An interesting observation on the Central States auction - U.S. $3 Gold - Oops!

ms71 · April 26, 2020 8:23AM

I took a detailed look at the $3 gold pieces offered in the auction. There are 103 of them. Of those, 101 included in-slab photos. Of the 101, exactly one (1) had a green bean; there were no gold beans. Thoughts?

jmlanzaf · April 26, 2020 8:36AM

IN MY OPINION...AND IT'S ONLY AN OPINION...

Lot of processed $3 gold out there. JA likes originality.

Cougar1978 · April 26, 2020 8:41AM

Perhaps the owners do not care or need CAC / want pay the money. At that level most buyers know how grade / look at coins. To others it’s a matter of taste. His taste is one thing, mine another (coin talk thread - see below). There is an interesting thread on coin talk / contest will a coin CAC. Posters give opinions / them if bean or not revealed.

coinbuf · April 26, 2020 8:51AM

No meaningful conclusion can be drawn as you only have one data point. To have any meaning or relevance you would at the minimum need to know how many of those had been seen by CAC, as that data is missing the best you can do is guess. And guessing is more like voodoo not science.

MFeld · April 26, 2020 8:52AM

@ms71 said:
I took a detailed look at the $3 gold pieces offered in the auction. There are 103 of them. Of those, 101 included in-slab photos. Of the 101, exactly one (1) had a green bean; there were no gold beans. Thoughts?

I found four CAC examples - see link below. However, either way, I wouldn’t draw any strong conclusions from those numbers. As a group, I don’t think $3 gold pieces are necessarily graded any more liberally than Saints. And the percentage of CAC Saints in the sale was a bit more than double that of the $3 pieces.

https://coins.ha.com/c/search-results.zx?N=51+318+790+231+4294944385&Ntk=SI_Titles-Desc&Nty=1&Ntt=Cac&limitTo=4294944385&ic4=KeywordSearch-A-K-071316

ms71 · April 26, 2020 9:08AM

Oops. Looks like when I went to the search on the HA site, I screwed up. Got the filter set wrong somehow. Thanks Mark. Still, it seems surprising to see such a low representation of stickered pieces offered.

Gazes · April 26, 2020 9:39AM

@coinbuf said:
No meaningful conclusion can be drawn as you only have one data point. To have any meaning or relevance you would at the minimum need to know how many of those had been seen by CAC, as that data is missing the best you can do is guess. And guessing is more like voodoo not science.

I see alot of folks dismiss any interpretation of CAC population reports with the usual pat responses---how many have been sent to CAC, how many are in old time collections, etc

To me this is a lazy approach. CAC has been open over ten years. Their data is meaningful. If someone rolls up their sleaves they can make educated observations to fill in certain missing blanks (i.e review JA interviews, some publications have been given info on certain series regarding submissions, using other info to determine pcgs vs ngc sticker rates, etc). If you are willing to put in the work, this data is helpful.

coinbuf · April 26, 2020 9:43AM

@Gazes said:

@coinbuf said:
No meaningful conclusion can be drawn as you only have one data point. To have any meaning or relevance you would at the minimum need to know how many of those had been seen by CAC, as that data is missing the best you can do is guess. And guessing is more like voodoo not science.

I see alot of folks dismiss any interpretation of CAC population reports with the usual pat responses---how many have been sent to CAC, how many are in old time collections, etc

To me this is a lazy approach. CAC has been open over ten years. Their data is meaningful. If someone rolls up their sleaves they can make educated observations to fill in certain missing blanks (i.e review JA interviews, some publications have been given info on certain series regarding submissions, using other info to determine pcgs vs ngc sticker rates, etc). If you are willing to put in the work, this data is helpful.

@Gazes said:

@coinbuf said:
No meaningful conclusion can be drawn as you only have one data point. To have any meaning or relevance you would at the minimum need to know how many of those had been seen by CAC, as that data is missing the best you can do is guess. And guessing is more like voodoo not science.

I see alot of folks dismiss any interpretation of CAC population reports with the usual pat responses---how many have been sent to CAC, how many are in old time collections, etc

To me this is a lazy approach. CAC has been open over ten years. Their data is meaningful. If someone rolls up their sleaves they can make educated observations to fill in certain missing blanks (i.e review JA interviews, some publications have been given info on certain series regarding submissions, using other info to determine pcgs vs ngc sticker rates, etc). If you are willing to put in the work, this data is helpful.

