One of my white whales finally captured?

TwoKopeiki · May 3, 2021 6:51AM

There are a number of key coins in the Mexico Mint Portrait series (1772-1821), especially if you get into varieties. Two of the most difficult and expensive coins to find are the 1778 with assayer initials FM and 1783 with assayer initials FM (vs FF). Only a handful of each type are known to exist. Yonaka, surprisingly, only calls it an R2 with 5 examples each documented. I guess from an absolute scarcity point of view he's correct, especially taking all other varieties into consideration with some varieties only having 1 or 2 examples documented.

To give you an idea of a price, here's an example in XF+ that sold at Aureo in 2014 for €12,000

Fast forward to my most recent NGC order. I knew the coin was nice with a touch of luster and some peripheral color not obvious in NGC scans, but i didn't realize it was this nice:

So nice, in fact, that it's able to change assayer initials on demand

Yes, it's a "mechanical error". And @coinkat I confirmed - it was submitted with the proper description on the form.

Thought the forum could use a chuckle this monday morning.

pruebas · May 3, 2021 9:57AM

I hope no whales, white or otherwise, were harmed in the making of that slab.

By the way, it doesn't matter whether you put the correct information on the certification form or not. The slabbing company's job is to authenticate the coin as it is, regardless of what you think it is. They take the form as a guide to help them identify the coin, but their job is to independently identify it and authenticate it.

I have seen some wild mistakes on PCGS slabs (yes, even after QA). ATS has their share of issues as well. But all of those are "mechanical" errors not caught by sleepy (or sloppy, you decide) QA folks.

JohnnyCache · May 3, 2021 2:31PM

I liked your story, it was quite thrilling, for a while at least.

coinkat · May 3, 2021 2:50PM

Interesting... before responding to this I did alittle recon on the 1772 8R that has the inverted FM. Just for fun, go to the PCGS POP report and look at the 1772 FM 8R... scroll down to the auction records and look in the EF45 column and the one that sold for $690. Then look at the one above. The one that sold for 690 is the rare variety. I checked and on the slab it does note MF instead which would be correct attribution

TwoKopeiki · May 3, 2021 9:16PM

@coinkat said:
Interesting... before responding to this I did alittle recon on the 1772 8R that has the inverted FM. Just for fun, go to the PCGS POP report and look at the 1772 FM 8R... scroll down to the auction records and look in the EF45 column and the one that sold for $690. Then look at the one above. The one that sold for 690 is the rare variety. I checked and on the slab it does note MF instead which would be correct attribution

It's one of the few improperly attributed MF's in PCGS plastic.

Here are a few I have cataloged over the years. I also posted a few years ago the list of PCGS 1772 MF's that were all FM's.

https://www.pcgs.com/cert/36886174
https://www.pcgs.com/cert/34019925
https://www.pcgs.com/cert/36016975
https://www.pcgs.com/cert/27760014
https://www.pcgs.com/cert/82945980
https://www.pcgs.com/cert/30897639

bosox · May 4, 2021 12:54AM

PCGS in their eternal quest for volume clearly gets some things wrong. In my Canadian cent world, it is usually 1859 double punched cents. I guess my question is: where would you rather go get your coins professionally graded? ICCS? NCGS (maybe for ancients)? Please.

TwoKopeiki · May 4, 2021 8:55AM

Found my previous thread on the 1772-MF from ... 9 years ago it seems. Time flies...

https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/comment/10012546#Comment_10012546

thefinn · May 4, 2021 9:56AM

@TwoKopeiki said:
There are a number of key coins in the Mexico Mint Portrait series (1772-1821), especially if you get into varieties. Two of the most difficult and expensive coins to find are the 1778 with assayer initials FM and 1783 with assayer initials FM (vs FF). Only a handful of each type are known to exist. Yonaka, surprisingly, only calls it an R2 with 5 examples each documented. I guess from an absolute scarcity point of view he's correct, especially taking all other varieties into consideration with some varieties only having 1 or 2 examples documented.

To give you an idea of a price, here's an example in XF+ that sold at Aureo in 2014 for €12,000

Fast forward to my most recent NGC order. I knew the coin was nice with a touch of luster and some peripheral color not obvious in NGC scans, but i didn't realize it was this nice:

So nice, in fact, that it's able to change assayer initials on demand

Yes, it's a "mechanical error". And @coinkat I confirmed - it was submitted with the proper description on the form.

Thought the forum could use a chuckle this monday morning.

Great to enter in a registry set.

One of my white whales finally captured?

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