Ebay...Still a Cherrypickers Paradise 2017'

take a look at this 1915 lincoln, looks like an obverse matte proof die was used

 

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Here is what I did, over a period of 20 years or so, study every matte proof Linc I could, collecting all diagnostics, photographing everything. Gathering every detail of striking characteristics, matte surfaces, rim, edge, and everything else. I also looked at the coins from ANS, Smithsonian and other places. The ANS has the 1909 VDB specimen from Brenner.
I also studied and compared the mattes against the coins struck for circulation to see the differences.
Then when done, I used Heritage auctions and other sites as my testing ground, going through every photo of a matte to check if they matched, and if there some not known.
I remember reading Albrecht, from 1983, if I remember right, he collected his info while an authenticator at the ANA, thought I remembered he had 100 set of the 1909 submitted once or something like that.

In comparing the mattes against EDS coins struck for circulation, there are some which appear superior in strike than to the mattes, I get this, have seen this. You need to find confirming specimens done the same, such as was done for the 1909 P, when a new obverse was found.

I can see barber turning over in his grave laughing now because of all the confusion he caused when he stated he could not polish the working dies because they were curved at the edges, when they obviously could, IMO he just did not want to as they were not his designs IMO.

Kevin

 

Kevin,

FWIW, Carl Waltz, Jr. is a personal friend of mine and a club mate at Red Rose of Lancaster. For as much as I respect and admire his work on Matte proofs, he is more accepting of orthodoxy on this than my internal wiring allows me. I tend to want to question all answers. Thanks for the info. I just can't shake the nagging feeling a someday "new paradigm" is out there. But in numismatics, it seems nothing is ever true until the "right" person or persons proclaim it so, and I find that annoying on a visceral level.

One of the most prolific numismatic authors was fairly recently adjudged "not credible" by a federal court jury, and I enjoy that perhaps a little too much.

 

Kurt
You and I are alot alike, I read everything, but question everything, figure it out for myself. I also enjoy when people challenge what I wrote, because then they become true numismatists, I hated the 90s, when people read Breen and said it was true because it was in writing. If I am not sure on inconclusive, I but all options and theories out there, draw my conclusions, but intentionally leave the door open so as to inspire others to figure it out for themselves.

Some stuff is open to interpretation, but other stuff like clear archive records speak for themselves.

I might disagree with your right person analysis, I look at it from a experience perspective. No one has looked at more proofs an knows about 18th and 19th century proofs than JD. When I ask any expert, their response is what does JD thinks. Its not about that JD is stating it as he is the right person, it is that he has the experience and what he says is so logical and based upon hard evidence. I have studied proofs extensively, from the archives history perspective and the coins. I write books to force me to learn as much as possible and figure everything out. Experience is the ultimate teacher, it is not a gift, right person, or whatever, it is learning through studying. I am working on a book on branch mint proofs which will push me further to learn more.

You have me curious on the federal jury thing, guessing it is the 1933 twenty you are speaking of.

Kevin

 

I agree here. Seems like a lot of the time to much weight is placed on the source over the substance

 

Yup. Count me NOT among his fan base. (With more understatement than the wryest of Brits could muster.)

Full disclosure: I am a H-U-G-E fan of the en banc 3rd Circuit opinion and the present legal status quo on the 1933 Doubs. It's a "preponderance" case and not subject to the criminal standard of proof. The U.S should never have been asked to initiate a civil forfeiture for property that was by the preponderance standard the U.S.'s property all along. The normal judicial preference that litigants not engage in self-help should not apply to government property. As the circuit court said, it was a seizure.

 

There is a very narrow line between "iconoclast" and "conspiracy theorist," albeit a very sharply-defined one: the ability to differentiate between "belief" and "evidence," and the willingness to accept the latter when it disagrees with your current position. But humans so unwillingly admit to being wrong....just like dislocating one's shoulder, it becomes progressively easier to believe yourself right with every occasion upon which you actually are right.

Nobody bats 1.000.

 

I find coin people to be unusually prone to icon worship. It's far less trouble than iconoclasty and demanding evidence THAT SQUARES WITH logic. The evidence on 09 VDB MPL's is on far sounder footing than the logic of what happened to the "missing" coins. I am aware there might ALSO be a racial component to the missing coins story that MIGHT have led to many finding their way into circulation so thorough that the die markers are obliterated.

