This is more or less wrapping it up for this year. It's a nice solid fine. Not the best coin, but good details. Not bad for about $26. Book is $48. Although I'm collecting 2's and 3's, my budget isn't focused on them, so this will do for now, maybe in a few months I will upgrade. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=170962162190
Nice. Just be careful if you put them in an album as they bend really, really easily. Don't ask me how I know
If you are already planning on upgrading, then why buy it in the first place? Upgrades should take place when A) Your knowledge increases and your collecting refines. B) Your coin is a true rarity and you are stuck with only being able to purchase a given example with the hope that a better one will turn up in the future. and C) You purchase a really nice coin but to your amazement you find an even better coin in the future, allowing you to own two really nice examples or to keep the better one and seller the other nice example. It should be noted that "really nice example" does not have to mean mint state but simply means a really nice example for the targeted grade of your collection; whether that grade is VF, EF, AU or MS66.... If you are purchasing coins just to fill a hole or check a block, I think you are wasting your resources. You also keep mentioning prices like they are set in stone some where. "Book value" is just a guide and nothing more. Now, if you re-worded it to say "Not bad for $26, it trends in $48. then you got a good deal, you could sell it for $40 and then purchase a coin that you do not describe as "Not the best coin, but good details". I am not trying to be harsh, but this is a common coin and not really a nice example. If you would have saved a little longer you could have purchased a really nice example that you would not have to upgrade. I see this all the time at my local coin club. People will spend hundreds of dollars through out the year on common worn coins and not have anything to show for it. In fact, if they were to sell them in the future they would loose a large portion of what they spent trying to sell them. If they would have instead purchased only a few coins that year; that they chose for grade, strike and eye appeal, they would have some really nice coins and more than likely would make money if they chose to sell in the future. Just my opinion...
Sometimes you can straighten out a bent coin by putting it between two heavy pieces of leather and pounding on it. Silver seems to straighten better than copper. If the bend happened a long time ago, and the wear patterns highlight or reflect the bend, you're out of luck.
I strongly agree. My policy is to select an issue I'm interested in collecting then, based on catalog value, decide on a minimum grade I'll accept. I want coins to grade high enough so that if I show them to someone they will get a good idea of what the US Mint had in mind when they were struck. And based on the best guess about my future financial situation I want to buy a coin that I don't expect to upgrade at a later date. And degree of interest is another factor, i.e., the more an issue grabs me the higher the minimum grade I'll accept will be. What this means is that there are some issues I will ignore. - A set of SLQ's is NOT on my wantlist; no way I'd ever expect to be able to afford a 1916. - No sets of Seated Liberty nor Barber coins; low interest level because of the large size of those sets. I really like the concept of a type set. It only takes one coin of each design thus common dates totally satisfy this.
i am not sure what reason he had,but they are his own and i am not sure that if every coin that each of us would buy would be bought by him.just another opinion mine this time.
I don't think Detecto is branching out into trimes, he just wanted an affordable example to throw in his collection. And if he gets tired of it, I'm positive that it will sell for more than he paid.
I had a couple of them once, and they are indeed very small and fragile. I can't imagine they used them for spending money without constantly losing a few.
I trust everybody knows that trimes were originally minted to facilitate the purchase of 3-cent stamps during the persistent penny shortage of the 1850s. The year 1851 saw the first minting of this denomination, as well as a reduction in postal rates from 5c and 10c (depending on distance) to a flat 3 cents (Act of March 3, 1851). The theory that $3 gold pieces were minted (starting in 1854) to facilitate the purchase of entire sheets of one hundred 3-cent stamps is much more controversial, although no plausible alternative explanation has been offered, especially since we had plenty of $2.50 and $5.00 gold coins available at the time.
These are the images from the auction... I too would have held out for a better example, but sometimes you just have to have something, and I understand that.
