Hello CT! I recently found this 1799 Bust dollar on a auction website. I know it is beat up and is pretty much a cull, but i just wanted to double check weather or not you guys thought it was legit before I take a crack at it. It is pretty cheap with the fact being said that it is a cull too. I believe it will sell cheaper than what it is worth. The bid currently is under $100 ( No it is not on ebay). Some input would be appreciated! Thank you!!!!
In my honest opinion, I don't believe that the coin you've posted is fake or a reproduction. 1799 has the highest mintage of all the Draped Bust Dollars. Regardless, I'm not an expert on these by any means, but @johnmilton is quite knowledgeable on these if I'm not mistaken and should be able to help you.
I have no reason to doubt that this coin is genuine. The devices and lettering are sharp and crisp, and it has the fabric of the early dollars of this period. The question is, how much to you want to spend on a multiple problem coin that is way below average for the dollars of this era? This might be the worst early dollar that I have seen given the hole and the graffiti. Some budget minded collectors will take an interest in it, but how much is too much? I can’t answer that question because I have never been much a problem coin person. If you continue as a collector, you will become dissatisfied with this and will want to replace it. If you spend too much, you won’t get your money out of it.
Not on one of these there's not. It's discounted, as it should be. I think @Noah Finney knows what he's doing. Were he someone else, he might get one of my outstanding lectures, but there's no need for that with him. It looks good, that's what he inquired about, take it away from there.
What do you guys think that black swipe is running laterally across her face? A little is in between her hair curls, too.
I believe that has the telltale mark of being taped to a book of some sort. That is just where the coin toned differently under the tape.
It could be, but usually those marks are yellow. Of course, I'm thinking of Scotch tape. No one knows what might have been in something else.
Now that I look closer the outlines do go across the face suggesting to me it just colored differently across the fields. So yes, that's what it's looking like to me, the remnants of something or other over it.
It looks genuine to me. But ask yourself why do you want to buy this coin? It's always going to be a problem coin. The black mark across the obverse, the graffiti that's on both sides but worse on the obverse and the hole. I'd save my money and buy another coin, one without all of these problems. The hole and the graffiti are the biggest ones and they will never go away.
I just took a tour of the worst 1799 dollars Heritage has auctioned. This one sold for $360 in October of 2020. I could have kept going, but I got bored. Heritage actually published the full slab and close-up pictures of this coin. Amazing. There are far nicer and more valuable coins that don't get this much coverage. Why would anyone pay for a PCGS gold shield slab for something like this?
You folks realize that Noah is a young collector? I would have given my eye teeth to have been able to own any 18th century piece when I was a young man.
It's not for me, but as the other holed one in the thread sold for $360, it's for someone. I'm not a fan of buying problem "stop-gap" coins if I have a nicer one in mind, but if you can get it cheap considering all the problems and you like the coin (not just the price), then it would appear the coin is for you. Just know that problem coins will always be problem coins, and problems will not grow on you over time.
How times have changed! My first nice early U.S. coin was a 1799 dollar priced at $210. It graded VF-30 or so, but it had been dipped white. I bought it in 1970, and coins like that were considered to be okay. I sold it to a dealer in the mid 1970s for $475. My next 1799 Dollar was really nice one that I bought from a member of my local coin club in Massachusetts. He told me he had paid $15 for it from who knows when. He knew I liked the coin. He wanted to take a trip with his wife to Bermuda so he offered it to me. We all know that grading changes over time. I graded the coin EF-45. He graded it has an AU, and for that reason we disagreed over the price. He sent the coin to ANACS and it came back in a little ANACS EF-45 white slab and I paid him just over $1,000 for it. If it had come back AU, I would have paid him the price, but at the time, I knew my grading was correct. Today the coin is in an NGC AU-55 slab. Whatever grade you might want to put on it, here it is.
Yes I know but my comments were geared to get him to think about this coin, the future and the damage it has. Coin condition is everything. I just want him to think about what's best for him.