GSA-CC Morgans in unopened boxes - My results
cj415
Posts: 13 ✭✭
This is a followup to a post I made before Christmas. I felt like taking a chance, so I bought a lot of 5 unopened GSA Morgans from eBay. Here is my story.
I'm not really a Morgan collector (well, I have a lot of junk Morgans from my grandmother, but they're not really collectable). Mainly, I collect cents. But as I was cruising around eBay one day, I saw new, unopened GSA Morgans. The seller wanted $1800 for 5 of them and I placed an offer for $1500 and got them. Because they were listed under Bullion and the price was $1500, I didn't have to pay eBay sales tax.
After I completed the purchase, I came here and did my research... which is the opposite of what I should have done. Experts here suggested that if I wanted to buy unopened GSA Morgans, I should get ones with mailing labels intact and date codes on the box or label.
The ones I got had boxes that were in remarkably good shape. The plain white cardboard had not aged in color and was really unscuffed for boxes that the government shipped almost 50 years ago. In my last post, I wondered if the boxes were genuine, or if they have been re-boxed in a box very similar to what the GSA used. I had also wondered that if they were NOS, would there be a way for the seller to know what's inside before he sold them. I even suggested that they may be able to be x-rayed to determine the years on the coins.
They arrived, I put them under the Christmas tree as a present to myself. The family and I opened all of them on Christmas morning. Inside, as one might have guessed, there were 82CC-82CC-83CC-83CC-84CC. Completely standard. They looked nice, but nothing ultra-remarkable. No mirror likes, not high grade, and no VAMs that I could tell (though I'm not really a VAM expert).
ANACS had a $5 deal in January for GSA Morgans, so I sent them off for grading. I was already into the deal for $300/coin, so I figured that an extra $5/coin wouldn't hurt. They came back as expected. MS62 and MS63 on all of them. But at least now, I had a certification sticker.
In the end, I should have known that the deal was too good to be anything special. The boxes looked too good, and after further research, this seller has sold dozens (if not hundreds) of them. I figure if I'm lucky, I could resell them for about $200-225 each, which means a loss of $80-100 per coin, which stings, but it was a fun dream to think there might be something really cool in the lot.
Nope. Avergage, with nice inner boxes and GSA cards all there, but certainly nothing special. Oh well, next time, I'll do my research and look for the ones with the label if I ever want to do that again.
Comments
Curious what kind of feedback you left. Also thank you for your openness because many in the same situation would not report their results.
Thank you for the follow up. I've had the opportunity to buy and open genuine unopened GSAs, and the boxes are not perfect white after nearly 50 years of storage.
The quality has ranged from average to several 65s and even 2 PLs.
I also bought a couple of these eBay types years ago, and had pretty much exactly the same results you did. It's "coin tuition" I paid to learn how to distinguish the genuine from the not-so-much.
If you ever get pics, it would be nice to see the coins. I dumped my oopses and moved on.
Gonna get me a $50 Octagonal someday. Some. Day.
I purchased some years ago, from a trusted forum member. They were the same date range and nice, but nothing spectacular. Thanks for the follow up information. Cheers, RickO
Thank you for the read!
@cj415
Thanks for the update, sounds like you enjoyed the experience, even if you didn't win the 'lottery'.
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Props to you for this post most would never admit they made a mistake and no one would learn. Every new collector comes across these GSA boxes and has the same thoughts you did so the more info to avoid out there the better.
I’ve had more expensive lessons in this hobby it happens!
There is no Santa Claus in numismatics.
Sometimes you just have to take a loss to have a good time. Put it this way, if you went to Vegas and lost $500 you would have lost $500. In this case, you lost $500 but still have something to show for it AND you had a good time.
Coingratulations on having a neat experience!
Cheers
Bob
You've done well in how you have handled the situation. Thanks for a very educational post.
Yeah, I think many people like myself have done the same. I bought some of those cardboard only “sealed” GSAs. Although I fared better. One was an 1881cc that’s 65. The rest were all 82cc-84cc as expected. Although I did acquire two that were in original mailed boxes. Both of those were average MS-62/63 83cc and 84cc. It may not be the best way of spending money but I think of it as some of the price was the fun of opening it.
