I was at a local antique mall here in town last night where I sell military collectibles and this was the only coin in one of the dealers cases. I got it for a pretty good price ($30) but it was more for a curiosity then anything else. I know we have some slab researchers here. My question is how long did the W (I assume for "White") designation last?
Just going from memory but it seems to me that designation was used back around 2001-02 when "blast white" was the current preferrence. I think it only lasted about a year because shortly after this designation began to be used toned coins started to be popular and blast white kind of faded from view.
If my memory is correct...didn't NGC also have a "T" for toned they used at the time too? Both of which were short lived.
Look's like it would have come out around 99-00, and ended 8/1/02. Here it is from NGC: NGC to Discontinue "W" Designation
That holder is from August or Sept of 2001. (I forget which and I don't have the book here with me to refresh my memory.) That particular holder was only used for about one month. The T and W designations were used longer than that though. How long I can't say because I didn't pay that much attention to them. They were an attribute of the coin and not the slab so I wasn't interested..
Now it is not politically correct for coins to be blast white anymore, now they have to be toned in Taco Bell napkins etc to make ridiculous and unnatural toning that fools want to buy. As for me, I like them blast white. Good catch LD.
I wouldn't think of changing that holder so NGC can make another $4. That holder is a rare find and denotes about when it was graded. Nice coin and nice holder. Keep it. Bruce
Or you could buy blast white coins that are toned. Point being that even blast white coins are toned. Now what were you saying about fools?
Have you seen those wildly toned ASE's on fleaBay, even 2009's? Cannot tell me those are NT. These things even get tombed, and fools buy them. I would not pay moon money for something I could damage myself. I agree with you, that all coins given the right conditions will tone. The nickel you have depicted in your post is actually NT in my opinion, it is actually attractive even to me, it is a very light and subtle tone that happens over a period of time. By comparison go look on fleaBay at ASE's etc and you will see rainbow stuff that looks like it went through someone's innards and was subsequently defecated.
Good point, but not all toned ASE's are ugly and AT. I have some beautiful toned examples that toned in their PCI insert. Here is one. However, I know the coins that you are talking about and agree that they are hideous. For Example. We need a white coin to erase that coin from my memory.
As Conder pointed out, that slab is far more interesting because of the variety it is. The W designation is rather common, but the slab variety you have there (NGC8 according to Conder's numbering scheme) is rather uncommon. It was only made for a month and discontinued due to strong collector protest - they didn't like the tiny squashed serial number under the bar code. Conder told me when I bought one (http://coins.www.collectors-society...ail.aspx?PeopleCoinID=461271&PeopleSetID=6638 ) that these slabs garner a premium to the right buyers, but not a whole lot yet. For more, see the link to a discussion on my Registry set.
That information really sucks. I need to have this coin reholdered with a star designation instead of the T designation to take over 2nd place in the registry, but now I have to sacrifice a rare slab in the process.
