1912-S in upcoming Legend Auction

Gazes · May 17, 2016 12:52AM

There is a 1912-S PCGS MS-66 CAC Liberty Nickel in the upcoming Legend Auction (Lot 55). What is interesting to me is that PCGS has graded 37 in 66 and just one in 66+. Out of all these coins only two have been stickered. That seems like an unusually low percentage especially for this type of coin. Any thoughts on why only 2 of this date have been stickered? Also given this fact, what type of premium will this coin generate? It appears it will go for twice the amount of recent 66 sales in auctions.

WildIdea · May 17, 2016 12:55AM

The others weren't sent to cac yet? 37 different owners maybe 5 are members or around that would be interested to bother with the hassle.

IwasAgentjim007 · May 17, 2016 12:56AM

CAC could tell us percentage of coins they've stickered to coins submitted without giving up any specific information. That would be helpful to your question and interesting information for all coins.

BillJones · May 17, 2016 12:58AM

Many 1912-S and 1912-D nickels have natural but unattractive toning. From what I've read this was due to a solution that the Denver and San Francisco Mints used to clean the planchets before the coins were struck. Many collectors don't find this brownish toing attractive which has led to some less than successful attempts to remove it. Usually the coin looks worse after such treatments.

I don't follow CAC and it's comings and goings, but perhaps that has something to do why CAC has not seen fit to sticker very many of these coins.

roadrunner · May 17, 2016 1:04AM

Between the so-so strikes, variable toning, indifferent luster, I can see why JA would want to be fussy on this key date. I'd bet the sticker rate is well below the total CAC average of 40%. Maybe as low as 15-25%.

And the final kicker is, that just because it's stickered doesn't automatically place it in the upper third of quality of all MS66 1912-s nickels. ElContador consistently tells us about his hunt for worthy MS66 Lib nickels, typically passing on a high percentage of coins.

rhedden · May 17, 2016 1:41AM

I wouldn't accept a 1912-S nickel as MS-66 unless it was fully struck on both sides. This particular issue comes with the weakest strike in the entire series, IMHO. I would bet a lot of the MS-66 graded coins are free of marks, but have the strike of a lower grade coin; thus, no sticker can be granted.

jcping · May 17, 2016 1:55AM

Just go back to check the PCGS pop reports in the last 10 years. You will get an idea how many of them could come from gradeflation

joebb21 · May 17, 2016 2:35AM

There was a hoard of them that came out over the last year that destroyed the pops for all high grades.

Cac is trying to keep gradeflation down by only stickering coins they feel are deserving of the ms66 grade.

Having seen probably half of the ms66 pop in hand I didnt think any of them deserved a sticker (and none had)

jdimmick · May 17, 2016 5:10AM

Similar comments to above and JOEBB:

I have not seen all of them, but I have seen a lot of 64/65/and 66 12-s nickels, and many frankly are not great coins. They always seem to have an issue, either streaky toning, off color, strike issue bad mark in key spot, or just plain down right overgraded.

Lot have come out, knew a friend several years ago that had an original roll of 12-s , I have not had contact with him in years since he quit doing the show circuit, but I bet they have been dispersed by now.

keyman64 · May 17, 2016 5:27AM

Did I miss the link?

That being said, it is very difficult to find attractive 12-D and 12-S examples.

brg5658 · May 17, 2016 6:09AM

Originally posted by: joebb21

There was a hoard of them that came out over the last year that destroyed the pops for all high grades.

Cac is trying to keep gradeflation down by only stickering coins they feel are deserving of the ms66 grade.

Having seen probably half of the ms66 pop in hand I didnt think any of them deserved a sticker (and none had)

This is not so much keeping gradeflation down, as it is ensuring their little stickers remain relevant. CAC doesn't grade coins, they affix stickers to coins depending on if they agree with the grade already assigned by a TPG. They should sticker every coin that meets their requirements, but I think they realize it is not in their best interest to "flood" the market with too many "blessed" coins.

Or, another explanation is simply that most of the MS66 coins are fugly. Impossible to know since the "failure" data from CAC are not made available.

roadrunner · May 17, 2016 8:54AM

Originally posted by: brg5658

....Impossible to know since the "failure" data from CAC are not made available.