I can’t fathom buying coins I can’t see. Seems like a huge crapshoot buying those.
Intriguing. So someone opened the original packaging, peeked, cherrypicked and then repackaged the average coins to perpetuate the dream. I also would not buy coins sight unseen. Thanks for sharing your experience. Peace Roy
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Thank you for the information. Nice of you to share your experience on this type of transaction. Did any of the coins have "color" ?
Hi all... thanks for the overall feedback. I'll try and answer some questions that came up.
I didn't leave any feedback on eBay for the seller. While he claimed these were new and unopened, I have no way to prove whether that is true or not. However, I do feel convinced that he must have had some way to "peek" inside. Otherwise, he could inadvertently sell a coin worth 10x or 100x what he was selling them for. And again, the pristine boxes on these 45-50 year old packages seemed too perfect.
And yes, it was a crapshoot. I knew that going in. It's like the games at the county fair... how hard could it be to knock down milk bottles with a softball, or toss a ball into a bushel basket or shoot out a target with a BB gun, right? Same principle... I was looking to have some fun and was secretly hoping for the big prize. I've always been up for a treasure hunt like this... I've always bought grab bags. And I used to go to a flea market as a kid where the seller had this huge gumball machine that dispensed clear plastic eggs with $1, $5, $10 and $20 bills in some of them. It wasn't until years later that my brother pointed out that the gumball machine had all of the big prizes pushed against the glass to lure the customers, but the "eggs" that dropped out of the machine came from the middle of the gumball machine and never from the ones that I could see.
None of the coins had any color to speak of. None were blast white either. Simply nice (yet average looking) MS62 and MS63s. I'll now go to one of the VAM sites and take a look and see if anything jumps out there. I didn't pay for any additional research or attributions when getting them certified. However, after a quick look there, most 82-83-84 VAMS are still fairly common.
I also love some of the expressions in this thread: "Coin Tuition" and "There is no Santa Claus in numismatics." It was still fun. I have no regrets. Losing $500 stinks, but it's not a devastating loss. And taking advantage of a $5/coin grading deal helped a bit.
I'd still like to know where he got all of these that he is selling. I'd also be curious to hear if anyone scored anything really nice in one of these "plain white box" purchases. So far, it sounds like TurtleCat scored the best with an 81-CC that came back MS-65.
was the plastic scratch free? That's really the only way you can tell if they we're really fresh, or repackaged.
Normally the sealed boxes weren't traded frequently, so the ones I've seen are in pristine shape.,
The reality is most of the coins are 62/63 quality, so if you bought 5 coins, I'd be shocked if you had 1 that was better than a 64
Ike Specialist
Finest Toned Ike I've Ever Seen, been looking since 1986
A customer of mine bought one from a show once and got an 1890, graded a 62
However, I do feel convinced that he must have had some way to "peek" inside. Otherwise, he could inadvertently sell a coin worth 10x or 100x what he was selling them for.
I once asked an ebay seller why he himself didn't open the roll of pennies he was selling with VDB showing on both ends. He told me he can make more money by letting the customer have the fun of opening the unsearched rolls that he sells.
Since I know about the difference in appearance of VDB of the 1909 Philadelphia issue from the San Francisco issue, which I did not disclose to this seller, I asked the seller if I could return the roll for refund if I didn't open it. He never did answer me.
Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters.
Whoa. That would be cool.
Gonna get me a $50 Octagonal someday. Some. Day.
I bought twelve of them from the mint in 1979 and 1980. You had a choice of buying what they called a BU of a specific date for a specified price, or get an unopened grab-bag coin for $45. I did the latter, because I didn't trust someone else's grading of a coin which I had to buy sight unseen.
All generic dates. Eight were the ugliest Unc. Morgans I have ever seen. They were so painful to look at, I sold them to Superior Coin for the $45 price I paid. The other four were nicer, and one of them was exceptional.
After sitting on them for nearly 20 years, I got them graded. One came back MS 64, which I sold for cost plus grading fees. Two came back MS 65, and the exceptional one came back MS 66. It had a swath of attractive cobalt toning on the reverse. I made some money selling the 65s, and got the 66 stickered, which I still have.