Does a GSA mention on the slab bring a premium?

If a coin is no longer in its GSA holder, but slabbed with a mention of it being GSA, does that really bring a premium these a days? Especially as coins in GSA holders have been graded, is there any premium for a coin thats been cracked out, with a mention on the label?
An example of what I mean: https://www.ebay.com/itm/115930007497?

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

Not unless the label is stored with the coin and/or is available.

 

ICG would not have shown GSA on the label if they had not removed the coin from the GSA holder.

 

IMO, once it's removed from the GSA holder it's just a regular coin. I have a few GSA cc morgans and a couple peace dollars in GSA soft packs, for me the allure is the GSA packaging. Some people will pay a premium for something in a slab with GSA on the label but i won't. That's not to say I wouldn't buy one, if i could get it for the same price as something without it on the label.

 

Did any GSA coins circulate prior to packaging or are they all from the Mint and banks?

 

I am trying to remember. I vividly remember the television advertisements for them, but for the life of me I cannot remember if they were advertised as all being MS.... The allure at the time was that they were (mostly, if not all) Carson City dollars... I don't remember any emphasis being put on whether or not these were MS at the time.

 

It was a long time ago but I remember that some were sold that had signs of circulation. This guy will know @GDJMSP

 

You are correct as there are GSA “soft packs” which contain circulated coins.

see link from NGC below:
https://www.ngccoin.com/coin-grading/holders/gsa-soft-pack/

“In a series of sales between 1973 and 1980, the GSA offered these coins at public auction. Coins deemed to be circulated were auctioned in 1973. These coins, unlike the uncirculated coins, were packaged in soft plastic sleeves with a white plastic GSA token.”

 

The vast majority of them were uncirculated bags, but some were mixed circulated bags that had been returned to the treasury vault by various banks. The soft pack category was supposed to be circulated coins, but some mint state coins wound up in them, most of the 1878 CCs did, for some reason.

 

Could it be the "Uncirculated" ones were the ones from the Mint to the bank vaults and the federal reserve bank vaults? One doesn't need to know how to grade coins to know those coins in fact weren't in circulation. The term "circulation" being a term of art in the grading game meaning absence of any wear, is it conceivable some of those coins holdered as "Uncirculated" by the GSA could show wear when graded by a grader, i.e., a TPG? As to the others the GSA just knew those saw circulation or that issue wasn't resolvable so they just slapped just "Silver Dollar" on those, not "Uncirculated Silver Dollar?" We agree they weren't grading. Why anyone would think they were grading, as opposed to just differentiating on what they knew for a fact circulated and didn't is beyond me. They weren't grading. They were differentiating on "circulation" in fact, taking that term literally. Or so I think.

 

Sigh.....

 

That pretty much covers it, but someone will probably still argue about it.

 

To answer the original question, not to me. To get a GSA premium, it needs to be in GSA packaging. Same would be true for me for a Redfield coin - it should be in a Paramount holder to get the premium.

 

But if the coins didn't circulate the GSA is going to get them back not in bank-sealed bags but in the same Mint-sealed bags the Mint sent to the Fed and they sent to the banks. If the original Mint-sealed packaging was broken, those coins were taken out and targeted for circulation. They could have made the call on just that, the types of bags they got back, no? Not grading the coins, just judging from the bags returned whether the coins saw circulation, as in, handled outside the Mint.

I still don't think the GSA was grading based on wear, Doug. Again, "circulation" is a term of art, meaning wear. They weren't examining each and every one of those coins for wear before they holdered them, come on. They were taking "circulation" literally and judging that from the nature of the bags that were returned to them.

Mark Feld, do you remember him, the professor? He was a professional grader. I once asked him whether it made a difference to him whether a mint-state graded coin came from circulation. Do you know what he said? He said it did. And I fell over backwards when I heard it. Seriously, look at how long it takes the TPGs to grade individual coins. I think it strains credulity for one to believe that the GSA was examining these coins individually for wear. They were doing something different that had nothing to do with wear but rather with whether they thought that the coins were handled or "circulated" outside the Mint. They were trying only to assure "uncirculated" and when couldn't because their seals were broken they told guys who felt that was important, like Mark Feld, they were "circulated." Unless you know for a sure fact they were individually examining and labeling each of these based their concept of wear, I'm not assuming that, at all, but quite the contrary, as aforesaid.

 

There was a tiny coin shop between my school and home when I was coming up and I spent my lunch money in his little place many a day. I remember having the circulated/uncirculated conversation with him (keeping in mind that this was the Jurassic period)..... The way he put it to me was that it was like being pregnant. Either you is or you ain't. Now that was way before we took such a scientific approach to grading, but the whole point being is that I believe it was just regarded differently back in those days.

 

No, I disagree, Randy. And so would Doug, I'll speak for him. "Uncirculated" always meant the same thing it means, today, namely, the absence of any trace of wear on the coin. Grading is a condition thing, after all. Or, at least, technical grading is, which is what we had before market grading came along. It's the same idea with baseball cards, comic books, stamps, anything. We assess condition based on wear. That's all there is to it.

 

This makes sense to me. If you have a sealed mint bag, they're all uncirculated by definition. You don't need to inspect each coin the way a TPG would.