Options
tell me about your most amazing coin purchase! be descriptive
fc
Posts: 12,805 ✭✭✭
I have to admit, my coin collecting career is rather short.
The most exciting coin I have bought is probably my 1857-S half eagle.
I have always wanted a coin from that period, and now I can hold it
and dream who else has used it.
The cost was not huge, but boy, it takes a bit of courage to drop that
kind of dough on a coin. One sweats a bit with the decision.
I am sure members here must have amazing stories about how they aquired a coin.
The stress involved, the decisions that had to be made, and maybe even sacrifices to
atain it.
This is the thread to tell me all about it!
thanks
The most exciting coin I have bought is probably my 1857-S half eagle.
I have always wanted a coin from that period, and now I can hold it
and dream who else has used it.
The cost was not huge, but boy, it takes a bit of courage to drop that
kind of dough on a coin. One sweats a bit with the decision.
I am sure members here must have amazing stories about how they aquired a coin.
The stress involved, the decisions that had to be made, and maybe even sacrifices to
atain it.
This is the thread to tell me all about it!
thanks
0
Comments
...Excuse me while I go warm up my new Ferrari
Seriously, my most amazing purchase is probably my author icon. It is from the "Bingham Collection" and it is just such an amazing Gettysburg with what I think
is one of the most
was showing under the glass on the table and I thought it had amazing luster. When I turned the coin over to examine the reverse my
I think I've shared this one before
Right after the auction went live I eMailed the seller and asked how much for an early close. At first he said no, but I kept hammering and we finally settled on $85 for the four sets. Sold the two ugly sets with Frankies in them.
Submited the two Accented Hairs to PCGS and one graded PR65DCAM while the other went PR68DCAM - POP 8/0. That was April 2003 and it's the last PR68DCAM PCGS has graded. None since.
Russ, NCNE
About 2 minutes after it ended I get this nice friendly email from the second high bidder/sore loser calling me a chicken chit fa*got. To this day this coin is lovingly referred to as my hatemail Morgan
<< <i>
Submited the two Accented Hairs to PCGS and one graded PR65DCAM while the other went PR68DCAM - POP 8/0. That was April 2003 and it's the last PR68DCAM PCGS has graded. None since.
Russ, NCNE >>
PCGS # Description Desig 60 62 63 64 65 66 67 68
96801 1964 Accented Hair DC 30 45 225 375 1350 2250 4500 9500
--Severian the Lame
K
My 1866 Philly Mint Set
Sweeeeet.
Check out my current listings: https://ebay.com/sch/khunt/m.html?_ipg=200&_sop=12&_rdc=1
I have a few that come to mind and not just any one coin but several.
In 2002 I purchased a 1996 Prestige Proof set for $180 CV over $600
2- 1999 Silver Proof Sets for $180 CV over $700
1- 1892 S $20 Gold Liberty for 450 Sold last month $755
2005 " " 1-Wisconsin Low Leaf for $ 75 then to PCGS graded MS66 sold $868
There are really quite a few more and I could go on, but then I start salivating and want to run to ebay and list some, so I am going to just be quiet.
Also Russ, I opened a roll of business strike 64's recently and have them listed currently (I know, I know to the BST forum. sorry
The following has my girlfriend wondering about my sanity : Had to have it !
``https://ebay.us/m/KxolR5
New collectors, please educate yourself before spending money on coins; there are people who believe that using numismatic knowledge to rip the naïve is what this hobby is all about.
