Hey MPL geeks, remember me?

TimListon

Just thought I'd stop by and say "hi" and reacquaint myself with what's going on in MPLs. My former set....

http://www.pcgs.com/setregistry/alltimeset.aspx?s=1926

And actually, at one point I had three complete MPL sets. Liston One is above, Liston Two was a nice RB set and also registered. And I had a third, all in old ANACS holders. All were RB but mostly red, 65's mostly. Never owned even one RD MPL.

I see Andy has a couple of my toners. And he got my VDB upgraded from a 65 straight to a 67. Dirty dog! I guess I can't complain, I paid $2300 at auction for that coin in 1993 or thereabouts and sold it for WHOLE LOT more in 2008. Did I have an eye or what....

In fact I think I saw 4-5 of my toners attributed in other sets. Who has my 1915 Eliasberg? Believe it or not I got that one on Ebay around 20 years ago. I might still have the paperwork....

So get me caught up guys. I'll hang around for a few days....

Tim

WaterSport

Well, I am sure you saw the crest and following crash of both interest and prices based on the hopes/expectations that the mint would STOP making the cent and a interest would peek in collecting them following by folks who went after MPL’s hoping to get them before the price went up or make quick profit. It has surpassed me how the darn things are now like fleas. They are by the dozens at shows like Long Beach and I dare say you can probably find most but the VDB available on Ebay any given day. I know the very nice ones kept their value, but I am seeing many general examples under $1000 that were not within reach of those who wanted them so badly years ago. Other than STEVE, no one bothers to bring up MPL’s but occasionally. You had an awesome set and good eye so maybe you can take another crack at putting set together someday.

WS

deefree49

Andy got me some nice "toners" and I wonder if one of them might have been yours at one time Tim. My set is under "deefree" and I'm thinking specifically about the 1910, 1914, 1915 and 1916. If you have a minute you might take a look and see if you ever once had any of them. I'm hoping that someday Andy can help me find the VDB to finish the set. He has helped me immensely with my set so far. All the best mattes I have came from him at Angel Dee's.

deefree49

I'm only one of the collectors that Angel Dee's has helped build Matte Proof Registry sets. "Doggiedad" is an avid Matte proof collector who I've had the pleasure to meet through these message boards. He won a 1st prize award for his Matte proof display at a major show recently. The amazing "Angel's Assemblage", a wonderful set - was also helped by Andy at Angel Dee's. That is where the name comes from, in honor of Angel Dee's helping "spodlas2" build the set. Andy himself doesn't even own a Registry set, he just helps people put them together!

Steve

Tim,

Glad to see you back here. You had an amazing MPL set registry, and as Bob says, today the ONLY MPL's that you CAN"T get for reasonable prices is the 1909VDB MPL.



The key issue with that coin is the hoard of 53 that is off the market and supposidly in the hands of a hoarder. It was publically publisized in Coin World in October, 2014 but the hobby has kept it VERY quite since then. Hardly ANY 1909 VDB MPL's have traded in auction or publically via private treaty in the past year and a half. Obviously, until this hoard issue is resolved no one will risk serious MONEY on this coin AND some of the posters HERE who want and need an example will have to wait. My PR61RB which is the lowest graded PCGS example has been valued on the PCGS price guide at $8,500 since 2009. Those of us who own an example either want to continue holding it in their collection or will not sell it for a deflated price because of the hoard. Those who want an example for their collection are hopeful that soon the hoard issue will be resolved and an example will be made available at a discount from the values the coins fetched when the hoarder accumulated them back in the 2005 to 2014 period. Bottom line is, in my opinion, including the 53 hoard coins, there are ONLY about 150 1909VDB MPL's out there certified by the MAJOR third party graders. We know about 100 of these coins are currently in the hands of collectors. Are there another 50 collectors who want an example for their collection??? If YES, then in my opinion the current price structure will be maintained. If NO, then we may see some bargan hunting when the hoarder issue is resolved. Of course, there is a third possibility. That is that the hoarders 53 coins are never sold or recovered by the hobby. Let's hope that NEVER happens.

Steve

PQueue

RE:
...Those of us who own an example either want to continue holding it in their collection or will not sell it for a deflated price because of the hoard...

