Two gold birds with one stone...?

So, as a North Carolina resident, I've been thinking for a while that I'd like to get a Charlotte-mint example. Not enough to pay for a problem-free coin, but I seem to be making a bit of a specialty out of problem coins anyhow.

I've also thought that I wouldn't mind having a gold love token.

Seller photos, just bought, should get next week:





I don't usually go for holed coins -- I don't especially like piercings and rings on coins or people -- but I figured it would probably be a long time before I came across another Charlotte gold piece at a two-figure price.

Now to get it and see if it's genuine...

 

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I bought a C mint $2 1/2 that was holed... for about melt value! The C was barely peaking out behind the hole, so I guess everyone else missed it. Graded genuine, and tripled or quadrupled my money!

 

Yeah, I can't quite see sending this one in for grading. It'll be tempting to flip it, but like I said, it's a bit of an "Always Wanted"...

 

Nice coin.
The $1 coins generally cost more for the C Mint than do the other values.
And the $5 coins tend to be the least expensive.
Same for the D Mint coins of that time.

 

I've seen that. I don't know off the top of my head whether it's a matter of mintage, survivorship, or something else entirely.

I would like to do a complete mint set in a single denomination, and that would have to be $5 (to pick up Carson City). That's not an especially likely goal, but it's another argument in favor of flipping. We'll see.

 

Nice coin. I live near the old Dahlonega Mint and thought about trying a set of those, but boy is everyone proud of them.

 

Yep. It looks like there are a lot more people interested in buying than in selling.

 

Well the "War of Northern Aggression" killed off both Mints I guess. Dahlonega and Charlotte were short lived as their gold ran out. I just discovered that the US Geological Survey tested our property for gold several years back. I may try to find the results and set up shop. I know there was a successful gold mine about a half mile behind us up on a mountain.

 

Nice! I'd have an instant new hobby if I found out something like that...

 

Keep it until you get the $5. I would probably be a buyer when it comes time to sell it.

 

Not bad. I was expecting a cherrypick, but the seller knew what he had.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1851-C-1-Go...D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

 

Well, the seller "knew what he had" in the sense that he (?) recognized it as a mintmark, but he priced it as a generic $1 love token. I'm thinking it could get quite a bit more than that.

 

I really highly doubt that, with the hole and one side of the coin shaved off. The hole almost always decreased the value of a coin by 90% (very rare coins are usually drecreased by 70-80%), and being turned into a love token makes the value that much lower.

Here is a severely-damaged example that does not have a hole and has both sides present.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1851-C-CHAR...891095?hash=item51f6ea2557:g:27UAAOSw3ZRY-AmO

With that said, you might get $150 if you are lucky.

 

That example is a good data point, but I'm pretty sure a seven-day auction isn't the way to get the best price on a coin like this. You've got a much thinner audience for problem coins, and the chances that you'll find the right two people from that audience in the course of any single week are rather small.

If I were going to list this, I'd probably start it as a 30-day BIN around $500, with Best Offer enabled, and relist it a time or two. I'm betting I'd get at least one offer higher than $300, even though the coin I'm getting has a lot more damage than the one you linked.

Edit: Compare to a holed, engraved, XF details 1878 proof trade dollar that I got in a "junk lot" a few years back. Undamaged examples at PR40 and PR45 have sold for $1380, and an MS60 example went for $1222 at Stacks Bowers in 2013. I listed mine in 2015 with a high BIN -- I forget if it was $1000 or $1200 -- and got a winning offer of $700. Next highest offer was around $500, and there were a couple much lower than that. If I'd listed it as an auction, and all those interested parties had piled on, I would've gotten $500 at most; if either of the high bidders had missed the auction, it would've been down in the $200 range.

If I do, I'll follow up here...

 

You would be surprised. I sell all of my "details" coins in an auction-style format, and they usually go for about double what I expect.

Case in point:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/122459933944?ssPageName=STRK:MESOX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1559.l2649

I will consider you extremely lucky if you get a single offer over $200.

How do you know that $500 is as high as that one person would have gone? Was he just seeing how low you would go? Would there have been more pressure to bid it up in an auction style (as there usually is)? How quickly were these offers received (some people get email alerts about items listed for a particular search)? There are too many unknowns here to make a definite conclusion, though I know I would have been one of those $200 buggers. Plus your coin was slabbed.

 

This gold c mint coin would easily go for over $200.

 

There's no telling. It could be that the best strategy would've been to list it with a high BIN for a month or two, collect interested parties/watchers, and then start it at auction -- although that still entails risk, of course.

Yeah, the Trade dollar was slabbed -- counterfeit Trade dollars are so prevalent any more that it seemed unlikely I'd get any buyer without it. But it was holed and engraved and beat up from being worn, and it still got around half market value for a problem-free example.

By comparison, I think the market for proof Trades is a good bit thinner than the market for even damaged Southern gold.

All this is starting to make me a little itchy to list the thing, just to see what sorts of offers I do get. Problem is, I don't especially want to let go of it...

 

On eBay, perhaps (I don't know), but in the real world and with a little patience, there's absolutely no doubt in my mind he could easily achieve $200 or more. The demand is there for coins such as this, even in this condition, and is simply because many cannot afford survivors. All he needs to do is connect with the right buyer, and both parties can walk away quite happy.

Kudos, Jeff, on the excellent pickup! Seriously.

 

Despite my banters, I am still quite envious of your pickup. We just have different outlooks on the "details" market.

 

Thanks. I post when I have good luck, and try to keep quiet about the normal numbing daily tedium. Sometimes I will own up to goofs.

It'll be interesting to see how this plays out if I do list it. If I do, though, it won't be for a while -- at least until the previous sale falls off the eBay search history!