No pics of the 1944-D reverse. Q1: Do you agree with the assigned TPG grades? Q2: What is the value of an MS66 1944-d Merc? - Greysheet MS65 bid/ask is $29/$32 - I can't find it in Greysheet... am I missing it? - I can't find it on Heritage either... Q3: Should the 1923 be "full bands" (it is no currently graded as such)? Q4: If so, what is the value? - Again, I don't see CDN values for "full bands" - CDN bid/ask for MS65 = $260/$285 Seller is asking $200 which seems like a very good price... I'm wondering what the "catch" is...?
1) Far too little photographic information available for any reasonable grade conclusion. 2) I would expect to pay ~$50 for a 1944-D in NGC MS66FB, based on real-world auction results (I care only about how much my competition is willing to pay - no published price guide ever outbid me on a coin). The last couple of Heritage results at $100 have been outliers, and I've ignored them. FB is so common for 1944-D that I wouldn't bother buying one without. 3) I think the right side of the center band introduces enough doubt to believe FB isn't warranted for this one. Would need far sharper images to be positive, though. This is another issue where FB is so common as to render the non-FB examples undesirable - Heritage has 478 1923-P's in the archive, and 415 of them are FB. 4) For $200 in an NGC slab, it needs to be a nice MS65FB. Non-FB examples aren't even on the buying radar. I'm a fan of Mercs in NGC slabs - NGC is tougher on FB than PCGS, yet they tend to trade at a lower price. The 1923 above could be fully split through the center band, yet NGC might not designate it as such due to the flatness of the verticals. They're kind of tough on these.
I still don't understand why collectors want to buy common Mercury dimes in MS65FB condition? Why not save money and buy 1921-D, or 1921 in MS condition. 1916-D in MS is probably out of the question for most of us. However you can get 1931-D or 1931-S in MS65 for about $300 and both these coins have mintage just over 1 million. Dimes of early 30's are pretty scarce compared to others and are cheap in higher grades to my eye. Am I missing something? Is this a collector vs investor thing?
The 1923 you show looks like it's almost full bands. All it takes is either a hit on the bands or one point at which they blend together and it won't be called that. At $200, the seller wants almost full band money for it. There are 3 recent sales for a PCGS 65FB listed at CoinFacts for $235. In theory, should something that is really well struck but just misses full bands sell for almost full band money? Probably, but since we don't live in theory, $200 might be a stretch, and you'd have a hard time getting that in the future if there are coins actually designated FB available for not much more.
