I Bought A Really Cool Item Today For Under $400 I Am Excited About!!

wondercoin

A mint sewn bag of 1968-D Jefferson Nickels!! The search for a gem Full Step of this date now has 4,000 more candidates to examine this Summer. The hunt for the holy grail. The only question with these searches is what goes first.... Your eyes or the completed search for the coins!! Wish me luck!!

Anyone out there working on a similar (likely futile act)??

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Dan50

Good luck with your search Mitch, I for one would love to see you make a couple.

Yorkshireman

I am searching BU rolls of red Lincoln cents from the 1950s and 1960s, left to me by my late father, trying to find some MS66 and 67 specimens.
Am I crazy?

wondercoin

A lot less crazier than I am!!

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Stooge

About 6 years ago, I picked up an original mint sewn bag of $1,000 in 1974 Philly Dimes, and as you are well aware, to this day even, there isn't a single 1974 Roosevelt dime with FB's. So here I sat with 10,000 untouched Dimes, that haven't seen the light of day in almost 35+ years and I went through that bag over a 3 month time period. I had clad metal shavings in my finger tips for 6 months. They were the sharpest cut reeded edge coinage I have ever handled, even some of todays larger coinage like the Kennedy Halves.

Here is a submission of some of the best Dimes I encountered from the first half of that bag and just let me say that these Dimes have not a single nick, scratch, finger print, nothing. Super well struck and PCGS in my mind graded them about 1-2 grades lower on average in my opinion. I literally thought I was going to pop an MS68.

Order #20234921 / Submission #3734486
Line # Item # Cert # PCGS No. CoinDate Denomination Variety Country Grade
1 1 12515724 5145 1974 10C USA MS65
1 2 12515725 5145 1974 10C USA MS65
1 3 12515726 5145 1974 10C USA MS65
1 4 12515727 5145 1974 10C USA MS65
1 5 12515728 5145 1974 10C USA MS65
1 6 12515729 5145 1974 10C USA MS65
1 7 12515730 5145 1974 10C USA MS65
1 8 12515731 5145 1974 10C USA MS66
1 9 12515732 5145 1974 10C USA MS66
1 10 12515733 5145 1974 10C USA MS65
1 11 12515734 5145 1974 10C USA MS65
1 12 12515735 5145 1974 10C USA MS65
1 13 12515736 5145 1974 10C USA MS66
1 14 12515737 5145 1974 10C USA MS65
1 15 12515738 5145 1974 10C USA MS65
1 16 12515739 5145 1974 10C USA MS65
1 17 12515740 5145 1974 10C USA MS65
1 18 12515741 5145 1974 10C USA MS65
1 19 12515742 5145 1974 10C USA MS65
1 20 12515743 5145 1974 10C USA MS65
1 21 12515744 5145 1974 10C USA MS66
1 22 12515745 5145 1974 10C USA MS65
1 23 12515746 5145 1974 10C USA MS66
1 24 12515747 5145 1974 10C USA MS65
1 25 12515748 5145 1974 10C USA MS65
1 26 12515749 5145 1974 10C USA MS65
1 27 12515750 5145 1974 10C USA MS66
Total Items: 27
Date Received: 9/24/2008
Date Shipped: 10/15/2008
Order Status: Shipped

I looked at all 10,000 Dimes and not 1 single Dime was even close to 50% bands on the bottom bands. The top bands were there quite a few times as always, but not 1 dime in the entire bag. My experience is that most of those Dimes came off of the same set of dies, at possible 2-3 sets at the very max. So when you crack open that bag, within the first 50-100 Nickels, you will get a real sense of what is in the rest of the bag. Since there is only 1 1968-D Nickel with a FS and it is an MS64FS, I wish you the best of luck.

Please share your findings, and pop an MS67FS!

Later, Paul.

Edited for spelling, because I'm a nitwit!

wondercoin

Great story Paul. And one that is probably not over as a few of the dimes may still upgrade a point or more down the road. But based upon your story I think I will turn the bag over to my daughter Lauren to prescreen. I think I would prefer looking at the best 100 coins after reading your story! Wondercoin.

sparky64

Are you going to go straight to the reverse only or do a cursory obverse check too?

What did your daughter do wrong to be given the pre-screen chore?

Good luck.

mas3387

A 3 hour chore...
Come on Mitch get it done !!!

wondercoin

Sparky. Straight to the reverse, but an instruction that if the reverse looks clean to consider the coin for high grade submission.

Mas... Admit it. You just opened the thread thinking I was talking about a Grand Canyon quarter I just picked up

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mas3387

<< <i>Mas... Admit it. You just opened the thread thinking I was talking about a Grand Canyon quarter I just picked up >>


Ok, you got me

Find them steps !! Enjoy the hunt, hope it turns out well....

wondercoin

Allcoinsrule. I have done my share of mint sets as well since my search started aggressively in 1983. That was 31 years ago and still no full step coin from any mint sets. You mention one FS that came from a mint set (ever) and I saw the coin. But, as you see, the chances of finding a FS in mint sets is almost impossible. So, the chances are no worse in my view searching a bag of 4,000 "fresh" coins. That is more than double the 1,800 pieces you mention yielded the FS example. This is the first sealed bag of 68-d nickels I have come across in at least 10 to 15 years. How many more sealed bags are out there? This coin is already 46 years old!!

