Belated Santa Clara report.
SanctionII
Posts: 12,628 ✭✭✭✭✭
I spent about 3 hours at Santa Clara on Friday afternoon. After being to this show so many times, it feels like home. The same location, set up, dealers, etc. It is a great venue with modern facilities and a bourse set up that has wide aisles and plenty of room to walk, sit at dealer table and look at coins.
The crowd on Friday afternoon was not huge, but it was steady. I looked at the "marquee" display coin for the show (an early 1803 (?) cameo silver coin which I guess one would call a specimen coin since to my understanding "proofs" were not made back then). As usual I could not get a good look at this coin. The display case was not high enough off the ground. Any one over 5' tall had to bend over to look at the coin or get on their knees. Even then, the lighting was terrible so that the coin looked blahhhhhh. As far as cameo contrast goes, it certainly did not come close to the contrast present on coins from the 1950's forward that have been given a CAM designation by a TPG. However, the lighting was so bad that I just could not tell.
I talked to a few dealers who said they were having a good show.
I spent less than $100.00 since I went to the show primarily to look for upgrade coins for my CAM/DCAM Frankie set. I was looking for 1955, 1959 and 1961 upgrade candidates. I saw a number of raw 1955 Frankies that at first looked promising. However they did not pass muster since they inevitably were not possessed of the same amount of frost and the same quality of mirror on both sides of the coin. I passed on them since I want a two sided, evenly frosted black and white example to upgrade these dates with. Those are not easy to find, raw and cheap, for these three dates.
Amazingly I found 2-3 1955 proof sets with drop dead gorgeous two sided, evenly frosted black and white nickles and I found a 1950 proof set with a drop dead gorgeous half. The 1950 half had an obverse that was CAM all the way and that had minimal hairlines. I turned it over to look at the reverse and found it had mirrored fields and devices that were frosted, but not enough to warrant a CAM designation. I suspect that the coin was produced shortly after the obverse die had been replaced with a new die or with a repolished die and the reverse die had been used for enough strikings to where the frosted devices had started to wear. A very beautiful coin, but I passed on the set.
I did pick up 2 1967 and 1 1966 SMS sets containing hazed over halves that are CAM. Once the haze is removed they will look very nice. One of the 1967 halves looks to be a possible DCAM. I also picked up some raw MS Red lincolns (1937, 1938, 1949 S, 1963 and 1963 D) as upgrade coins for my Dansco Lincoln album. I also picked up a raw 1966 MS quarter and half as upgrade coins for my Dansco Washington and Kennedy albums.
All together a fun show, a few coins on the cheap and a good way to spend a Friday afternoon.
The crowd on Friday afternoon was not huge, but it was steady. I looked at the "marquee" display coin for the show (an early 1803 (?) cameo silver coin which I guess one would call a specimen coin since to my understanding "proofs" were not made back then). As usual I could not get a good look at this coin. The display case was not high enough off the ground. Any one over 5' tall had to bend over to look at the coin or get on their knees. Even then, the lighting was terrible so that the coin looked blahhhhhh. As far as cameo contrast goes, it certainly did not come close to the contrast present on coins from the 1950's forward that have been given a CAM designation by a TPG. However, the lighting was so bad that I just could not tell.
I talked to a few dealers who said they were having a good show.
I spent less than $100.00 since I went to the show primarily to look for upgrade coins for my CAM/DCAM Frankie set. I was looking for 1955, 1959 and 1961 upgrade candidates. I saw a number of raw 1955 Frankies that at first looked promising. However they did not pass muster since they inevitably were not possessed of the same amount of frost and the same quality of mirror on both sides of the coin. I passed on them since I want a two sided, evenly frosted black and white example to upgrade these dates with. Those are not easy to find, raw and cheap, for these three dates.
Amazingly I found 2-3 1955 proof sets with drop dead gorgeous two sided, evenly frosted black and white nickles and I found a 1950 proof set with a drop dead gorgeous half. The 1950 half had an obverse that was CAM all the way and that had minimal hairlines. I turned it over to look at the reverse and found it had mirrored fields and devices that were frosted, but not enough to warrant a CAM designation. I suspect that the coin was produced shortly after the obverse die had been replaced with a new die or with a repolished die and the reverse die had been used for enough strikings to where the frosted devices had started to wear. A very beautiful coin, but I passed on the set.
I did pick up 2 1967 and 1 1966 SMS sets containing hazed over halves that are CAM. Once the haze is removed they will look very nice. One of the 1967 halves looks to be a possible DCAM. I also picked up some raw MS Red lincolns (1937, 1938, 1949 S, 1963 and 1963 D) as upgrade coins for my Dansco Lincoln album. I also picked up a raw 1966 MS quarter and half as upgrade coins for my Dansco Washington and Kennedy albums.
All together a fun show, a few coins on the cheap and a good way to spend a Friday afternoon.
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You're going to spend a LONG time looking for 1959 DCAM Franklin
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