No the lazy approach is to use guesses and assumptions in place of data, you have fun with your voodoo but your only fooling yourself.

coinkat · April 26, 2020 9:51AM

It is unfortunate that the initial questions asked are about whether, why or why not the $3 golds have stickers? Isn't there something more redeeming about the actual coins that can asked or discussed?

winesteven · April 26, 2020 7:46PM

@Cougar1978 said:
Perhaps the owners do not care or need CAC / want pay the money. At that level most buyers know how grade / look at coins. To others it’s a matter of taste. His taste is one thing, mine another.

OK, so here we go again, and one thing we agree upon is with my post this thread may not last long. But I couldn’t let the above comment go unaddressed.

First, I agree that it’s very likely that “perhaps the owners do not care or need CAC.... At that level most buyers know how grade / look at coins.” However, the true fact is that that only a small percentage of $3 gold coins merit a CAC, and as a result, in most grades for most dates those coins with a CAC sell for a significant premium - MUCH more than the paltry $15 cost of obtaining a CAC. So the real question for those with $3 Gold that don’t care or need a CAC, that know how to grade/look at coins is:

Why in world for only $15 would you not send in your lovely $3 Gold coin to get a CAC, so when the time comes for you (or your heirs) to sell, you/they would not only find it easier to sell, but in all likelihood would realize a net price much greater than that $15 compared to that coin not having a CAC?

Could the answer be that psychologically you would feel bad if it came back without a CAC?

Now here comes the tar and feathers!

Stay safe, and have a good week.
Steve

No Headlights · April 27, 2020 7:11AM

@winesteven said:

@Cougar1978 said:
Perhaps the owners do not care or need CAC / want pay the money. At that level most buyers know how grade / look at coins. To others it’s a matter of taste. His taste is one thing, mine another.

OK, so here we go again, and one thing we agree upon is with my post this thread may not last long. But I couldn’t let the above comment go unaddressed.

First, I agree that it’s very likely that “perhaps the owners do not care or need CAC.... At that level most buyers know how grade / look at coins.” However, the true fact is that that only a small percentage of $3 gold coins merit a CAC, and as a result, in most grades for most dates those coins with a CAC sell for a significant premium - MUCH more than the paltry $15 cost of obtaining a CAC. So the real question for those with $3 Gold that don’t care or need a CAC, that know how to grade/look at coins is:

Why in world for only $15 would you not send in your lovely $3 Gold coin to get a CAC, so when the time comes for you (or your heirs) to sell, you/they would not only find it easier to sell, but in all likelihood would realize a net price much greater than that $15 compared to that coin not having a CAC?

Could the answer be that psychologically you would feel bad if it came back without a CAC?

Now here comes the tar and feathers!

Stay safe, and have a good week.
Steve

Your comments are spot on Steve
Anyone who says their coins would all CAC and they don’t need a second opinion have probably never submitted a CAC order. One thing you don’t have to guess on is that CAC coins bring more at auction the majority of the time
Save me some tar Steve.
Be well everyone

roadrunner · April 27, 2020 8:42AM

CAC is brutal on gold in general, especially gem gold. I would think it would be no different on $3's.

I was involved in a $20 Saint submission back in 2008. A couple hundred coins with about a 50/50 mix of PCGS/NGC in mostly choice/gem grades. We picked out the best 50% to try and get as many stickers as possible....and minimize costs and time. Out of 115 MS65 Saints only 6 stickered. And these were the hand picked group of better pieces! Out of couple dozen rattlers and ogh's, only a couple stickered. One single gold sticker on an innocuous $20 Lib in MS62 iirc....lol. Quite a shock on those overall results.

When discussing the above over the following years with PNG gold dealers/wholesalers who handle hundreds of gold coins each week, they were pretty uniform in noting that stickering rates were in the 5-15% range on gem Saints....and usually towards the low end of the range. CAC is fussy on gold surfaces and marks. The luster, color, look all have to be there, no exceptions. To think that $3 gold pieces would get an easier time is ludicrous. I'd suspect the same 5-15% range applies to them. If I were CAC I'd be even fussier on $3's because of their high value. And so many were mishandled by collectors. It's not like bags of choice/gem $3's were saved in the 1800's and sent over to Europe for 100+ yrs. $3's were used and abused...probably often kept in pouches or on hard drawers for decades.

