Does Littleton not attribute varieties? When I got my childhood coin collection back from my mom (after about 40 years!) I found that she had bought about 100 new coins from Littleton, I'm guessing in the 1980s. Anyway, I have found two of them that are known varieties but not labeled as such on the cellophane package. It occurs to me that maybe they were packaged before Cherrypickers Guide was published... Anyway, I suspect that all of us have some Littleton coins acquired one way or the other. Maybe its time to re-examine them (if you like varieties)!
There weren't any receipts with the coins, so I don't KNOW what she paid for them. But knowing Littleton, I suspect that by now, they MAY have appreciated to what she paid. And I suspect this also explains Dad's rants about people using credit cards to order things over the phone
It is a triple s mintmark. I cannot get a good pic through the cellophane so here is a pic of another specimen, close-up. The full name from Cherrypickers guide is FS-01-1938s-502.
Yep. They are still around. When I was overseas in the Army late 1970’s, I looked so forward to receiving their coins on approval envelopes. They kept me in touch with the hobby…… In response to the original question, I remember those little cellophane holders and no I don’t ever remember seeing one with an attribution notes. I believe they followed Redbook guidelines with their coin descriptions.
My point is - if you are like me and have some exiled Littleton coins stored away from your "regular" coins, you might want to take second look to see if you have any varieties that Littleton didn't identify, since the varieties are usually a bit pricier. In the case of the 1938-s cent, the "triple-s" is about twice the value of a regular 1938-s. I've also found a variety of the 1949- s Franklin half dollar. Not as much of a premium, but still nice to find
I’m glad you found those but my point is simple. I only bought once from them. I wasn’t even a teenager so I discovered at a young age they were overpriced. I check them from time to time and nothing has changed.
Oh, exactly. I suspect Dad hit the roof when he saw what Mom paid. even in 1980's dollars. And I sort of roll my eyes when I see Littleton items in an Ebay lot I've bought, and tend to set them aside and ignore them. But now I'm thinking that people may own some gems that they've overlooked just because of our disdain for Littleton - especially if the coins were packaged before Cherrypickers was published and made people aware of varieties. In fact, many of the varieties I've found in the last couple of years come from my childhood collection - coins collected in the 1960s, before varieties were "a thing". My collection sat in the bottom of Mom's cedar chest - unsearched - until 2007.
For the most part Littleton has always been really good with grading and not sending out problem coins. They are known to charge higher prices but I have not looked at them in many years. I always felt the higher prices were needed to cover all the advertising and promotional cost.
