I bought a 1889 Princess Head Gold coin today. I mainly bought it because it was the first "older" gold coin I have come across that hadn't been cleaned or screwed up in one way or another. The guy sold it to me for spot plus 15ish, so I ended up payin like 90 dollars for it. I then went across town to another shop (owned by the same person) to see what they had. They told me the guy who sold it to me got in trouble (half way kidding) as they feel it should have pulled more of a numismatic value. He had their grading "guru" to check it out to see how he thought it would grade. He accidentally said did you see this doubling under wreathe? I said no, as I had not fine tooth examined it. Well the owner at this point start half kidding half not saying he would buy it for a hundred buck, an instant 10 dollar gain. Meanwhile, the "guru" was on the computer looking to see if this doubling was common for this coin. He keeps saying yeah looks like that just the way the coin is supposed to look. The owner now wants to give me a 125. I say, well you guys had me excited for a minute and start saying my good byes as I'm a frequent visitor of our local shops. After realizing the owner wont get it back from me he says, yeah we would prob put a 250 price tag on it, so you made out pretty good on this one. I feel it was needed to write that long intro so you could see where I'm going with this. Now to my point. There is some VERY define doubling around the entire bottom and top left section of the wreathe. There is also strong doubling on a few of the letters in "UNITED STATES OF AMERICA", with the strongest being the U,I,C, and A. The help I need is someone who knows gold dollar coins well, good grader, or error coin knowledgable to tell me if this was common with theses coins???? I feel like maybe the guy at the shop looking at pictures was saying this so he would have more chance at me selling it back. Or maybe its just wishful thinking on my part. :smile Anyway, I'm going to be on the hunt for my wifes camera now so I can post a pic, but if someone already knows the answer to this please let me know. Thanks!
Are you sure it is not Longacre Doubling? edit Longacre Doubling is common on Gold Dollars. It appears on numerals and letters that were punched into the Master Die. The doubling on the wreath would not be Longacre Doubling.
Im trying my best to get these pics up, hard without professional camera. I looked up that Longacre doubling, and some pics I saw DOES remind me of what I see on this coin. But at same time I also see the doubling that people go bonkers over. Hopefully this works so you guys can see. Thanks for your help Hobo! And GREAT contribution Hull!
I looked on Heritage Auctions at some coins around this year, and they def all have this same kind of strike. Oh well, still got a pretty good deal on it I think.
Longacre Doubling is very common. You find it a lot on Indian Head Cents, too. I think it is a very cool feature.
I live in the "burbs" around Indianapolis. Lots of small po-dunk towns, so I can usually find pretty good deals around here. Doesn't really relate to this coin specifically, but the coin shops around here are clueless of the premiums on the popular bullion, ie pandas, kooks, roo's etc. I was getting new mint sealed Silver Panda's for 42/per until just last week. Also picked up 2 lunar 1/10oz gold pieces 2 weeks ago for 10 over spot The only downfall is that because I'm not near a major metro area (even Indy included as it doesnt have a GREAT silver or gold coin dealer) I can't always find the 'cool' pieces that I would like to have. Oh well... Gotta take the good with the bad.
Longacre doubling can be found on the devices of coins as well It can be found on the devices of the one dollar gold quite often. To a lesser frequency it can be found on the wreath of the indian head cents, sometimes on the feathers. I've seen it around the figure of Liberty on the seated Liberty coins and around the eagle on the reverse. I've seen it on the devices of shield nickels, three cent and two cent pieces. As a rule if you see it on the devices it tends to be very strong on the lettering.
Point taken Dutchman. :smile You run a top knotch store, and def almost always have the best selection in central Indiana. The only problem is your a solid 45 minutes away, and the only other place with that type of selection is SilverTowne which is even farther at like an hour 20 away. I guess its just my inexperience talking, as it seems to me people on these forums and others sound like they can just walk into their local shops and pick up whatever they want from generics to primo roos and privys, to 10 oz bars, to whatever. I guess really in the real world us collector folks just take what we can get when we can get it. Oh and PS, Im the fella that was in a couple weeks ago and asked if you were the one on CoinTalk
