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My first (and only one I've ever seen) First Token Grading Service Slab...
Lazybones
Posts: 1,616 ✭✭✭✭✭
Never heard of nor seen one of these before.
USAF (Ret) The purpose of Bourbon is to make you feel like you should feel WITHOUT Bourbon. Remembering RickO, a brother in arms.
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That is pretty neat. I can imagine the service wouldn’t have been around for too long given the major TPGs entering that territory.
As I understand it, they were in business for a very short time (less than a year) and didn't do all that much business. It's quite a rare slab.
USAF (Ret) The purpose of Bourbon is to make you feel like you should feel WITHOUT Bourbon. Remembering RickO, a brother in arms.
Somebody was a slab collector.
Is he still active?
Would be interesting the history.
Not bad for a shade tree slabber
BST: KindaNewish (3/21/21), WQuarterFreddie (3/30/21), Meltdown (4/6/21), DBSTrader2 (5/5/21) AKA- unclemonkey on Blow Out
A short lived Long Island? solo service that pretty much had the field to himself at the time (ATS didn't start doing exonumia for some time after). IIRC the owner had some prior relationship with one of the TPGs. FTGS never gained a lot of traction although a couple NYC area dealers tried to help him along. The unusual feature of the piece shown is that there is not an error in the attribution (which was often one of the defining features of the company).
That is very cool
It certainly is a nice token though.... Surprised they did not do well, at the time, they pretty much had the token market to themselves - among TPG's. Cheers, RickO
That was Kevin Donohue's company. Kevin was a young coin dealer who entered the big leagues working for Tom Caldwell at Northeast Numismatics. Then, he went out on his own. Not much later, he got sick, almost died, and ended up in a wheelchair for life. Not being able to travel the show circuit anymore, and working with very limited capital, he tried everything he could to stay in the game. FTGS was one of those failed efforts.
Doggedly collecting coins of the Central American Republic.
Visit the Society of US Pattern Collectors at USPatterns.com.
@MrEureka
Great information, Andy! As it happens, I purchased this from NEN.
USAF (Ret) The purpose of Bourbon is to make you feel like you should feel WITHOUT Bourbon. Remembering RickO, a brother in arms.
That's pretty cool.
--Severian the Lame
I bought one a couple of years back and there was a thread on them. See if I can find it. Nope.
@U1chicago, @tokenpro, and @Zoins posted on them a year back: https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/1036043/yesteryear-slabs-with-exonumia
Per the various iterations of Conder101's lists, they were active 2000-2001, e.g. https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/219256/is-this-another-new-slab
It's an Accugrade slab, but Conder101 didn't think that FT was an authorized user. There were three tiers of Accugrade franchises...
Fees ran downhill. There was certainly nothing technically prohibiting a tier 2 from slabbing for another company, creating, I guess a tier 3a.
ANA 50+ year/Life Member (now "Emeritus")
Author: 3rd Edition of the SampleSlabs book, https://sampleslabs.info/
I vaguely remember that First Token licensed Bob Paul's slabbling system. Bob has been involved to a number of other slabbing ventures, to various extents. In any event, I'm sure there was no Accugrade connection.
Edited to say that I noticed the word "slabbling" and was going to correct it, but now I'm thinking it's a pretty cool neologism that should be left alone. Not that I know what it means, yet.
Doggedly collecting coins of the Central American Republic.
Visit the Society of US Pattern Collectors at USPatterns.com.
I don't have it in hand yet, but after seeing yours I found and purchased one myself. Same token, same holder.
I can't wait to see it! Please post a pic.
USAF (Ret) The purpose of Bourbon is to make you feel like you should feel WITHOUT Bourbon. Remembering RickO, a brother in arms.
Will do.
In fact, it must've come from the same original submission as yours. The Cert. # is one off from yours. 58277-16
Successful transactions with : MICHAELDIXON, Manorcourtman, Bochiman, bolivarshagnasty, AUandAG, onlyroosies, chumley, Weiss, jdimmick, BAJJERFAN, gene1978, TJM965, Smittys, GRANDAM, JTHawaii, mainejoe, softparade, derryb, Ricko
Bad transactions with : nobody to date
https://www.pcgs.com/news/the-coin-market-getting-ready-for-the-computer-marketplace
There are a couple posted here:
https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/1036043/yesteryear-slabs-with-exonumia
That's pretty neat
A whimsical question that just popped in my head. Would you store this piece in the box with your tokens or Colonial coins? Same question with a Bashlow Confederate Cent Restrike. With CWT's or Other tokens?
Got it today.
@MWallace
Nice! I have since scored three more! I have four now!
USAF (Ret) The purpose of Bourbon is to make you feel like you should feel WITHOUT Bourbon. Remembering RickO, a brother in arms.
Have you ever seen any token other than the Wash. Born Va. Restrike in one of these holders?
Nope; not yet.
USAF (Ret) The purpose of Bourbon is to make you feel like you should feel WITHOUT Bourbon. Remembering RickO, a brother in arms.
I apologize for the poor quality of the pictures. I bought this a few years ago as part of both a CWT collection and a small collection of early certified coins I have put together over the years. The information in this thread is far more than I had ever previously found.