The problem with perfection (where oh where are the MS70 Lincolns?)
WingedLiberty1957
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I stumbled on a "perfect 70" graded Lincoln Cent on ebay on Monday. Being listed at nearly $2000, it's out of my league ... plus I don't collect grade rarities, I am a color collector. Note that it was an SP70 (not MS70).
It made me curious how many "70" graded non-proof Lincoln Cents were floating around.
What I found was interesting to say the least.
First off, CURRENTLY there are NO "MS70" graded regular circulation strike Lincolns at all graded with PCGS. This covers over half a million graded Lincolns.
If you expand the search to Special Strikes, there are 41 "SP70" Lincoln Cents, but fascinatingly they are all dated between 2005 and 2006. The population of SP70 goes: 2005 = pop 19 ... 2005-D = pop 2 ... and 2006 = pop 20. There are no other perfect 70's in any other years. It's interesting that this was the first two years of the 2005-2010 Special Strike series. Maybe the mint was taking extra care early on in those special strikes.
This is what the TrueView photo for the above coin looks like:
I was telling this to my friend Robec -- and he alerted me to the old story about a 2003 regular Circulation Strike Lincoln that
got the ultra rare "MS70" grade. This all happened way back in September 2006 (over a decade ago!) and raised quite a bit of interest at the time. PCGS Price Guide slapped a $15,000 value on the beast.
It ended up getting auctioned for $13,500 about a month later ... in October 2006
https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/544998/lincoln-2003-ms70-disappointment
(Note the "disappointment" word in the above thread was sarcasm at the time.)
Then, sadly, in the following year and a half, the "perfect lincoln" developed a spot on the reverse. The owner sent it into PCGS for a spot review and PCGS ended up knocking the grade down to 69 and paid the owner the Guide Price ($15k) from their guarantee. Praise the PCGS Guarantee!
https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/644643/2003-pcgs-ms70-lincoln/p1
So the upshot is the singular MS70 Lincoln Cent is no more. Once again this mythical creature has moved into the realm of the unicorn.
Someone else wrote in one of the threads that they doubted that PCGS will ever give out another MS70 grade on a Lincoln Cent. (I don't know myself, but can see with PCGS financial risk and responsibility, they are probably not terribly motivated to assign such a lofty grade again).
As a final aside, someone wrote in one of the threads that if an MS70 Lincoln was going to fall out of the morass, it would have to be for the year 2003, which apparently was an especially great year for Circ Strikes.
I myself have a 2003 Lincoln which looks so "proof-like" it's breathtaking, but mine only scored a lowly MS68 grade -- nowhere near perfect. But still an amazing prooflike surface. Funny about how nice many 2003 Lincolns are. When I first saw this coin in hand, I thought it was a Proof that was missing the S mintmark!
Just some fun playing around with the idea of "perfection" -- a tough row to hoe.
Comments
That 2003-P look like an honest-injun "First Strike!"
Here's a warning parable for coin collectors...
Didn't they do away with the guarantee on red copper?
There is a virtual endless list of 19th century & early 20th century , amazingly beautiful coins that I would gladly put down $13k. The history, the story, the rarity & survival rates. The social climate of 1812, the civil war and WW I.
But a 2005 penny? Just because it's a "70"?
I'm sorry, that is insane. I wouldn't pay $10 for the coin, let alone the cost to put it in a slab. That coin is NOT a numismatic item, it's a freakin penny.
Just sayin....
"Just because you were born on 3rd base doesn't mean you hit a triple"
They don't guarantee RD copper any longer, but in this case it was a spot that caused the downgrade not color.
- Bob -
"Central Valley" Roosevelts
MPL's - Lincolns of Color
I am going to disagree with you.
It IS a numismatic item, whether you are interested in it or not.
Just because you don't think it is collectible, doesn't make it so.
A 1799 Large Cent is still just a freakin penny.
Just sayin...
Of course who wouldn't want a $13k 2005 zinc and copper painted token over a $13k 1799 F-12 large cent. It's shiny!
