So what's your worst... Oops?

Broadstruck

So the other day I was photographing a raw coin and it slipping out of my hand as I was trying to flip it over.

Then rolled off the copy stand base, dropped about 18" onto the carpet, and rolled across the room

kookoox10

1799 Large Cent?

bosco5041

I showed a dealer friend of mine a 1841 raw half in AU condition with beautiful blue toning around the rims. He took it from my hand and was commenting on it and dropped it. It hit the edge of his table and then the tile floor. It put a small ding on the arm of liberty and luckily that's all. He offered to compensate me for it but I told him it was an accident. I got it in a TPG holder shortly after that. That has been years ago and I still have that coin and the little ding seems to get bigger as time passes.

ctf_error_coins

LOL, having photographed thousands upon thousands of coins things are going to happen.

I do have carpeting, so the few coins that have rolled off the table incurred no damage, but I do remember one,

While photographing an error coin, it rolled off the table and disappeared. I could not find it. I finally found it months later, it had rolled off the table, hit the carpet and rolled quite a ways then made a turn and went in between two boxes that maybe had a 1/4 inch gap between the two.

kiyote

Is anyone going to be able to top the accidently thrown-away $4 Stella? Owww...

kimber45ACP

Buying a Peace dollar in NGC 67 and then trying to cross to PCGS.

fivecents

I remember on post a few years back where a valuable coin rolled off the desk and fell into a paint bucket full of paint.

LanceNewmanOCC

<< <i>LOL, having photographed thousands upon thousands of coins things are going to happen.

I do have carpeting, so the few coins that have rolled off the table incurred no damage, but I do remember one,

While photographing an error coin, it rolled off the table and disappeared. I could not find it. I finally found it months later, it had rolled off the table, hit the carpet and rolled quite a ways then made a turn and went in between two boxes that maybe had a 1/4 inch gap between the two. >>



man alive i would have loved to have seen a video of that!

i've dropped several coins and when they hit the carpet not enough noise was made to determine which way they went and weeks would go by before i would find them. i actually stop looking now after 1-2 minutes knowing if i don't find it/them right away, too much time will be wasted and i just have to wait until i stumble across it/them. currently i have a 38-d 50c vf/xf m.i.a.
.

SmEagle1795

<< <i>I remember on post a few years back where a valuable coin rolled off the desk and fell into a paint bucket full of paint. >>



It probably still looked better than those "hand painted" coins...

shylock

Check out this thread from 2004.

Some scary coin stories including mine with a tubular lighting system
That light wound up in my Thursday trash pickup.

indeetlib

I once had a 1776 Machin's Mills Halfpenny. It was a low grade coin struck on a crummy planchet, as usual. I soon realized how crummy the planchet was though. I went to slide the coin into its envelope, missed the envelope and the coin fell a few inches onto a hard desk. On impact, the planchet gave out and the coin broke in half, literally almost right down the middle. There were two large pieces of the coin remaining and little bits of crumbled copper scattered about. The copper on the inside of the coin looked like dirt.

The good news was I now had two 1776 Machin's Mills Halfpennies, both with ragged planchet clip errors.

seanq

The list of the coins I know I have misplaced over the years:

- proof 1938 Jefferson nickel (cherrypicked as a business strike)

- clipped 1915-S Lincoln cent (packing it up to sell to someone and I must have thrown it out with the scraps)

- 1864 two cent piece with a very dramatic and rare RPD (also cherrypicked, never seen another since)


Sean Reynolds

SaorAlba

Back in 1999 I received a package with a 1652 Bristol farthing token from Great Britain - unfortunately it came in the mail the same day I got a call from my sister to come to Washington DC in a big hurry because my mother was in the hospital. In all the confusion of leaving in a hurry I must have put the coin back in the envelope it came in and thrown the envelope out in the dustbin forgetting that the token was in there.

TwoSides2aCoin

I dipped a brass presidential dollar.

jmj3esq

I have some fascination with holding and viewing my raw coins. There bee a time or two when a couple have dropped from my DANSCO 7070. luckily no harm done...yet.

FredWeinberg

That was I who literally threw away
a PCGS PF-65 Stella in June 1986....

Still have a photo of it in the holder,
and it's still somewhere in the
Simi Valley Trash Dump........

