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Finally got this one in a plastic tomb...
TwoKopeiki
Posts: 9,539 ✭✭✭✭✭
One of my all-time favorites came from Josh (Civitas) - an interesting 1815 Chihuahua 8 Reales from Mexican War of Independence period. Upon closer examination of the dies, it turned-out to be an overdate, matching the 1816/5 plate coin in Calbeto. One of those really tricky overdates that can't really be identified by looking at the date 
So, off to PCGS it went. 51 business days later it came back bodybagged - cleaned. Came as a shock to me, since this coin is anything BUT cleaned. By that time I got fed-up with PCGS and their turn-around times, so I submitted it ATS. 2 weeks later received it back in an NCS slab with comments - "VF details, counterstamped". Wait a second - it bodybagged for being counterstamped? Whhhaaaaat? So, I got on the phone and got in touch with a very nice gentleman at NGC - Mark Baughman - who was nice enough to listen to my rambling about how this is the way these came out of the mint, how it was an overstike issue on a cast, etc, and finally told me to send it back and he'll take it to the graders for a review (along with my lenghty e-mail of arguments). Turns out NGC never encapsulated one of these before and the graders were not that familiar with the early years of the mint. After a few more conversations - me educating them, them educating me - it made it into a problem-free VF 25 holder.
So, here's the culprit:
And here's some more information about this issue:
<< <i>Mexican War of Independence issue from a Royalist mint in Chihuahua. In 1810, when it was established, this mint was compelled by lack of adequate machinery to cast its coinage. This was accomplished by using regular pieces of eight from the Mexico City mint as patterns, but apparently care was exercised to eradicate the M mint mark and substitute Ca in place of it. Besides having the unmistakably cast appearance and the crudely outlined Ca mint mark, these coins show on the obverse two counterstamps; on the left of the king's portrait a "T" indicating that the Royal Treasurer had received it; on the right, small crowned pillars of Hercules with a pomegranate between them, a symbol used by the Comptroller of the Real Hacienda to whom these pieces were turned over from the foundry room. These counterstamps were placed with hand punches, after each piece had been checked for weight, the lighter coins being discarded and the heavier filed down.
In 1814 this mint had been supplied with the usual Spanish-Colonial dies, and from 1814 to 1822 eight-reales pieces were struck in Chihuahua, with improvised minting machinery. Many of the sand cast pieces were afterwards struck over with regular colonial dies in this and other mints. When this occurred, the original counterstamps were sufficiently deep to be visible even after the sand cast pieces had been struck over. >>
So, off to PCGS it went. 51 business days later it came back bodybagged - cleaned. Came as a shock to me, since this coin is anything BUT cleaned. By that time I got fed-up with PCGS and their turn-around times, so I submitted it ATS. 2 weeks later received it back in an NCS slab with comments - "VF details, counterstamped". Wait a second - it bodybagged for being counterstamped? Whhhaaaaat? So, I got on the phone and got in touch with a very nice gentleman at NGC - Mark Baughman - who was nice enough to listen to my rambling about how this is the way these came out of the mint, how it was an overstike issue on a cast, etc, and finally told me to send it back and he'll take it to the graders for a review (along with my lenghty e-mail of arguments). Turns out NGC never encapsulated one of these before and the graders were not that familiar with the early years of the mint. After a few more conversations - me educating them, them educating me - it made it into a problem-free VF 25 holder.
So, here's the culprit:
And here's some more information about this issue:
<< <i>Mexican War of Independence issue from a Royalist mint in Chihuahua. In 1810, when it was established, this mint was compelled by lack of adequate machinery to cast its coinage. This was accomplished by using regular pieces of eight from the Mexico City mint as patterns, but apparently care was exercised to eradicate the M mint mark and substitute Ca in place of it. Besides having the unmistakably cast appearance and the crudely outlined Ca mint mark, these coins show on the obverse two counterstamps; on the left of the king's portrait a "T" indicating that the Royal Treasurer had received it; on the right, small crowned pillars of Hercules with a pomegranate between them, a symbol used by the Comptroller of the Real Hacienda to whom these pieces were turned over from the foundry room. These counterstamps were placed with hand punches, after each piece had been checked for weight, the lighter coins being discarded and the heavier filed down.
In 1814 this mint had been supplied with the usual Spanish-Colonial dies, and from 1814 to 1822 eight-reales pieces were struck in Chihuahua, with improvised minting machinery. Many of the sand cast pieces were afterwards struck over with regular colonial dies in this and other mints. When this occurred, the original counterstamps were sufficiently deep to be visible even after the sand cast pieces had been struck over. >>
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Comments
DPOTD-3
'Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery'
CU #3245 B.N.A. #428
Don
Well, just Love coins, period.
Glad to hear you finally knocked some sense into SOMEONE over this one. Talking to the services can be like talking to a brick wall sometimes, but I'm glad you were able to plead your case with NGC.