To date this is the most I have droped on a coin and the one I love the most.
https://www.pcgs.com/setregistry/quarters/washington-quarters-major-sets/washington-quarters-date-set-circulation-strikes-1932-present/publishedset/209923
https://www.pcgs.com/setregistry/quarters/washington-quarters-major-sets/washington-quarters-date-set-circulation-strikes-1932-present/album/209923
``https://ebay.us/m/KxolR5
<< <i>The 55DDO in my sig, I had got an auto e-mail that my fav. online coin dealer had posted some new stuff and he had this 55DDO! Well It took me all of 5 min. to pull the triger
To date this is the most I have droped on a coin and the one I love the most. >>
jabba,
Stuart
Collect 18th & 19th Century US Type Coins, Silver Dollars, $20 Gold Double Eagles and World Crowns & Talers with High Eye Appeal
"Luck is what happens when Preparation meets Opportunity"
<< <i>
<< <i>The 55DDO in my sig, I had got an auto e-mail that my fav. online coin dealer had posted some new stuff and he had this 55DDO! Well It took me all of 5 min. to pull the triger
To date this is the most I have droped on a coin and the one I love the most. >>
jabba,
It helped put the coin in my price range and I think it looks good for the grade. This one's going to be cracked out for my 7070!
https://www.pcgs.com/setregistry/quarters/washington-quarters-major-sets/washington-quarters-date-set-circulation-strikes-1932-present/publishedset/209923
https://www.pcgs.com/setregistry/quarters/washington-quarters-major-sets/washington-quarters-date-set-circulation-strikes-1932-present/album/209923
<< <i>
<< <i>
<< <i>The 55DDO in my sig, I had got an auto e-mail that my fav. online coin dealer had posted some new stuff and he had this 55DDO! Well It took me all of 5 min. to pull the triger
To date this is the most I have droped on a coin and the one I love the most. >>
jabba,
It helped put the coin in my price range and I think it looks good for the grade. This one's going to be cracked out for my 7070! >>
Nice example jabba
I have several "favorite" coin purchases over the past 17 years. In terms of overall scope I'd have to rate Legend's Evergreen collection at the 2002 FUN show as my most astounding experience. This was my first time back at a big coin show since 1990. A 12 year absence as the market went to the dogs and I lost all faith by around 1996.
I was in the right place at the exact right time.
In any case, I'm wandering the 2002 FUN show floor trying to get bearings and find something decent to buy. I thought it would be easy but Wed and most of Thursday turned out to be fruitless....until a friend gave me a tip that Legend had picked up some neat seated coins.......hey just what the doctor ordered! I didn't expect anything
out of the ordinary.......until I saw dozens and dozens of NGC grading boxes stacked on the back table at Legend's table. I had never been formally introduced to Laura and George but knew of them since the 1980's because they sold high grade type coins.
Laura was kind enough to let me come back in a few hours (5 pm) to look at some of the Evergreen seated coins. I'd been collecting seated material since the early 1970's and never had an opportunity remotely resembling this - to look at a fresh group of MS/PF coins, once graded, and not yet picked over. There were over 1000 coins there. I looked through probably 100 of the higher grade pieces at the show. The rest were "not available" at the time or I certainly would have bagged more coins right then and there.
At 5 pm it only took a minute to realize this was the motherlode of seated coins. I don't think there was ever this many original choice and gem seated quarters and halves offered at one time at a show. Within 30 minutes I had picked out half a dozen or so pieces that I wanted. I set up another appointment the next morning to go through them with more detail. I ended up buying about 21 pieces in all. The last 2, I confirmed on after the show on Monday after mulling things over all weekend.
Up to this point I had probably never spent more than $10,000 on the floor of any show. I happened to be in a good cash position and walked into one of the major seated deals of the past 30 yrs.
My only regret was that I was not sharper on my varieties and overall rarity ratings. There was so much there that I overlooked a lot. In particular a Proof 1850 half mislabeled as MS63! Yes, blew right by that as it was fully proof like with NO luster.....and us mint state lovers hate MS coins that don't have luster. Just never occurred to me that it was a Proof. Ouch!
