The Axis of Darkside Evil

What's a "Statehood Quarter"?

Johnz - the statehood quarter program is a US Mint program that has been running since 1999. Each year, they will mint a set of 5 quarters to commemerate the various states in the US. The coins are being issued in the order that the states joined the union and will run for 10 years thru 2008. The design for each state is chosen by that state and then has to pass approval from the mint. Some of the designs have been quite nice - until the mint has finished with them. Since the circulation strikes for US coins are always low-relief, the designs lack the detail to make them truly spectacular. The other problem is that the designs are always done by a committee and you know the kinds of results that 'design by committee' always produces...

If you want to see what some of the quarters look like, you can do a search on ebay for state quarters - you should get several thousand hits that will have pictures to check out.

ooooppppsss! Missed the sarcasm there, John...

Axis of Evil, for wanting to free the coins from the evil slabs that do not allow you to see the third side of the coin????????

.<<...statehood quarter..... I know this means that people are collecting liteside coins... >> Who told you that, Ccdragon?! For me these quarters are "fulltime" darkside coins!
Just arrived another one right now- Michigan , and I like it as well as previous ones...

Cosmic, it's apparant the Living Skeleton has shown his true allegiances (to sl*bs); that's why your liberation movement has brought his ire...

I have lots of slabs - but not a single one of them contains a darkside coin - they are all liteside coins...

I have only bought 1 slabbed darkside coin and I gave that one to Clank for the Xmas giveaway.

I know I'll send the old bag of bones and rotting flesh the slab pieces as a momento.

There's nothing better than an unslabbed nice coin.
It can be rolled between the fingers (edge of course), closely examined, hefted, smelled, weighed and generally interacted with. Dealing with an entombed coin is like viewing a corpse-It resembles the deceased but differently than in real life.

I see more and more slabbed world coins selling for a lot of money on e-bay, while identical unslabbed counterparts sell for much less.
Buying a slabbed coin is no guarantee of it being a nice coin.



This 1848 French essai is optimistically graded MS62 by NGC. It's a beautiful coin with prooflike fields but there are simply too many scratches in the fields for it to be MS62. Yet I bought the coin with confidence because it was slabbed-I would have been much more careful if not slabbed and might have requested better pictures and saved myself not a small amount of money.

However, slabbed coins work because it lets people who don't know coins buy with confidence (many times misplaced). I believe it's a marketing tool that is perfect for this day and age of electronic, sometimes sight unseen trading and buying.

The collector and investor needs to be just as careful nowadays if not more so because there is a great deal of slabbing abuse going on-I don't know what is in these graders heads. I spent several hours going through slabbed coins at a coin store recently, and the condition diversity of identical coins at identical grades was mind-blowing and not a little scary.

The dealers know which ones are bad too but it doesn't matter because they will sell the plastic with the grade and shrug their shoulders.

How many dealers have the courage and honesty to do what Civitas does with a slabbed coin that he feels is overgraded-he'll let you know upfront how he feels and I respect that. Despite his warning, I purchased the coin because I felt the price was cheap for the grade-I know, buy the coin, not the plastic. Well damn it, the plastic is supposed to be the comfort zone that lets me make the purchase.

I don't like slabbed coins and will be breaking this one out a la Cosmicdebris, with fanfare, falling hammers, cutting torches, and god knows what else. Of course the temptation to sell it at the MS62 grade is very strong, but why should I screw someone else? Rather, the coin will go free and be labeled uncirculated and sit comfortably within a 2 x 2 or airtite, without the stigma of the wrong grade.

The Peoples Front For The Liberation of Slabbed Coins has my endorsement and enthusiastic support.

A bas le plastique!

The more you crack out, the more coins need to be re-slabbed later on. David likes the marketing aspect of it.

<< <i>I've got lots of slabs and raw coins and coins in various types of folders and holders.

It's all good, man. >>



That's well said!