But we can make a fair estimate:

Consider the following PCGS and CAC pops for MS66 with cent Lib nickels. Fairly good correlation among the first 4 items in the list which gives support to believing the numbers for the last 2.

All MS66 Lib nickels 1554 - 505 CAC - 32.5% success rate

1904 Lib nickel 129 - 39 CAC - 30%

1905 34 - 10 CAC - 29.4%

1912 35 - 10 CAC - 28.6%

1912-D 42 - 10 CAC - 23.8%

1912-S 38 - 2 CAC - 5.3%

The 30% range works pretty well here for a routine MS66 Lib nickel.....except on the D and S. Those last 4 have similar overall pops in 66....and clearly differing sticker rates for the challenges presented by the 12-D and 12-S. And if the PCGS pops are inflated, these sticker percentages would likely be 30-40% higher.

Still, I underestimated the 12-S earlier in the thread at 15-25%. Try 5%. And even with resubmits removed, it probably wouldn't be any higher than 10%. In any case, the 12-S stickers at 1/5 to 1/6 of the other dates. Figure NGC coins would sticker at even lower rates. For the 12-s, I'd estimate an 85-95% sticker failure rate....similar to MS66 Saints which CAC is very tough on.

brg5658 · May 17, 2016 9:53AM

Originally posted by: roadrunner

Originally posted by: brg5658

....Impossible to know since the "failure" data from CAC are not made available.

But we can make a fair estimate:

Consider the following PCGS and CAC pops for MS66 with cent Lib nickels. Fairly good correlation among the first 4 items in the list which gives support to believing the numbers for the last 2.

All MS66 Lib nickels 1554 - 505 CAC - 32.5% success rate

1904 Lib nickel 129 - 39 CAC - 30%

1905 34 - 10 CAC - 29.4%

1912 35 - 10 CAC - 28.6%

1912-D 42 - 10 CAC - 23.8%

1912-S 38 - 2 CAC - 5.3%

The 30% range works pretty well here for a routine MS66 Lib nickel.....except on the D and S. Those last 4 have similar overall pops in 66....and clearly differing sticker rates for the challenges presented by the 12-D and 12-S. And if the PCGS pops are inflated, these sticker percentages would likely be 30-40% higher.

Still, I underestimated the 12-S earlier in the thread at 15-25%. Try 5%. And even with resubmits removed, it probably wouldn't be any higher than 10%. In any case, the 12-S stickers at 1/5 to 1/6 of the other dates. Figure NGC coins would sticker at even lower rates. For the 12-s, I'd estimate an 85-95% sticker failure rate....similar to MS66 Saints which CAC is very tough on.

Are you really comfortable assuming that all MS66 Lib Nickels have made a trip to CAC? That's an odd and farcical assumption. So my statement stands -- failure data from CAC are not made available. I prefer facts not just making stuff up.

roadrunner · May 17, 2016 2:40PM

Originally posted by: brg5658

[

Are you really comfortable assuming that all MS66 Lib Nickels have made a trip to CAC? That's an odd and farcical assumption. So my statement stands -- failure data from CAC are not made available. I prefer facts not just making stuff up.

Yes, I'm very comfortable with this brief analysis. But, nowhere did I state what % of MS66 Lib nickels have been to CAC. Only CAC knows that. Well actually, even they don't know (see later point below on why). How a mathematician could have come to that conclusion and replied as you did is beyond me. Talk about farcical and making stuff up.

Show me where I even made such a statement about "all MS66 Lib nickels have made a trip to CAC." Failure data from CAC = 100%-sticker rate. You can fairly accurately or at least ball park approximate sticker acceptance rate OR sticker failure rate with the data out there. And the longer it goes on, the more accurate it becomes. Coins are about percentages and side to side comparison. If you want absolute date such as number of specimens extant, forget it. Do I care how many 12-S MS66 Lib nickels exist? Nope. Do I care about the total of graded pieces that have made it to CAC? Nope. Do I care about how many 12-S's have stickered as some % of total pops? Yup. Do I care about how the 12-S stickers compared to other dates? Yup. You see, a comparison can be made without knowing total absolutes. The 12-D stickers at about 5X the rate of the 12-S. That's important info for pricing....yet we don't know total pieces extant, total resubmissions, etc. But, a comparison that is worth something can still be made. Absolutes are not required in this hobby. Price guides are published without knowing any absolutes to 100% accuracy (ie THE "facts")...so how can you even justify their existance? How can you justify pop reports? Yet here we are today pricing and valuing our coins on "less than the facts." Go figure!