Do I think my chances are good of finding a FS coin from this bag? NO.

Will my daughter never forget just how tough this date is to locate with FS after her search is completed? YES.

Wondercoin.

wondercoin

Update: Lauren was a bit under the weather today, so when the sealed bag came in, I opened it tonight and graded 400 coins (10% of the bag). I found one coin with about 4 steps. As expected, most of the coins had virtually no steps. Lauren takes over tomorrow. Maybe some "lady luck" will kick in.

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erwindoc

Im not a huge FS Jefferson fan, but good luck!

tradedollarnut

Way back when I was 15 years old, I remember bouncing off the walls with excitement until my mint sewn bag of 1960-D cents arrived. I was bound and determined to search every coin for the elusive and rare small dates.

I gave up after about 200 coins. lol

wondercoin

I remember those 60-d sd cents! I was living in Philly in 1972 and as a kid struck out searching for 72 DDO cents. I couldn't stop though before I went through nearly 10,000 pieces. And, of course, it hurt even more striking out after all of those!

Lauren came down from her sick bed last night, and I got to show her the best coin I found from the bag after I finished 10 rolls. She was impressed with it (especially when comparing it with some of the typical wiped out step specimens) but is determined to find a true FS example from the remaining 3,600 coins. The odds are long and she knows that.

I had lunch the other day with an ex- serious Jefferson nickel collector (he recently sold his collection for close to six figures concerned that the gradeflation out there was killing his set. He was with his girlfriend (I believe in her thirties) and Lauren was with me. We talked about a lot of things, and one topic that came up was Lauren's excitement about screening this 68-d bag of nickels. His girlfriend expressed serious interest in performing these type of searches; so much that I told her that I would try to find her a bag of nickels to get started. She was wearing a coin ring, a coin watch and a coin necklace. And, now she wanted to spend her days searching coins if possible. Where were these kind of girls when I was dating way back when!! But, this is what coin collecting is all about!!

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wondercoin

Update: Lauren has now knocked out (40) more rolls (50 all together now including the 10 I did). She found (2) 4 -4 1/2 stepper and was very excited about that. I explained to my 24 year old daughter how the "you're either pregnant or not pregnant" saying applies to this coin work!

50% of the bag left and no cigar (yet)!

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mas3387

4 steps
4 1/2steps...
Next one is ???

cupronik

Any candidates for MS-67?

wondercoin

Thanks for the words of encouragement MAS. I knew the difficulty level of this project going in. Roughly on par with finding a true grade MS69 state quarter from 1999.

Cupronik. The quality of the bag is, overall, quite good. I think there will end up being a shot MS67 or two out of these 4,000 coins. But, that is truly the consolation prize for this hunt. Lauren is screening every coin wearing gloves and carefully placing all the coins in tubes. I hope next week this search doesn't come down to hunting for an MS67 if you know what I mean. Wondercoin.

P.S. I feel Stooge's pain!!!

cupronik

WC, you can always send in the nickels that have 4-4.5 steps and cross your fingers. Probably limit it to the best four or five coins.

wondercoin

I know. But, where the "pride" in slabbing a mistake - right?

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cupronik

Good luck!

wondercoin

4,000 coins later.... One or two very long shot five steppers. Probably in my dreams.

It was worth the try though.

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mdwoods

This has been a good thread to follow. I was hoping you would find a couple real nice ones.

wondercoin

Thanks Mark. That project is behind us.

I am now moving Lauren on to a job to screen a mint sewn bag of 5,000 Memorial Cents. Stay tuned. LOL.

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Stooge

<< <i>I am now moving Lauren on to a job to screen a mint sewn bag of 5,000 Memorial Cents. Stay tuned. LOL.

Wondercoin >>

Care to share with us the Date/MM? Don't collect Pennies so I'm just curious...

Paul.

wondercoin

Paul. 1979-D. There has never been a single coin graded above MS67RD, so I set the bar at MS67+RD for Lauren to shoot for.

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grip

Great post. Keep us posted Mitch on the out come.

wondercoin

Thanks Grip. Just to update ....

Since the time of those 68-D Nickels, Lauren first screened a mint sewn bag of 1982-P Lincoln Cents followed by a 1977-D mint sewn Lincoln cent bag. 10,000 coins later, I have a couple hand fulls of coins in flips that are possible submission candidates. I was shocked at how few coins I had in gem grade after a 10,000 coin search. Next up is that 1979-D Cent bag, but I am not overly optimistic that search will uncover anything.

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