Did they slab it as the overdate though?
https://www.civitasgalleries.com
New coins listed monthly!
Josh Moran
CIVITAS Galleries, Ltd.
Josh - I wish! They attributed it as 1816 without an overdate (which is unfair, because if they didn't believe the overdate story they should have attributed it as 1815 based on the date on the coin itself). At this point I'm not ready to fight that battle just yet.
8 Reales Madness Collection
I just recently got about 180 Panda's graded at NGC.
I dealt with Mark Baughman through the whole process.
He was/is a pleasure to deal with.
the determinations of cleaned, enviromental damage and questionable color. thats why you see a lot more
color coins in NGC holders and also recolored vf-au58's in NGC holders than you do in PCGS. I know this from personal
submitting experience with both TPG's and also from posts such as Romans. I look hard to find what I want in a PCGS
holder but settle at times for a NGC upon in hand inspection.
And I sure wish CLCT would start grading Tokens, Medals
and So-Called Dollars. It may improve their bottom line and cause an upward roar of the CLCT shares.
Let me know right before you do this CLCT so I can buy up some shares before the announcement.
There will be a rush of ngc'd crossover submittals that will take PCGS a couple years to work through.
Experience the World through Numismatics...it's more than you can imagine.
<< <i>This is probably why people put a little more faith in PCGS coins vs NGC. PCGS is more conservative with
the determinations of cleaned, enviromental damage and questionable color. thats why you see a lot more
color coins in NGC holders and also recolored vf-au58's in NGC holders than you do in PCGS. I know this from personal
submitting experience with both TPG's and also from posts such as Romans. I look hard to find what I want in a PCGS
holder but settle at times for a NGC upon in hand inspection. >>
Do you believe this coin to be cleaned? Because I don't and I think that I am a pretty good judge when it comes to identifying cleaned / re-coloured coins.
8 Reales Madness Collection
by being that way consistently it is perceived that a PCGS coin may be critically superior or that a person can feel
relatively more safe that its not fake, cleaned, or graded improperly, etc.
I've submitted quite a few to both TPG's and have had the same experiences and similar discussions with personnel
at NGC. I believe overall, the two compliment each other in their respective ways.
<< <i>This is probably why people put a little more faith in PCGS coins vs NGC. PCGS is more conservative with
the determinations of cleaned, enviromental damage and questionable color. thats why you see a lot more
color coins in NGC holders and also recolored vf-au58's in NGC holders than you do in PCGS. I know this from personal
submitting experience with both TPG's and also from posts such as Romans. I look hard to find what I want in a PCGS
holder but settle at times for a NGC upon in hand inspection.
And I sure wish CLCT would start grading Tokens, Medals
and So-Called Dollars. It may improve their bottom line and cause an upward roar of the CLCT shares.
Let me know right before you do this CLCT so I can buy up some shares before the announcement.
There will be a rush of ngc'd crossover submittals that will take PCGS a couple years to work through. >>
sorry, but the "more faith" in PCGS applies generally to US coins as a whole. The vast majority of rare and scarce world coins are in NGC holders, as that is where the market is most comfortable as a whole. that isn't likely to change anytime soon, especially considering NGC just introduced their new holder that allows the edge to be seen, something that made a lot of overseas collectors wary of slabs before this occured.
<< <i>
<< <i>This is probably why people put a little more faith in PCGS coins vs NGC. PCGS is more conservative with
the determinations of cleaned, enviromental damage and questionable color. thats why you see a lot more
color coins in NGC holders and also recolored vf-au58's in NGC holders than you do in PCGS. I know this from personal
submitting experience with both TPG's and also from posts such as Romans. I look hard to find what I want in a PCGS
holder but settle at times for a NGC upon in hand inspection. >>
Do you believe this coin to be cleaned? Because I don't and I think that I am a pretty good judge when it comes to identifying cleaned / re-coloured coins. >>
Roman - i think you're spot on in your assessment. remember, when this coin was "finalized" at NGC, it was Ken Krah looking at it. he has seen more world coin rarities than probably anyone at either company, and can easily spot a damaged coin. As far as being mis-attributed, that is something that both services still do a lackluster job at with world coins; i have examples from both services that are incorrectly labeled.
<< <i>No sir, I'm just making an observation that PCGS is more conservative and rather too conservative at times, but
by being that way consistently it is perceived that a PCGS coin may be critically superior or that a person can feel
relatively more safe that its not fake, cleaned, or graded improperly, etc. >>
Ah, I misinterpreted your comment. I agree that PCGS tends to be more conservative (especially with world coins). They also tend to use US standard when grading World coins, as well, which is fine as long as the consistency is there. For me - I like the look of PCGS holders and that's the only reason I still play the cross-over game.
Doogy - Ken is very good at what he does, I completely agree
8 Reales Madness Collection