Of those 21 coins bought at the 2002 FUN show, one has since been sold, and I've deeply regretted it since it's now one of the missing coins I need in my half dollar type set! It was a MS63 no drapery half and the only really unc no drapery half I have ever personally held (most are sliders, even in 64 holders). It went to Swan, then to Oliver Jung. It is also now the plate coin in Dave Bower's type coin book. Still, I have a convenient "box of 20" to admire each time I visit my bank box.
My favorites in this group - mostly halves. The 1862 is the
killer of the group as no motto halves almost never come this fresh and original. This one had to be plucked right out after being struck.
Other than some slight golden and auburn color added since, this coin is as near "perfect" mint state as one could hope for. In the world of conserved, once dipped, or mottled ugly toners, this one doesn't fit in whatsoever.
1838 bust 65 all the right orig rainbow colors
1840 MS65 - 2 pieces - almost fully PL
1851-0 MS63 incredibly struck in 3D, semi PL
1852 MS64 (a 65 but for the mottled toning)
1862 MS67 enough said
1865 PF65 CAM - 2 pieces - haze free mirrors
1866 PF67 CAM - Raymond bullseye toning - white centers
1871-s MS65 - first gem original one I've ever seen or owned.
1877-cc MS67 - original and only exceeded by Eliasberg's 68.
1859 PF64 CAM quarter - 65 eye appeal and very neat for 64.
1891-s MS66 quarter - semi PL - not common either
I realize that such an opportunity will likely never come by again.
Everytime I look at this group it brings me back to the day I first saw them.
roadrunner
mgoodm3
Choose Your Title
Posts: 10697
Joined: Aug 2003
Tuesday October 25, 2005 7:46 PM (NEW!)
One of my more memorable purchases was my 1879 PR65 RB indian cent. It wa son Eagle Eye's website and I wasn't sure about dropping $750 on a cent. I was collecting US type at that point. It was the first proof indian that I bought. I didn't know too much about them but thought that they looked cool. That coin changed everything about what I collect and started me on my copper obsession.
jabba
Member
Posts: 199
Joined: Sep 2005
Tuesday October 25, 2005 10:22 PM (NEW!)
The 55DDO in my sig, I had got an auto e-mail that my fav. online coin dealer had posted some new stuff and he had this 55DDO! Well It took me all of 5 min. to pull the triger The quote in my sig is from my wife after I told her how I had allways dreamed of having one then told her how much it cost me
To date this is the most I have droped on a coin and the one I love the most.
On the other side of the coin, I sold a 1884-S Morgan (I personally think it was MS, maybe
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire
Apropos of the coin posse/aka caca: "The longer he spoke of his honor, the tighter I held to my purse."
I owed $1400 to a hospital in 1980 just after my daughter was born... insurance company refused to pay the maternity bill (that's another story I won't bore you with). At about the same time I went to a coin show, found and bought what the dealer said was the nicest Buffalo Nickel he had ever owned. It was a 1936 and it was amazing... though he didn't know satin proofs, I suspected it was. I paid $55 (full ask+) for the coin as an MS 65... sent it to ANA for certification and grading and it came back Proof 65/65 (they graded both sides in those days). I then took the coin to a local dealer I worked with and sold it to him for $1400... took the cash to the hospital and paid the bill. I tell my daughter she only cost me a nickel but she's worth twice that today!
It does not get any better than that!
Russ, NCNE
Anyway, one of my favorite scores was about 8-10 years ago. I was running some errands not terribly close to home, and saw a coin/card shop in a strip mall, so I figured I'd stop in, since I hadn't been there before. I walked past the beanie babies and overproduced sports crap and found the pitiful coin display. They had no more than 20 Morgan dollars in the tray, but I figured I'd take a look since I was there. I didn't have my magnifying glass with me, so I asked to borrow one and was handed a cheap, plastic thing. I got to the uncirculated 1887-O that was there and thought it could have been a 7/6, but wasn't sure. I drove straight home, about 10 miles through suburban Chicago streets, errands unfinished, checked my Top 100 book, drove back, realized I had all of maybe $10 in my wallet, drove around looking for an ATM, went back to the shop, and plunked down $35 for my 1887/6-O Morgan, which is now in an ANACS 63 holder.
