thread is worthless without pics. If you can't get those an in-hand examination of both will do

tradedollarnut

<< <i>I hesitate to comment because I don't want to be embarrassed about my thoughts on the definition of a rare coin. Respectfully, John Curlis >>



John: I just threw that in there to emphasize that I'm not talking about two identical looking coins. The older, rarer, classic coins tend to be one of a kind - each has completely different character to themselves.

For coins like those, your mind adds up all the positives/negatives of strike, luster, toning, eye appeal ,etc and comes to a conclusion. I've just only once had them all add up to the exact same result. It was annoying to say the least!

Unknown

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charley

Thank You, for your thoughts TDN. Now that I understand, I must admit this would be a very difficult challenge and it now is clear to me why you presented the level of difficulty of such a decision. At first reading, I was mystified why someone of your talents and ability would find such a choice hard. Thank You. Respectfully, John Curlis