Thanks for reminding me (not that I
ever forget!)

Walkerfan

<< <i>That was I who literally threw away
a PCGS PF-65 Stella in June 1986....

Still have a photo of it in the holder,
and it's still somewhere in the
Simi Valley Trash Dump........

Thanks for reminding me (not that I
ever forget!) >>



YIKES!! How did that happen??

OldEastside

<< <i>That was I who literally threw away
a PCGS PF-65 Stella in June 1986....

Still have a photo of it in the holder,
and it's still somewhere in the
Simi Valley Trash Dump........

Thanks for reminding me (not that I
ever forget!) >>




So.......Its over there by Wallmart ..........hmmmmmmm, well you have a picture.......FWIW I lost a 58 Canadian Totum Dollar in the trash
Its probably in the Simi Dump too!.........not really a big deal

Steve

kiyote

Sorry, Fred.. I don't mean to bring it up again... that story is now a legend.

LanceNewmanOCC

.
maybe another thread with a poll.

"have you ever put a scratch on a coin removing a staple"
.

johnny9434

i know some one who has a 1955 double die obverse who dropped it on the floor and got to talking forgetting about the cent. they went on to vacuum the floor and sent the cent up into the vacuum. all be it it was only in fine condition one does not want to hear that.

gonzer

<< <i>So the other day I was photographing a raw coin and it slipping out of my hand as I was trying to flip it over.

Then rolled off the copy stand base, dropped about 18" onto the carpet, and rolled across the room >>



and, and?????

SaorAlba

<< <i>That was I who literally threw away
a PCGS PF-65 Stella in June 1986....

Still have a photo of it in the holder,
and it's still somewhere in the
Simi Valley Trash Dump........

Thanks for reminding me (not that I
ever forget!) >>



At least the coin I threw out by accident was no more than $50 in value at the time

Maybe one of those digger TV shows should haunt the dump where your Stella went.

USMarine6

I bought this half dime and it had some sticker residue on it from a price tag. I went to the garage and grabbed the goof off instead of the goo b gone. You see what happened. Lesson learned.

amwldcoin

<< <i>That was I who literally threw away
a PCGS PF-65 Stella in June 1986....

Still have a photo of it in the holder,
and it's still somewhere in the
Simi Valley Trash Dump........

Thanks for reminding me (not that I
ever forget!) >>



And that's not worth financing a small excavation? Or do you think the trash workers found it????

sparky64

indeetlib.
That is actually very funny and descriptive.
I can picture the whole incident.
You caught me off guard and it made me laugh.
"The copper on the inside of the coin looked like dirt."

rhedden

A friend of mine built a tremendous collection of die varieties of a certain silver coin. When he moved to another apartment, he accidentally sent the whole collection to the dump while throwing other stuff out. He no longer collects coins or can stand to look at them. I'm not going to top that one.



I personally dug up a 1909-s Indian while metal detecting in upstate NY. It was badly corroded with a glob of oxidation sitting on the mint mark. I chipped off the oxidation with a pen knife, and you guessed it, the whole mint mark chipped off with the crud. Coin probably wasn't worth anything except as a conversation piece, but.....

georgiacop50

Then there was the guy who thwarted theft by hiding his slabs in his backyard gas barbecue --- his wife fired up the grill one day w/o looking inside first.

IIRC NGC used this story to advertise their NCS.

Cocoinut

When I lived in a colder climate and had electric baseboard heat, I was photographing coins and had them stacked on my desk. While adjusting the lights, I knocked the stack of slabs off the back of the desk. I reached under the desk and picked up the slabs from the floor. What I didn't realize at first was that 2 of the slabs had landed on the top of the baseboard heater. The inner rings that held the coins in place had actually melted, in one case covering a small portion of the coin. That part of the slab turned cloudy, but fortunately the hard outer portion of the slabs was intact. The coins were both silver, and not affected. Had they been copper, I might not have been so lucky.

Jim

crypto79

<< <i>That was I who literally threw away
a PCGS PF-65 Stella in June 1986....

Still have a photo of it in the holder,
and it's still somewhere in the
Simi Valley Trash Dump........

