Okay, here's the next lot: Coin Collection(begun 30-40 yrs ago)+Silver Certs&coins The seller posted a bunch of photos on a separate site: http://s192.photobucket.com/albums/z234/kwharp/Coin%20and%20Silver%20certificate%20collection/ What's that second coin in the third row on the first page? Looks sort of like "1928" -- although I didn't notice that until after the bidding was done. Lots of common silver dimes and quarters, along with a bunch of dimes for which you can't really see whether they're silver or not. A bunch of Kennedys with dates you can't quite make out. I bid based on the melt value of the silver that I could unambiguously identify, and tacked on a little "surprise premium" as a gamble on the possibility of other goodies. I'll follow up sometime tomorrow with what I actually found when I received the lot.
I would quickly save those eight pictures from his photobucket account. Since there is no mention of how many coins you are buying the seller could remove those pictures and send you only items ther were mentioned on the ebay description itself. I am not saying the seller will do this but it is better to be safe then sorry, with so little feedback for the seller I would choose to be safe. I hope you find something exciting. Good luck!
To clarify, the auction ended Dec. 30, and I received the lot a few days later. Also note that this auction had a seven-day return policy.
Okay, here's how it turned out: I received a FedEx box a couple of days after the auction closed, with a fairly sizeable hole torn in one side. As I turned the box in my hands, I heard coins ROLLING AROUND inside! When I got it open, I found a blue three-ring binder, containing a few pages of blank notebook paper and ten pocket pages. One held the notes; unfortunately, something had caused the plastic sheet to start corrugating. I don't know if this has damaged the notes -- I haven't tried to remove them yet, but they were far from CU to begin with. I'll probably slit the edges of the pockets and cut them away so I don't have to slide the notes; I'm not a note collector, but I'm going to show them at least some respect. The rest of the pages held a combination of coins fastened into 2x2 cardboard flips, coins LOOSE in 2x2 flips, and coins loose in the pockets. Many of the pockets with loose coins were taped shut, but not all, and not all the tape was still good; that's where the loose coins came from. There were three 2x2's that claimed to hold silver dimes, but were empty; I suspect they found their way out the hole in the side of the package. Fortunately, none of the loose halves or dollars escaped, and none of them were in a condition to be seriously impaired by rolling around in the box. Everything was pretty much as shown in the photos. The "1928?" label was, in fact, scratched out and corrected to 1923; I suspect an older collector with poor eyesight. All but one each of the dimes and quarters were silver; nine of the halves were clad. All the cents were well-circulated, but there were several dates my son needed to for his Harris folder. The best surprise in this lot was an extra row of halves, not shown in any of the photos. It included a G-4 17-s (rev) Walker, average circulated 34-s and 40-s, and this chick: I showed it to a dealer specializing in Morgans at this weekend's local show. He graded it "strong Fine details", but cleaned. I'm wondering if he was angling to bid on it; based on Photograde, and comparison to other slabbed specimens at the show, it looks like VF all day long to me. In fact, I would've gone at least VF30. But I don't know what I'm doing, after all, and maybe he was doing net-grading, although he did say "it would probably sell as a strong Fine in spite of the cleaning". Bottom line: this auction netted me somewhere north of $500 silver value even after the recent drop (using Coinflation's numbers for silver at $28.48/oz), a few bucks face of clad stuff that I'll most likely spend or give to the kids, some wheats that I'll add to the growing pile, and a Morgan half much nicer than I expected to get in the immediate future. Overall, I was very pleased. I didn't even feel the need to ding the seller for packaging; he'd obviously just put up the collection as his father had packed it, and while I probably would've at least bagged the binder, I don't fault him for assuming things would stay in their pockets. I don't have any more big batches in the queue for posting here, but I'm continuing to keep my eyes open...