Today's mint turns out unlimited trash coins. They can perfect any kind of finish it wants, cam, reverse cam, satin. As long as you have money, they will invent coins for you to buy. The topics are changed ad nauseum. Collect what you want but I won't even look at anything post 1964, and rarely beyond the end of the Walker/Mercury era.
"Just because you were born on 3rd base doesn't mean you hit a triple"
I collect a few moderns, and for type purposes I like to get nice ones, but my problem with modern condition rarities is this:
You say they've graded about 500,000 Lincolns. They've minted 500,000,000,000 (yes, 1/2 trillion) of them. Most of these are of course Memorial and Shield coins. If you do the math, for every single Lincoln they've graded there are A MILLION MORE that they haven't seen yet.
Account for the ones I put on the railroad tracks, dissolved in HS chemistry class, lost under the seat of my old Cavalier.... divide by the square root of the speed of light in a vacuum, carry the one, cross-multiply......
There might be a few more nice ones out there that haven't been slabbed and labeled. I'll take my chances that a bag of BU 1934-S Peace dollars isn't going to hit the market tomorrow, but paying real money for the highest grade uber-modern Lincoln seems like an education waiting to happen.
paying real money for the highest grade uber-modern Lincoln seems like an education waiting to happen.
An education can be had for just $1200.00 as I found out last week when my Nice PCGS PR69 2014-W Gold Kennedy I bought off of eBay came in, the first thing I noticed was that "Nice Green and Black Copper Spot" right below the 4 in 64 made it look like it had been hit by a micrometeorite. I'm just glad the dealer had a conscious and let me send it back. Strange that I would get to see the rare spec of metal that kept it from being 100% pure gold, maybe the mint will go for 5 9's in the future...
Fighting the Fight for 11 Years with the big "C" - Never Ever Give Up!
Member PCGS Open Forum board 2002 - 2006 (closed end of 2006) Current board since 2006 Successful trades with many members, over the past two decades, never a bad deal.
"But a 2005 penny? Just because it's a "70"?
I'm sorry, that is insane. I wouldn't pay $10 for the coin, let alone the cost to put it in a slab. That coin is NOT a numismatic item, it's a freakin penny."
Think back a bit... I know for a fact, that people paid $6500 for a Beanie Baby..... Collectors will pay huge sums for something rare and desirable - and desirable is defined within the collecting group. Cheers, RickO
PCGS has no doubt instructed graders NOT to assign MS70 to any Lincoln Cent. I had one of the 2006 MS (not SP) 70 graded satin finish coins and it WAS defect free. The color had mellowed a bit though. With MS70 grade on business strike Lincoln's you fight contact marks, strike quality, perfect fields and absence of those damn black pool spots. Indeed a TRUE 70 Lincoln DOES exist, probably tens of thousands of them. The problem is very Venn Diagram....the number of submitters willing to run the cour$e is very limited, the pool of coins very great, the grade candidates limited. Getting all this aligned is nearly impossible.
Well, for me personally, I don't collect high grade rarities for a few reasons. First my eyesight is bad enough where a 70 looks identical to a 67/68 in many cases. I am worried about population dilution as time goes by. Plus I don't like the super high prices. But I still find them interesting to discuss or look at (for example I had no idea there were no MS70 Lincolns!). I do know there are collectors out there that love grade rarities, and I would never disparage their passion.
To each their own, right?
I also have no interest in varieties as again it's hard for me to see the tiny differences in most cases. But again I know there are collectors out there passionate about those. More power to them! Collect what you love.
For me I like color and toning. But mostly because I can often buy those for much cheaper prices, a nice BN lincoln with great color can often be had for a song at near or even under guide prices. Plus I can see the color easily and I find them interesting to view. I am sure a lot of people on this board that hate color -- but hey ... you gotta go for what floats your boat, right?
I certainly never want to disparage anyone's collecting passion -- and there are as many different kind of things that interest people as there are people!