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars • Variety Attribution
(I got a couple of PM's from colonial collectors here on the forum who righteously gave me a scolding and a tongue lashing for "leaving money on the table".)
+Second incident this year: Bought a Sac Cheerios for $75. early last year. Sent it to ANACS as a novelty. Earlier this year walked it up to David Lange at Long Beach (Feb. show) and subsequently had it graded as a "Discovery" for the 12 tail feather pattern. I still own that one- just for fun.
+Last experience was over the summer, purchasing a grouping of five Peacock Ikes and selling one at a cost of the other four. They're now in my "A Box" of neat coins.
-I'm hoping 2006 will be just a enjoyable.
I need to remind those of the coin I did NOT buy at 15 years of age in 1968 or 16 in 1969. It was at a coin dealer on Broadway between 48th and 49th Street in New York City.
I was looking at a lovely 1932-D quarter in about Fine condition as I recall and suddenly the "D" mint mint mark fell off the coin. I started scrambling on the floor looking for the "D" mint mark apologizing to the dealer for ruining his coin while never realizing that he should have been doing the apologizing.
But just to keep things on track, one of the best coin purchases I ever made was also a 1913 nickel from the Pittman collection. Now, anyone who knows Pittman would know that he was "very careful with his money. Our coin hobby's version of Jack Benny.
So here it is; I get to laugh every time I look at MY 1913 nickel. It is amazing; I get more inquiries to sell this coin than all of my other coins in my collection combined!!
1) In 1979 or 1980, I bought 12 random GSA CC Silver Dollars from the mint. I'd say this was amazing, because in all of my years of coin collecting, this is the only purchase I've truly made sight unseen. We had the option of buying specific dates at what was full market pricing, or could buy as many CC GSA $s @ $45 each. Very suspicious of how other people graded coins, I opted for the random CC $s.
I was hoping to snare a better date, but no luck. Most of them were ugly. After 12 years of sitting in the vault, I sold the ugliest 8 to Superior and got what I paid for them. The other 4 sat in the vault for another 6 years, when I cracked them out & sent them to PCGS.
The ugliest one came back PC 4, which I sold for just over what I paid for the coin plus grading fees. Two of the nicer ones came back as PC 5, and the semi PL coin with the cobalt blue sash on the reverse came back in a PC 6 holder. I still have the PC 6 coin.
2) In September, 2002, Heritage had an auction in conjunction with the Long Beach Show which I missed because I was in Brasil. A dealer friend said he would preview lots that interested me and share his thoughts via E-Mail.
I get an E-Mail saying that there was the most beautifully toned 1899 Liberty Nickel in a PC 6 holder that he had ever seen. It had a few soft stars and the left corn was weak, but it had great surfaces and he was right about the toning. Attractively toned Liberty Nickels are scarce.
So I put in a strong e-mail bid - 20-5% above type pricing for the coin - and wait for the auction to close. I got the lot. It turns out that Heritage had the last auction of the majors at that show, and apparently, people either overlooked the coin or spent their money at the earlier auctions, because I got this coin just below type pricing.
Ripping a coin at a major auction is very rare, but I actually did it.
So, I get off the red-eye from São Paulo and head to Long Beach to pick up the lot (the auction closed a day or so before my flight home, but the show was still in progress). I pay for it, and it's just as nice as my friend described it. I show it to a few dealers on the floor, and was greeted with, "hey, that's nice, how much do you want for that?" One guy was assembling a high grade Liberty Nickel set and was willing to pay me a fair amount more than I had just spent for the coin.
That one is going nowhere, and it now has three other brothers and sisters (an 83 N/C, a 00 and an 04).
"Seu cabra da peste,
"Sou Mangueira......."
thanks everyone.
any pics of those two coins?
the 41 and the 71 i think are the dates you referred to.