More likely the previous situation was a price bubble.

deefree49

I was reading Kevin Flynn's book, Lincoln Cent Matte Proofs this morning and found some interesting stuff at the end. There were letters printed from 1909 and what is rather ironic is that collectors were already complaining way back at the end of 1909 about being unable to acquire the VDB proof. One coin dealer from that time, Lyman Low, proprietor of a store called "Rare Coins" wrote a letter to the mint lamenting that the VDB was already rare and it cost at least a whole dollar to get one. HA! A WHOLE DOLLAR! Well in today's money, that is probably at least $25.00 so that would have been a tidy sum for a coin back then.



I find it very interesting that even back in the year the VDB proof was made, collectors were already having a hard time finding one. The situation is obviously worse now but the seeds were sewn right at the beginning. Only 420 VDB proofs and this was in the first year of a new design. What was the mint thinking??



If it is too expensive for matte proof collectors to shell out the big bucks for a VDB, I suggest buying more of the other dates. ;-)

Steve

Originally posted by: deefree49

I was reading Kevin Flynn's book, Lincoln Cent Matte Proofs this morning and found some interesting stuff at the end. There were letters printed from 1909 and what is rather ironic is that collectors were already complaining way back at the end of 1909 about being unable to acquire the VDB proof. One coin dealer from that time, Lyman Low, proprietor of a store called "Rare Coins" wrote a letter to the mint lamenting that the VDB was already rare and it cost at least a whole dollar to get one. HA! A WHOLE DOLLAR! Well in today's money, that is probably at least $25.00 so that would have been a tidy sum for a coin back then.



I find it very interesting that even back in the year the VDB proof was made, collectors were already having a hard time finding one. The situation is obviously worse now but the seeds were sewn right at the beginning. Only 420 VDB proofs and this was in the first year of a new design. What was the mint thinking??



If it is too expensive for matte proof collectors to shell out the big bucks for a VDB, I suggest buying more of the other dates. ;-)

Hi David,

Kevin's book is loaded with key information, and especially about the 1909 VDB MPL.



For instance, the coin was minted on July 30, 1909 with a total of 1,503 strikes. Of course, of that total many of the coins struck were "not good" according to US Mint records. The "coiner" determined that 1,194 of the 1,503 coins struck were "good" and accepted that number from the "metal room"where they were struck. This "delivery" occured on August 2, 1909. Those were the only "VDB" proof coins struck. The next striking occured on August 16th after the decision to stop making the original design coins with Brenner's initials on the bottom reverse was made.



There have been a number of stories associated with how many of these coins "were made". For almost 90 years or at least from the 1940's until 1997, the so called "reported mintage" was 420. That was the number reported in the Red Book. When Kevin Flynn's analysis came out, along with separate analysis by Roger Burdette we started to see the higher number of 1,194. There was a story associated with Dave Bowers about a shipment to a dealer involving "hundreds" of the 1909VDB MPL's that were never received and apparently were lost. I tend to believe that the 420 number represented what the mint officials believed were actually SOLD to the public. After all, the US Mint did then and does now SELL proof coins to the public. Finally, the last few years the Red Book "experts" have acknowledged that "probably 400 to 600 of these coins actually got into the hands of collectors. Much more information on this coin exists on the historical threads from 2006 to 2010 if you can get them from search.

Steve

And TODAY with the fact that the hobby will only accept 1909VDB MPL's that ARE in major third party grading slabs, we estimate there are now only about 150 such coins in existence after taking into account the number of resubmissions and crossovers that occurred within third party grading in the last 30 years.

deefree49

Steve, Thanks for your reply and for sharing your thoughts on this. As one of the main depositories for MPL information, I always am very interested in what you say about the subject. I just got into the whole MPL thing last October and in that short time, I've really become absorbed into the subject. (My better half Evelyn says "obsessed" is a more accurate description of my relationship with the subject)



Anyway, whatever the numbers of minted coins, what is really important is how many actually survive. It seems to hover around 30% of the number minted. Those numbers are even fudgy because when people attempt to upgrade, they don't always report the demise of the old number. So, coins get counted twice or even more. One article claimed the actual survivor rate was only 70% of the graded population. So, with 70% of 30%, now it is more like only 1 out of every 5 minted manage to survive. Kind of bleak, especially when you consider numbers that were low to begin with. I imagine it was pretty nuts back around 2008 - 2012 with all those collectors clamoring for the few available coins. In all of 2009, Heritage had only one VDB go to auction. Amazing!

TwoSides2aCoin

Having fun is the name of the game. I am guilty of that