A very belated tip o' my hat to Eric the Red

Some of y'all might remember @Eric the Red 's very generous giveaway of proof and mint sets back in April.

Well, for some reason, not long after that, he decided to send me a gift coin, too, for helping MC that contest.

It need not be said that he did not have to do that, but he did!

I was rather floored to receive this brilliant, lustrous 1944 Walking Liberty half, which is either Mint State or right on the cusp of it. 1944 happened to be the year I wanted for my collection, since that's my mother's birthyear.

Now, mine is a certified collection- all slabbed- and this coin is raw- so when I examined it under a loupe, I wasn't really sure if it would quite make Mint State after all. It's SO close! There's just the very faintest whisper of rub on the high points.

Because of that, I decided that it wasn't worth the risk and expense of submitting it to PCGS, on the off chance it would come back AU58, though on a good day it might have come back MS63 (that's how it goes with these "super-sliders").

In the end, I decided I'll eventually buy an already-certified 1944 (I'll probably scrape up the money to go for an MS66). Or maybe I'll get a reasonably nice 1938-D, since 1938 is my father's birthyear, and the '38-D is a semi-key date.

So anyway, this one is going into my sell/swap/giveaway inventory rather than off to PCGS for grading, but while photographing it I remembered how kind the gesture was when he sent it to me, so unexpectedly. I believe I thanked him at the time, but certainly not well enough.

So thanks again, @Eric the Red! You are way too kind.

 

Maybe I should keep it. Might be worth a shot at PCGS after all. Normally it would not quite be worth the cost of submission if it came back AU, but considering the coin itself cost me nothing, so what, right? And it might go MS.

It’s been a long time since I made a submission, but I’ve accumulated a few pieces.

 

This is very true.

 

None of my coins are “hold for eternity” pieces, though I do have two from my 1970s childhood collection and all of my 1992-2014 detector finds.

 

A gold Krugerrand, or silver?

I had not in fact checked on the auction you mentioned- not recently. Last I looked, it was hanging steady at $15.50, and I figured, “Welp, that’s about right”, and wandered off. Wow. That came in the Christmas mailing from the generous and mysterious “Quarter Master” of Quarter Notes, Ltd.

So you see, while I give a fair bit of stuff away, I’m also on the receiving end fairly often, too!

 

*whew!*

I’m relieved!

@Eric the Red is on my “great fellas” list, but if he was giving away gold K-rands, we’d have to have him committed!

Until I thought about it, I initially forgot that there’s such a thing as a silver K-rand now. Still a nice thing to have- especially as a freebie.