Tale of the Low Rent Coin Buyer
The coin I’ll always remember buying is an 1806 Draped Bust Half grading F-15. Up until that point, I was strictly a small value coin buyer. Very small. Anything over $30 caused me to think twice, and you could probably count the number of $100 coins I had on half of your right hand, (entirely semi-key Morgans that don't come any cheaper).
But I saw this coin at a local monthly show, and fell in love with it. I had dreams of assembling a full type set, and I always LOVED the look of Draped Bust coinage. (Well, in books anyway). But I figured anything before about 1900 that actually looked nice was probably out of reach. So at the time, it was like me looking at any classic rarity today, and just an exercise in art appreciation. And to make matters worse, it was in a PCGS slab, and EVERY low rent coin shopper knew those were the real coins! I didn’t even bother to ask what the price was.
I went home thinking about that coin, and wondering if I could ever bring myself to spend “real money” on coins. I picked up Trends just to see what the price might be. Of course F-15 isn’t listed, but it quoted something like $200 in F, and $300 in VF. A scary amount then, but I remember being surprised it wasn't much worse.
I really thought about that coin all month. I thought about the money all month. I estimated and re-estimated the price of a F-15 all month. I tried to remember if I REALLY liked the coin, or if I was fooling myself….all month.
Finally, the next monthly show came around, and I told myself that IF it was still available, and IF I still liked it, and IF it was selling for $250 or less, I would buy it. No backing out, and no second guessing. I would buy it, and to heck with being logical, and frugal, and the house payments I was barely making at the time.
I got to the show right at opening time because I didn’t want it to sell before I had my shot. The table was empty. Nobody there, and no 1806 half there. I was crushed and angry. All that thinking, planning, and hoping, and the dealer isn’t even there! Dang it Tom! Why didn’t you pull the trigger last month??? Idiot.
So, I dutifully walked around the show, and looked for appropriate $30 coins to add to my collection. The $300 I pulled out of the ATM that morning weighed heavily on my wallet.
(Insert violin music here)
Then across the hotel conference room floor, I saw him. The dealer WAS there. He was just a little late, and is setting up his cases right now!
I briskly walked to his table, and watched him pull out his coins, one by one. After what seemed like an eternity, (because everyone knows the half cents, cents, 2-cents, 3-cents, Nickels, etc., get put out before the half dollars!), “my” coin was finally placed in its spot in the case. Oh yeah!
I put on my best serious buyer face, and asked, “Can I see the Bust Half please?”
"The Draped Bust?"
"Um...Yes."
It was as nice as I remembered it, and I was determined to follow through....and hoping my $250 estimate wasn't wildly optimistic. "Um....How much do you need for this?" I was probably trembling at the time. "For that......$235", was the reply.
Hot dang! Not only am I going to get "my" coin, it's $15 less than what I expected!!!
In reality, it's probably not the best price that could be had on the coin, but this $30 coin buyer wasn't (and isn't) much for dickering. I shelled out the stack of $20's, and took her home.
I remember that purchase as the start of my "serious" collecting.
Well I must have been the only person to bother opening the books (including the auctioneer), because I wound up winning the entire group for just $25. I sent the '22 to ANACS and it came back "1922 No D Good-4" . What ANACS calls a "No D" variety is the "true" 1922 Plain, Die pair #2, they will certify Die #s 1 and 3 as "Weak D". I wound up selling it to a local dealer for $150, and since this was just before my senior year of college, I used the money to buy a nice interview suit.
Sean Reynolds
"Keep in mind that most of what passes as numismatic information is no more than tested opinion at best, and marketing blather at worst. However, I try to choose my words carefully, since I know that you guys are always watching." - Joe O'Connor
Neat story on a coin in my favorite series. Your 1806 O.116 is also undergraded by variety - easily VF20, also some neat die cracks.