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The irony is that they periodically dig up or find old coins in vaults that dramatically affect the number of coins extant for classics. This has never happened with moderns because nobody ever buried or stashed moderns. The closest thing to it is when as very gemmy bag of 1977 Ikes turned up a few years back and affected the number of Gems for this date.
Most of the half trillion memorials are long gone and most of the rest are rotting away in what the mint euphemistically calls circulation.
Well, I must say that pushing for Graded MS 70's has a very good chance in the future given how long it took PCGS to break the 66 R&B wall, the MS 69 wall, etc. Heck, I can remember just trying to get a MS 66 was darn near impossible 10 years go!
WS
It would be interesting if someone ordered a 100 rolls of cents and submitted them all of them to PCGS to try and get a MS70. How much money would that cost? My guess is $250,000
YN Member of the ANA, ANS, NBS, EAC, C4, MCA, PNNA, CSNS, ILNA, TEC, and more!
Always buying numismatic literature and sample slabs.
One time I took a 1974-S Lincoln out of a pristine Mint Set cello pack and sent it into pcgs ... It was clean looking to my eye. It came back MS64RD. This was a coin that was protected by cellophone inside a cardboard holder for 40 years.
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Rick, I know that all too well. Back in the 90s a work associate of mine purchased 900 Beanie Babies, he was going to make a fortune. Ten years later, he had 900 Beanie Babies in his garage and is still working. Me? I never owned a Beanie Baby and I retired in '13. Beanie Babies are evil.
I feel sorry for dude who pays $13k for a 2005 70 grade Lincoln cent just because someone put it in "special holder" and gave it a "70". Do you think they will get $25k for it in 2030 on it's 25th anniversary?
I own a 1st Edition Omni magazine and the 25th anniversary edition of Playboy (Barbie Benton, remember her?) Tens of thousands are available worth more as a novelty than anything else.
On the other hand, in 2000, I purchased a 1st Edition "Fahrenheit 451" signed by Ray Bradbury and gave it to my son as a college graduation present.
Regards,
Peter
"Just because you were born on 3rd base doesn't mean you hit a triple"
I TOTALLY AGREE!!!!!
Would the rim ding on the reverse above A not keep it from grading 70? I've had better coins go 69.
Most of the half trillion memorials are long gone and most of the rest are rotting away in what the mint euphemistically calls circulation.
Yes, but even if only 0.01% are still around, that's still 100 raw coins for every one that has been graded.
I am helping wipe out the Beanie Baby Thing. I travel a lot, and do volunteer work installing clean water systems, etc. in poor countries, mostly at orphanages, and my wife, a surgical nurse, helps out with a group similar to Doctors without Borders.
I buy crates of New in the bag Beanie Babies, try to get them for less than 25 cents each, and give them out to the children. What is borderlines worthless in this country is a prize of great worth to a 5 year child who has nothing. Many of these children will not let the Beanie Baby out of their hands 24 x 7, because they are afraid it will be taken from them.
@mustangmanbob.....That is highly commendable Bob... what a great thing to do for those kids...Cheers, RickO
So another date with SP70RD grades: 2017-S. Actually for this date, there are 817 known SP70RD's. What's cool about this date is its the first S Mint non proof Lincoln since 1974. And I believe it's the lowest mintage Lincoln amongst all non-proofs at 225,000. Lower than the 1914-D and 1909-S VDB. However it was a special strike and not a business strike.
In any case, there are still no known MS70RD Lincolns amongst the half million graded.
SP70RD
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There are actually no MS70 circulation strikes of any denomination, not just for cents.
Gobrecht's Engraved Mature Head Large Cent Model
https://www.instagram.com/rexrarities/?hl=en
That's interesting, I didnt know that.
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Do these American the Beautiful Washington Quarters count? Looks like quite a few MS70's
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Looks like the Kennedy Half and the Native American Dollar also have MS70's graded.
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The mint puts out mainly trash. No question about that. Question is why? Because our government supported the federal reserve in destroying the dollar.
Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value. Zero. Voltaire. Ebay coinbowlllc
MS, but still not circulation strikes. All of those MS70 America the Beautiful Washington Quarters are from the San Francisco mint, which were not minted for circulation. The Kennedy halfs were 2017-D 50C Boys Town and the 2014-D issue, which were not struck for circulation (after 2002 Kennedy halves stopped being struck for circulation at all). I don't see any MS70 Native American dollars.
Gobrecht's Engraved Mature Head Large Cent Model
https://www.instagram.com/rexrarities/?hl=en
Considering that there are no other and never have / probably never will be any other coins graded MS70 of any type that was struck for circulation, I would say that the price paid for that now ex-MS70 cent is pretty fair.
Gobrecht's Engraved Mature Head Large Cent Model
https://www.instagram.com/rexrarities/?hl=en
Maybe I should have responded last year.
With memorials and most moderns it's not really a function of how many survive and how many are still pristine. As a rule few are pristine and those that are tend to be very poorly made by poorly set and heavily worn dies and then they tend to be scuffed and scratched before leaving the mint.
If you can find a Gem at all for some dates it's a miracle. Finding choice and superb Gems can be impossible. Then you can just forget MS-70.
There are a lot of BU memorials. A few dates are poorly represented like '69, '71, '74-s SD, '84-D, '86-P, '01-P but even these can be located in some quantity with enough effort. What you won't find is something like a nice superbGem 1984 with good surfaces. What you won't find is quantities of Gems for most dates. It would be almost impossible for a promoter to assemble Gem sets for sale because securing the coins would be overly difficult and there is too little interest to bother.
To revisit an old discussion..... Your premise that nobody is saving moderns is an interesting one. Nobody saved classics either (nobody knew they were classics back then), but as you said, mini-hoards show up with some regularity. I think we can both agree that the VAST majority of modern coins are relatively poorly made - at least poorly enough that there is no risk of them ever having been in MS70 condition...... Still, many of our classic coins were poorly made too.
However, the numbers of minted coins are incomprehensible. Nobody can wrap their mind around a million of anything, much less a billion or a half-trillion. I don't think it's too far-fetched to say that there are tens or hundreds of thousands of mint condition cents in bags or rolls that have never seen the light of day. To think that even 1% of the most pristine 1% of extant modern coins have ever been reviewed to evaluate their potential numismatic merit is doubtful. I don't doubt that making top pops is difficult. It takes a LOT of looking. The time required is reflected in the price and market value of the coins. There's just a lot of potential un-searched material out there (when compared to Seated or Barber material, for instance). Most of it is garbage, sure, but it only takes 0.01% to EXPLODE the current pops. That's all I'm saying.
I want to know what it takes for a bronze Lincoln Memorial cent (1959-82) to receive an MS68RD grade from PCGS. The few single examples have brought big money in auctions
I wouldn't give you $20 for a modern MS 70. They make 'em by the millions and they're all perfect at the strike. remove them from being distributed and there's no reason for a huge grade drop off.
The production of coins even 50 years ago was much less forgiving.
There are plenty of pieces pulled from mint sets, which presumably shouldn't have touched circulation at all, and then sent for grading. Still no perfect coins (or coins TPGs are willing to call perfect).
Gobrecht's Engraved Mature Head Large Cent Model
https://www.instagram.com/rexrarities/?hl=en
Anyone that pays $$$ for copper-plated zinc listed as RED is not thinking long-term.
Yes. They were. Most were made to a higher standard but there are others that were very poorly made. The difference is that most classics narrow range but most moderns were made in a very wide range. Even very poorly made moderns can usually be found in a PL Gem but are merely rare as such.
Most classics can't be collected in very high grade anyway because of rarity and cost.
>
The total number of BU moderns is simply staggering. But these tend to be mostly 1979 cents or one of the other very common date moderns like bicentennial quarters. There are not large numbers of 1969 or 1982 dimes.
There simply aren't s imply aren't any Gems in the tiny overhangs of some of these coins. And there certainly aren't MS-70's.
These are highly reactive but they are in my opinion "collectible".
One would be well advised to not forget this when selecting a place to keep these.