collector learns lesson

hello all. i've been reading threads for a while but this is my first post. i'm 47 and have a small collection which i haven't really looked at since i was a teenager. just put away and forgot. anyhow,i just became aware of the grading companies and thought i'd send a few coins in.i should have studied this forum for awhile,because i was totally naive as to grading process. i joined ngc collector's society(100.00) and sent in:1860-0 seated liberty dollar,1909 2.5 dollar gold piece.1924 seated liberty quarter,and 1893 indian head penny. they all came back,i guess you guys call it bodybagged. i thought they slabbed your coins no matter what. i guess i just wanted the coins slabbed cause i liked the way they looked and i thought they would just assigned them a grade. worst part is the gold piece was counterfeit. the other coins they said were all cleaned. i swear i've never cleaned any coins i've ever owned. the gold piece my mom gave me for my 18th birthday. i've had it all these years and now it's worthless. the seated lib dollar i bought from a coin shop years ago. it was graded au. i own 20 morgan dollars that i thought would grade au to bu but i don't want to have them graded for 30 bucks a piece to have them tell me they're cleaned. i feel like selling the whole lot and just cutting my losses. nothing i one is rare,and i wasn't looking to get rich but i feel real bad. also,one coin came back artifically toned. again i never did anything to my coins other than forget about them for years. thanks for letting me vent my frustrations.

 

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Hi Banny,
Collecting is subjective. Look at the enjoyment of the 20+ years of owning your collection and measure that against a moment of disapointment. I would take the gift from mom as what it is, a gift from mom. I would treasure that more than the value of the gift. Gold would not be able to buy that one from me.

 

I would be willing to bet that you got that philosophy from traveling in the East! Like they say, "you can't take it with you".

 

Hi Banny - I agree with 2b. Cherrish that gift from your Mom, and all the others. If you need to see it in a holder, buy some online and put your own message in the holder. I buy them by the hundreds for my buffalo errors. They only cost about 30 cents each.
Don't let someone else tell you whats important. some of us only collect coins that are messed up. (Errors) Some of my most important coins are the ones I collected 50 years ago. Today at 59 I wouldn't consider buying them, but their precious to me. And that silver dollar my Mom put away the day I was born is at the top of the list. She is gone now, but my old beat up dollar is still with me.

 

I sent a 32 s quarter into anacs and it came back as cleaned. It looked like a light cleaning so I was not to surprised- even though I bought it at a Phoenix coin auction (John Goulde Auction) as original. ANACS are the best grader to send coins to.

 

I wouldn't get too upset about the cleaned coins. It doesn't make them worthless, just worth less. Even highly respected dealers such as Harlan J. Berk LTD sell cleaned coins on their website, listed as cleaned and sold at an appropriate discount. I own several coins I know have been cleaned [and most likely a few I don't know about]. It doesn't affect their history or collectibility to me, just the resale value. Like you, I wish the grading services would just slab all coins sent to them, give a technical grade, and list them as cleaned, damaged, artificially toned or whatever they find. I think it's bad business practice to do anything else, and the use of the bodybags, in my opinion, is borderline fraud because you paid for a service you didn't receive. I don't care if they notifiy customers in advance that this is their policy. It just isn't right and it is their attempt to rig the market against cleaned coins instead of letting the market decide what their value should be.

I also wonder if it would be worthwhile to get a second opinion on the gold coin. I'm not sure whether "counterfeit" means someone changed the date or something else on the coin, or that it is a privately minted gold round, or that it isn't really gold. If it is real gold, it still might have about $55 worth of gold bullion in it even if it wasn't produced by the US Mint.

 

Here's my free business idea for someone on this site -- get together your friends who are good graders (surely there is some certification for good graders who show a certain proficiency) and start a service that lists coins as cleaned, etc. but also slabs them.

Incidentally, I am not a fan of slabs in general, but am coming to appreciate them more now that I know about counterfeits being out there.

 

Beauty and VALUE is in the eye of the beholder, cherish the memories.

 

2.5 gold

I definitly think the gold is worth a second look. I have a couple of 2.5 gold pieces that I took to a dealer to appraise, and I was told one was counterfiet, so I took them to a second dealer to look at and he gave me prices. after he did I told him what the other dealer said so he took a second look and said he would gladdly buy it from me as authentic. He told me what the differences would be if it was fake and told me that generally people would counterfiet a coin that was worth more money than a common date 2.5 even if it is fake I would keep it also. I have some fake california gold peices I got from my grandfather that I plan to keep just because they were a gift to me.

 

Well put !

 

I have to disagree. It isn't the function of the grading companies to set prices or tell collectors what is or isn't collectible. It is their function to provide accurate information for a price. They aren't the judge, jury and executioner or a governing body that controls the numismatic world.

I can easily imagine what would happen if cleaned and damaged coins were slabbed. An efficent market would spring up for those items and the people interested in collecting coins that are less than perfect. It isn't the job of the TPGs to tell collectors that this can't or shouldn't be done. What they are doing is a form of market-rigging by successfully convincing people that a cleaned coin is numismatically valueless.

 

I'm just saying that the TPGs have made a bad choice. Call it a lack of foresight on their part, or poor historical perspective, or too much concentration on making money, or too much ego, or a misunderstanding of the level of service they COULD provide to the hobby compared to what they do. Numismatics is basically a form of "coin archeology." The TPGs could provide a tremendous service to the collectors of the present and future by authenticating, grading, preserving, and categorizing as many coins as they can. Instead they choose to try to impose their narrow standards on numismatics forever. Nobody knows what will be important 100 years from now, so everything deserves to be saved and treated as valuable. If I owned one of these companies, I'd slab everything with as much accuracy and information as possible, and let the marketplace and the future determine how to treat it.

Anyway, I guess you can tell I have a strong opinion on the subject.

 

I believe you under estimate the intelligence of the average coin collector. It's unfortunate, but this time I have to go with Clouds thinking on the subject. I maintain the 3PG' s are actually doing a disservice to the hobby of coin collecting in the name of "profit".

 

If that's the case, maybe the TPGs are bad business managers in addition to being short sighted about the impact they could or should have on numismatics.

Regarding inexperienced and novice collectors, in which situation do you think they will be more likely to unknowingly purchase a cleaned coin at full price: if they are slabbed or if they are raw? I just think more information is always better than less. How the information is used is the responsibility of the collector.

 

Unfortunately many people selling coins today don't understand that bright and shiny is not necessairly good. I've actually had them tell me they would clean the coin up for me. I don't like getting cleaned coins, but at the same time I don't think this is a mortal sin. Like others stated earlier, collectors have cleaned coins for centuries. It is hard to tell sometimes how long ago a coin was cleaned.

Personally I don't like toned coins. I think they are ugly and as often as not have been artificially toned. I avoid them. But at the same time I have seen some of my own coins tone after years in storage. This is usually due to storing them in acid folders or bags.

Counterfeits can be interesting. Of course you are supposed to surrender them to the authorities, but if they are actually made of precious metals it is better to stash them away and if necessary melt them down into bullion later on. If this coin was a gift from your mother then I would hold on to it no matter what the pedigree.