 

I'm of the opinion that a logical explanation for the disappearance of the VDB Proofs comes pretty easily when you contemplate the timelines involved. The 1909 Lincoln was first released on 2nd August 1909. By the 5th August, the Treasury Secretary had ordered production halted because of the uproar over the designer's initials. They didn't have the Internet back then to overwhelm them with day-of-issue orders; how many orders would have been fulfilled in the first three days? They would have had Business Strike Cents packed and ready to ship on the release date, which is why those are common on the ground.

The turnaround happened quickly enough to recycle the vast majority of VDB Proofs, which had not yet been ordered/shipped. They were produced, which puts them into the Mint official records. It seems that simple to me.

It also makes me believe the "uproar" against Brenner's initials wasn't completely public. They wouldn't have reversed course in 72 hours based on public feedback; hell, they wouldn't have had public feedback in 72 hours.

 

Okay, I've had my coffee, and I've read all 27 pages, front to back, and here is my input.

Grading is an opinion - There is no definite answer on grading, and if you asked 10 expert graders to grade a coin, a few of them would be advising a different grade.

This opinion, however, is something you pay for, the entire value of the coin rests on this opinion. Some coins have thousands between each grade.

However here is the rub...if your paying for this opinion, and they goof up, and then turn around and go "well we can't be held liable", then what exactly is the value of this opinion?

Adhering to the other answers...I would expect this on bulk submission of monster ASE boxes, not a coin that less than 500 are known to exist.

So logic would dictate that there SHOULD be some kind of internal procedure, a checklist or "final look" to keep errors like this from happening.

Bottom line: if your paying for a company to give a grade/opinion, which then can't be guaranteed if they get called out on it, then that means there really is no value in the service, none, whatsoever.

You can't be a multi-million dollar company, make a screwup like this, and then call yourselves "professional".

Personally, I think PCGS should cut them a check for $40,000, and then focus harder on preventing something like this from rolling out the door.

There needs to be substance to their opinion. Not owing up to their mistake, and it is their mistake, is literally devaluing their own service.

Make it a PR event even.

If PCGS simply does nothing and continue to let errors like this slip through the cracks, they are cutting their own throat.

 

I am sympathetic with this view. Some professions simply have an acceptable error rate of ZERO. Ask the engineers who gave the GO for the seals on the Challenger launch, or anyone who ever ran a public election that turned out whisker close. It's why double checks on top of triple checks are done. To me PCGS benefits from a quality reputation they clearly don't deserve, and it needs to have a real cost.

 

Didn't a rapper do a song about cherrypickers paradise or something like that

 

Weird Al did one for me and m'peeps. Amish Paradise.

 

You really think they summarily DESTROYED the remaining VDB proofs? Seriously? I'm having a hard time believing that. We're not talking about gold here. It's far more likely they just dumped them in a bin bound for circulation.

 

As a state gummint employee, allow me to translate. "Public outcry" means "I don't like somebody getting more credit than I get."

You're welcome. I live to serve.

 

Legally HA was on the hook for their lost money. You gotta love the chutzpah of a billion dollar a year company like that begging for a coin back, absolutely shameless.
Let them cry over their mistake, which no ebay seller would be able to wriggle out of without getting seriously problem feedback.

 

But, but, but HA is "special". I leave it to the reader to decide if that's "special" in the "short school bus" sense of the word.

 

Context: Brenner was Teddy Roosevelt's boy; he got the Lincoln job because of that. By August 1909, Taft was President and even though he'd been Roosevelt's handpicked successor, bad blood was already brewed because of the Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act which Taft liked and Teddy hated. Roosevelt had been....rather uncomplimentary of Taft in public for some time at that point.

So why was there an order to change the VDB initials within 72 hours of the public first seeing them? It wasn't the public....

Of course, you may be correct and the excess VDB MPL's got dumped into circulation. Me, I think the standing order was, "Make Brenner disappear from association with the Cent" as revenge on Roosevelt. Why, otherwise, did they take years to put his initials back onto the coin? They could have made that alteration immediately; the "outcry" was that the initials were too prominent, not that they shouldn't be there.

Therefore, I think the Proofs got turned into new planchets.

 

Pronouncing a life-critical system "safe"
Declaring a winner in a race for political leadership
Assigning a grade to a coin

One of these things is not like the others, IMHO.

 

True, but it is considerably CLOSER on a $40K coin than a $40 coin. This is not just any grade of just any coin. This is pretty close to the biggest error they CAN make.