Thanks for reminding me (not that I
ever forget!) >>



At what point is it worth it to try and dig it out? 250k, 500k? More

Shamika

<< <i>i know some one who has a 1955 double die obverse who dropped it on the floor and got to talking forgetting about the cent. >>



I don't understand. How do you forget that you dropped a DDO? Alzheimers?

Walkerfan

<< <i>

<< <i>i know some one who has a 1955 double die obverse who dropped it on the floor and got to talking forgetting about the cent. >>



I don't understand. How do you forget that you dropped a DDO? Alzheimers? >>



Must have been REALLY consumed by the BS session!

Broadstruck

<< <i>

<< <i>So the other day I was photographing a raw coin and it slipping out of my hand as I was trying to flip it over.

Then rolled off the copy stand base, dropped about 18" onto the carpet, and rolled across the room >>



and, and????? >>



I got lucky as it's fine, but as it is a $500 coin while it rolling I was thinking well there goes $100, $200, $300

Unknown

This content has been removed.

Musky1011

staple scratches

Pokermandude

When I first got back into collecting and started getting serious about it, I had a really nice 1949 Canadian silver dollar. MS65 maybe even a shot at MS66. I placed it carefully into the cardboard 2x2. Grabbed and old school metal stapler and punched the first staple into the holder. Then looked in horror that there were now two nasty rim digs on the edge of my beautiful silver dollar. I lined up the coin with the stapler, and sure enough, it was a perfect fit. The coin was wider than the stapler's gap when it finished the stapling process.

amwldcoin

I have been thinking about this. I guess this 1 qualifies. I forgot I had some early English copper soaking in olive oil under the kitchen sink. It eventually worked it's way to the back. I guess 3 or 4 years later I found this yucky looking container. Then it dawned on me! There was just about nothing left of the 1/2 dozen pieces....certainly couldn't tell what they were! OOPS!

rec78

My dad found a 1980 Susie dollar with a grease filled die. The 1 in the date was missing. I had planned to sell it on ebay. But before I did that, one day I decided to go out for breakfast and saw this ugly Susie dollar on my desk and without a second thought just put it in my pocket to spend. Well, spend it I did, by the time I realized what I did, it was too late. I notified the restaurant in an attempt to get it back but this attempt failed. It was a neat looking error- a 980 Susie dollar. I don't know how much it would have sold for, I guess maybe around $20?

rec78

<< <i>

<< <i>That was I who literally threw away
a PCGS PF-65 Stella in June 1986....

Still have a photo of it in the holder,
and it's still somewhere in the
Simi Valley Trash Dump........

Thanks for reminding me (not that I
ever forget!) >>



Thanks for sharing this--it makes all my $20-$200 mistakes seem very trivial.



Bob

agentjim007

Lately my only real oops have been buying from auction pictures.

JerseyJoe

I had a nice 1819 large cent with a counter stamp of a Boston silversmith with a bit of crud on it.
I placed it in small saki cup and soaked it with olive oil and placed the cup on the kitchen window sill
behind a curtain.
Well what a surprise when I saw the saki cup was cleaned and when I asked my wife where the coin
was she said "what coin?" The value was about $300.

Edit to add I found a pic of the cent. Counter stamped : STODDER & FROBISHER

ColonelJessup

<< <i>Lately my only real oops have been buying from auction pictures. >>

crypto79

I had a ANACS MS63RD 1983 DDR cent stolen from me at School in the early 90s along with a roll of Cir Franklins (minus 2 or 3) that I used to sell signals of

johnny9434

<< <i>

<< <i>i know some one who has a 1955 double die obverse who dropped it on the floor and got to talking forgetting about the cent. >>



I don't understand. How do you forget that you dropped a DDO? Alzheimers? >>

ill ask them the next time i see them

Zoins

<< <i>

<< <i>That was I who literally threw away
a PCGS PF-65 Stella in June 1986....

Still have a photo of it in the holder,
and it's still somewhere in the
Simi Valley Trash Dump........

Thanks for reminding me (not that I
ever forget!) >>



At what point is it worth it to try and dig it out? 250k, 500k? More >>



This reminds of of shipwrecks where you have an idea of where it is to limit your search but it's still time consuming and expensive. I wonder how many people would start looking for it if this was more widely publicized? It would be interesting if WM was aware of this and mentioned it on their tours.

At least it's gold and in non-biodegradable plastic so it will hopefully survive better until it's found.