The "coin" is over $250 now! That means there is a hefty profit in it if one wanted to buy 09S Lincolns and then do this to them. The coin is selling for 5 times what the cost of the "parts" involved cost when purchased separately! And that is without even being dishonest about it.
All this is mute if the real story the coin was returned was because of another reason other than what the seller is saying in his auction... His story and (ahem handwriting) may be drawing in a lot of bidders when the simple truth might just be that it was scratched/damaged, or has a stuck-on s, or VDB, or an altered 4. Bone
My Bro-in-law got 2 dollar bills at the bank....2 of them were UNC and the # numbers were in order...he asked what I valued them at and I said $4-$5....he put them on ebay and someone payed $9....he says its all in what someone will pay for them.... Speedy
On the body bag. Is PCGS actually saying this coin is MS RD? If so I think they need a new microscope!!
I never have seen any but I have heard that PCGS will put a grade on them...as for the ANACS bags...don't they only BB fakes?...if that is the case I wouldn't put a grade either... Speedy
The bodybags are real. PCGS does NOT assign a grade to bodybagged coins. The MS on the bodybags does not represent a grade, it indicates that the coin is of business strike manufacture and not of Proof manufacture. In the case of the mercuy dime the FB is standard to indicate that the dime is a Mercury and not a Barber dime since the two overlap that year. They do similar things on other series were two tyoes overlap. The RD on the Lincoln is probably automaticly assigned to copper cents and remains unless modified by the grader. I would need to see ome more cent bodybags to confirm this. If you really want to confirm they are real go to the PCGS certificate verification website and enter the number in bold font under the barcode.
Does NGC put a grade on their BB's? I'm sure I read that somewhere about one of them...PCGS/NGC/ICG Speedy
I would think that with the modern technology one could cleanly cut slabs open and reseal them if access was available to the proper tools. Tpgs use sonic welders to seal slabs, so it would make sense to utilize the same technology to reseal a slab. The hardest part about being able to undetectably reseal an opened slab is being able to cleanly open the slab with minimal material removal. Sonic welders work best with smooth surfaces, and maintaining a consistent gap of only a few thousandths of an inch is important. Its been about 15 years since I worked with sonic welders, so it is possible modern ones have been developed to be a bit more forgiving. But they are not hard to use after a little practice. They are often for sale on ebay, as when I just looked there was one sitting in the $200 range. With that said, the hard part would be how would one cleanly open a slab with minimal removal of material? I have not done any recent research on modern machine tools and methodology, but I read the occasional trade magazine and I find many modern machining procedures to be utterly incredible. I know when I worked for a high precision grinder manufacturer, our grinders could maintain production part tolerances of 4 millionths of an inch. That would be like if you took one of your hairs, and made 1,000 vertical cuts through the diameter, then the thickness of one of the slices would be the range of size variance for the parts being produced. There are high speed/high pressure milling machines that can rapidly remove large amounts of metal (aluminum in the article I read) and leave large areas that are only 4 or 5 thousandths thick, essentially the capability of milling (removing) large volumes of aluminum down to (leaving) foil thickness. Those are just two examples of machining capabilities that even machinists may not be aware of. EDM (electrical discharge machining) machines may be able to be used. This machine employs a technique in which the material is removed by the erosive action of electrical discharges (sparks) provided by a generator. I do not know if this machine will work on plastics, but I do know that it will cut at least some non-metals such as polycrystalline diamond and ceramics. These machines have a high degree of accuracy in cutting. This same phenomenon is applied at the micron level for micromachining. The process is called micro-EDM. EDMs on ebay - most are in the $1,000 to $5,000 range. CO2 lasers are definitely able to cut plastics. They can make cuts as narrow as .010", the thickness of a few hairs. They are also capable of doing three dimensional cutting. I have not personally seen one in operation to comment on the quality of the cut. Ebay - small ones starting at $79.95, manly ones starting at $85,000, and much of the range in between is available as well. I have been out of the machine tool industry for about 5 years, but most of the drive for development was in the areas of small/fine/precision/finish machining, so there are very likely more refined processes than I am currently aware of, but I do indeed believe it very possible to open and reseal slabs while not being easily detected. However, I can not say if anyone has or is doing that. I suppose another possibility, possibly even easier to carry out, would be just to duplicate (counterfeit) the slab itself and not worry about opening an existing slab.
Well - I've never opened one myself. But as I understand it - cutting the slab open isn't the hard part. The hard part is in not damaging the hologram stuck in-between the two halves of the slab when you go to pull them apart.
Ahhh, did not consider that. The few slabs I had I took to the hobby saw and didn't really care what happened to the holder. With precision cutting though, especially if cutting on a micron level, one could easily avoid the hologram, and when done cutting, the slab should simply "fall apart".
The key word was "stuck" - as I understand it the hologram is like double sided tape. And when you try to pull the 2 halves of the slab apart - the hologram is destroyed because it is stuck to each side when the slab is pressed together.