You missed the entire point behind my analysis. It's irrelevant to me that I don't know how many coins have been to CAC (ie rejections + acceptances). And we can't know how many rejected coins have been cracked out and sent back to CAC, getting stickers on subsequent retries. What matters is the relative % rate among various dates and all MS66's combined. Those correlate fairly well until you get to the 12-S. That tells me something. That's why I posted several dates, rare and common that had similar MS66 pops. I was surprised at how close they were in the ratio of acceptance rate/PCGS "published" pops. With the 12-s, same approx number of PCGS graded, yet huge difference in sticker rate. Imo this answers the question about knowing or not knowing the relative % of unstickered coins. We can certainly assume that about the same number of MS66 1885's, 1912's, 1912-D's, and 1912-S's have been seen at CAC. Why would you expect something different? People will send in more 1885's than 1912-S's? Of course not. If anything I'd actually expect more 12-S's to go to CAC because the premium for a sticker would be huge, hence an even higher failure rate relative to those other dates. Who would not take advantage of that 12-S premium if they owned one?

We do know that 32% of the PCGS listed MS66 Lib nickel total pops have stickered. So even though we don't know how many actual MS66's are in holders, and the exact sticker rate at CAC, we can still figure out approx %'s of those that do or don't sticker.....especially comparing date to date where pricing is created.

If you're looking for 100% hard facts with no errors, you're in the wrong hobby. Everything here has considerable errors from published mintages, pop reports, TPG assigned grades, and how many pieces in each grade actually still exist. Waiting for perfect facts in the coin hobby will get you nowhere. An assigned grade is an opinion, not a fact. Making reasonable assumptions on surviving examples in various grades will get you quite far. It's better than nothing, and better than waiting for 100% of the "facts" to come in. I figured that out in only 6-12 months of data taking back in the 1974-1975 effectively mapping out the bulk of seated coin rarity date to date, across all denominations.....a decade before pop reports. Much of the information in price guides, Red Book, Breen, Taxay, auction cats, back then were full of holes. My surveys may have had 10-20% errors in their rankings, but it was solid enough to go forward and identify dozens of dates that were considerably under-priced sleepers, and avoid the over-priced coins with low mintages yet unusually high survival rates.

Gazes · May 18, 2016 12:51PM

Some great , helpful comments in this thread ---thanks for the responses to my OP

Gazes · May 20, 2016 2:33AM

http://legendauctions.hibid.co...sort=2&ref=catalog

The coin realized $12,500 plus $2187 commission = $14,687 I followed this coin closely because it hit on many issues discussed on this forum:

1) The holder doesn't mean everything---There are 32 1912-S MS 66 in PCGS holders. A recent hoard was found but from information I found on this thread and elsewhere it seems that many of these coins are overgraded at 66 or just not very attractive for the grade. This coin is attractive (I learned from someone that saw the coin that the black spec on the reverse is not on the coin), well struck and nice toning.

2) CAC matters---CAC has only stickered two of these coins (I have been told that the recent hoard that was found was sent to CAC and none stickered). The other CAC coin auctioned last year or so for 30k. This one close to 15k. It does seem CAC matters atleast with this date.

We hear often to pay a premium for the best quality and that seemed to happen here. Yes, someone can get a ugly or unattractive coin in this date for $5000 and it will probably stay at that price 5 years down the road. My guess is that in 5 years what looks like a premium today for this coin will look like a bargain down the road.

Congrats to the new owner.

Wabbit2313 · May 20, 2016 6:23AM

That nickel is Sweet by the way!

1912-S in upcoming Legend Auction

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