Last weekend I went to a lcs and was looking through the Morgans they were selling as scrap. I found this mixed in with the common dates and culls.
Nice score with the 1895-O! How did you sneak that date past the dealer? I bought this coin off eBay for half the Redbook price 18 years ago. Nobody else wanted to take a chance on it. I recently sold it through GFRC for over four times what I paid for it. PCGS XF45
If you agree it is close to AU50 condition then FMV has it at $1,840.00. At scrap price you may have absconded with this for as low as $60 (just a guess). Great find. What city was the LCS and what bargain price did you pay? (That is, if you don’t mind me asking…). It shows great finds can be had if you just keep at it.
I like cherry picking to find bargains. Here's my first two months haul cherry picking 1855/54s off of eBay. Note the consecutive cert. numbers. The three coins cost me a total of $338. The top coin sold on GC recently for $512. Things slowed down considerably after that initial flurry of overdates, but I eventually cherried a roll of them in three years.
And I thought I did well when I found a VG 1895-O at the pawn shop for $20 and sold it for a little under $200. Definitely best if the dealer never learns what he missed, I think.
I've had some difficulty sneaking nice junk box finds past the dealer. I once found a nice capped bust dime in a $3 junk box, but the dealer asked the clerk to show him the coin and he kept it. "Must have been a mistake." However, I did get away with this old love token out of a junk box at a coin show almost 40 years ago. I figured that was the only way I'd ever own a heraldic eagle reverse coin. It was no more than $2. Love token made out of an 1798/7 16 stars reverse dime.
I just got lucky to spot it. I left the shop with that and three AU 1921 Morgans for $50 each. It wasn't a huge tray of coins, maybe 20 total, mostly 1921 Morgans and early '20s peace dollars ranging from AU to cull. I'm thinking it'd go XF details for the rim dings, but for the price it's one I'll be talking about for a long time.
I've spotted a few bargains on eBay. they're out there, you just have to wade through miles of garbage to find them.
At least with metal detecting there aren't that many people out burying bottle caps and roofing nails where they know you're going to be digging.