There's a GOOD reason there were 101 - $3's in that sale....and only one was stickered. That's not an outlier.....but, rather the norm. Would you bother submitting a hundred slabbed gold coins if you knew upfront that only 5-10 might sticker? It's not like submitting Morgans or other series where the sticker rate is 35-45%.

MFeld · April 27, 2020 8:52AM

@roadrunner said:
CAC is brutal on gold in general, especially gem gold. I would think it would be no different on $3's.

I was involved in a $20 Saint submission back in 2008. A couple hundred coins with about a 50/50 mix of PCGS/NGC in mostly choice/gem grades. We picked out the best 50% to try and get as many stickers as possible....and minimize costs and time. Out of 115 MS65 Saints only 6 stickered. And these were the hand picked group of better pieces! Out of couple dozen rattlers and ogh's, only a couple stickered. One single gold sticker on an innocuous $20 Lib in MS62 iirc....lol. Talk about a stunner.

When discussing the above over the following years with PNG gold dealers/wholesalers who handle hundreds of gold coins each week, they were pretty uniform in noting that stickering rates were in the 5-15% range on gem Saints....and usually towards the low end of the range. CAC is fussy on gold surfaces and marks. The luster, color, look all have to be there, no exceptions. To think that $3 gold pieces would get an easier time is ludicrous. I'd suspect the same 5-15% range applies to them. If I were CAC I'd be even fussier on $3's because of their high value. And so many were mishandled by collectors. It's not like bags of choice/gem $3's were saved in the 1800's and sent over to Europe for 100+ yrs. $3's were used and abused...probably often kept in pouches or on hard drawers for decades.

There's a GOOD reason there were 101 - $3's in that sale....and only one was stickered. That's not an outlier.....but, rather the norm. Would you bother submitting a hundred slabbed gold coins if you knew upfront that only 5-10 might sticker? It's not like submitting Morgans or other series where the sticker rate is 35-45%.

The extremely low CAC percentage for the $3's wouldn't be at all surprising if the coins were mostly "choice/gem", like the coins you discussed above. However, very few of them were and many were circ.

roadrunner · April 27, 2020 9:55PM

Circ $3's are still quite valuable. And the stickers add considerable value if you can get them through....certainly more than the price of a sticker. I know if I had some circ XF/AU $3's with nice surfaces, I'd go for stickers.

To includes some $3 gold CAC facts: they have stickered 1208 examples from XF40 to AU58....vs....961 MS61-68 examples. So they see a high percentage of circs. This is clearly different than 1890's to 1920's gold were MS examples far exceed the circs.

oreville · April 27, 2020 10:18PM

I was on the other side of the large roadrunner submission of his $20 Saints in 2008 i liked his Saints and thought more would sticker as well. But apparently a lot of them was C quality coins not overgraded coins. But no arguments with CAC. It helped me be most selective in my purchases of gold coins.

PerryHall · April 28, 2020 6:27AM

Since CAC rejects so many Saints, perhaps they have different grading standards than PCGS and NGC. Maybe CAC should form their own grading service and start slabbing coins.

ShadyDave · April 28, 2020 10:23AM

One of my $3’s came back from CaC in March. 1 of 4 coins that have stickered at 45 (4 green 0 gold).

shorecoll · April 28, 2020 10:57AM

Whether true or not, I have significant trouble believing that a collection of $3 that large and in a major auction were not sent to CAC.

Gazes · April 28, 2020 11:15AM

@PerryHall said:
Since CAC rejects so many Saints, perhaps they have different grading standards than PCGS and NGC. Maybe CAC should form their own grading service and start slabbing coins.

Why? What they are doing now seems to be working.

asheland · April 28, 2020 11:26AM

@ShadyDave said:
One of my $3’s came back from CaC in March. 1 of 4 coins that have stickered at 45 (4 green 0 gold).

Nice one!

winesteven · April 28, 2020 12:29PM

@shorecoll said:
Whether true or not, I have significant trouble believing that a collection of $3 that large and in a major auction were not sent to CAC.

My guess is the "nicer" ones that a numismatic professional believes has a decent chance to merit a CAC sticker were sent, and they just did not cut it. Or possibly the consignor previously sent them to CAC with no success.

An interesting observation on the Central States auction - U.S. $3 Gold - Oops!

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