Who has the most COOL and INEXPENSIVE U.S. coin?

RYK · February 22, 2006 11:47AM

Phooey on cool and expensive. How about a cool and INEXPENSIVE coin?

For a rare date gold coin, the coin below gets the vote from my collection:

Of course, sometimes the coolest coins are free. There is an 1853 quarter in VF-30 in my type set that was plucked from change by my great grandfather around the turn of the 20th century and has been in our family for about a century. I am sorry, but I have no recent photo.

Coinosaurus · February 22, 2006 11:55AM

I really like that coin. Notice that the ratio of detail-to-grade is much higher for gold than silver. An 1873-CC dime or quarter in AG, while certainly a dandy thing to have, has not nearly as much of its original detail as this coin. This coin you can still see relief while the silver coin would be almost perfectly smooth.

fc · February 22, 2006 11:59AM

here is another AG03 to compare with, but alas, a much much
much, did i say much? more common date/MM.

a whopping 150 shipped.

RYK's is PQ PQ PQ L@@K @ ME for teh grade.

tmot99 · February 22, 2006 12:01PM

I, of course, like the elongateds from my set in my sig line. The new bread token is probably pretty cool. Pictures are at the bottom of the thread until I get it in hand and can get my own photos of it.

tradedollarnut · February 22, 2006 12:05PM

I have an 1847 silver dollar in VF condition [obverse] with the reverse planed and engraved as follows:

James P Dubois
BORN
Sept 25th 1847.
AT
PHILA.

James is the son of the Chief Coiner and Assayer at the Philly mint in 1847

bhartman35 · February 22, 2006 12:11PM

Coinosaurus makes an excellent point, which leads me to a question:

Why is the coin pictured an AG-3? PCGS's grading standard for AG-3 reads:

Worn rims but most lettering is readable though worn

The coin pictured still has a hell of a lot of detail on it. When I think of AG-3, this is the kind of thing I think of... So what gives with that grade??

goose3 · February 22, 2006 12:14PM

This is a close-up of the overdate on my PCGS G4 1806/5 25c. I don't have a complete pic handy.

I believe it meets both criteria for posting in this thread!

D · February 22, 2006 12:14PM

This is just cool to me because I bought it at my first coin show EVER, my first "good buy" IMO, and I spent $2.50 on it. Believe it or not I tried to give the guy 2$ for it instead of $2.50 even

. PS, sorry about the lame / huge image, I haven't taken any recent ones

.

-Daniel

airplanenut · February 22, 2006 12:33PM

I got the coin for free when I found it and it's one of the reasons I'm in this hobby today. Here is a link to the entire story.

Jeremy

JRocco · February 22, 2006 12:41PM

I think any coin starting with a 17 is cool--- and here is one that is not expensive.

RYK · February 22, 2006 1:01PM

Nice selections one and all.

JR,

18th century is always cool, but not often inexpensive.

Jeremy,

Thank goodness you found the coin at recess and not, say, Sasha Cohen. You might not be in numismatics, and she might not be in figure skating. Cool for a Jeff (ryk now awaiting angry PM from Keets

)

D,

Pretty coin and outstanding deal for you. I need you to teach my son how to find toners without breaking dad's bank!

Goose,

Very cool naked eye early 19th century overdate. I do not think a coin like that would be any more interesting for 100 times the price.

bhartman,

I do not agree with the grade AG-3 for the 73-CC $5 but do not care enough to do anything about it.

TDN,

Sounds like a super cool coin with interesting and unusual provenance. Sounds like a coin I would spend a lot to get but am glad it did not cost and arm and a leg.

tmot,

Interesting collection. Thanks for giving me a reason to check it out.

fc,

I would not have paid a penny more than $140 for that overgraded POS! Just kidding, of course.