I was going through the archives in this thread when I noticed this interesting question that didn’t get any replies:
Quote:
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Originally Posted by lawdogct Curiosity, if you pull a coin out of a mixed roll, how can it be Unc? |
So, here’s my buck three-eighty on it...
Hypothetically-speaking, in 1964, I pick up a fresh roll of Kennedy Halfs from my local bank, then go to a gas station and buy a pack of cigarettes with one of the coins. The owner socks the shiny new coin away for safekeeping, then, 42 years later, offers it for sale at some coin auction. While the coin was in my hands, it was a strictly uncirculated coin, per my 17th Edition 1964 Red Book; but, now that it’s in this gas station owner’s hands, it’s a circulated coin. What’s the difference between the two? A pack of Winstons.
So now, my grandfather leaves us some Morgans and Peace Dollars he and my grandmother had accumulated over the years from casinos. These coins, understand, were bouncing around in hoppers in slot machines. My cousin has one of them--a common date 1880 Philly Mint issue--graded 65 by ANACS (an upper echelon rating on this particular coin). There wasn’t
even any question as to whether the coin was circulated or uncirculated, the only question was, was there wear that couldn’t be passed off as a “weak strike?” There wasn’t, as the prevailing wisdom, today, is, these coins were typically weakly struck. Thus, it’s MS, and the rest depends on the luster in the fields, the nicks, especially in the focal areas, and the strength of the strike, on this typically weakly struck coin. That’s it. And, how good it looks.
Thus, forget about uncirculated and circulated, and keep on looking. And, you find one that looks like it makes the grade, and nobody cares whether it was bouncing around in some slot machine hopper, anymore than if somebody bought a pack of cigarettes with it at some gas station. And, you get past all the guff, and, isn’t that how it
should be? And, thus, there’s this 1964 25C MS 67 on the Heritage website, right now, the obverse of which is so heavily toned and/or tarnished you’d need a CT-Scan to tell any detail on the thing. Going for 870 clams. Go figger...
