Some of you (@GDJMSP , @charley , @Conder101 , @justafarmer @Tamaracian @John Burgess , @Mountain Man , @Chris B , @Mr.Q ) may remember my thread from December where I asked why NGC wouldn't recognize my S. Korea varieties ("narrow date spacing" and "wide date spacing" 1969 Five-Won coins)... ...and how NGC told me: "Currently NGC is not interested in recognizing minor date spacing and placement. Because of this we will not be able to offer you the variety check you requested." Well.. All that is so 15 seconds ago... Unfortunately, they're not mine! A friend in Korea was able to (somehow?) tickle someone over at NGC to get these to be now accepted as varieties of this date!
I forgot to mention you! You also participated in that earlier thread. Yes, well, NOW I can send in my wide date! I'm guessing that MS-65 Wide Date is easily a $2,000 coin (in Korea, not here... well, not YET). I've NEVER seen one in that good condition before, and you almost NEVER see them in MS. Mine is probably a 63.
@mlov43 Just like most things that don't already have acceptance--it takes multiple input (or complaints) to get the people in charge to acknowledge/recognize something; I think this is true about your efforts last year, and maybe the person who did get NGC to assign that Label did know that you had posted about it; it might be informative to ask NGC when those coins were certified to see if it was post 12/21. Also, why no "Discovery Coin" designation on the Label?
The "Discovery Coin" designation is a good point! THAT would've been nice for my friend in Korea. Good point, @Tamaracian This is what NGC told my friend in Korea: "We were finally able to receive recognition on the Wide Spaced Date by sending you a comparative analysis photo and detailed description on the invoice and the coin slip case before shipping." This sounds strange, but whatever...
That's always a possibility, but I think it more likely that they simply needed more examples and reports of the variety before they became willing to recognize it and attribute it on slabs. For all we know there may well have been several more reports and or submissions of the variety after mlov43's thread on the subject. After all, there are tens of thousands of people all over the world who read this forum every day. And a great many of them become aware of things for the 1st time here.
Hey, I will attribute you with starting the whole thing. It just took a few more people like you to push them into recognizing it. Nice job.
UPDATE: I finally got examples of these varieties graded by NGC! To recap the issue: I contacted NGC in August 2021 to ask that they recognize two "date spacing" varieties of the South Korean 1969 Five-Won and submitted examples to them for grading. They told me to kick rocks. Then, a collector in Korea somehow got NGC to attribute the two date spacing varieties back in December 2021, and as of last week, I now have a few examples with the variety noted on the slab tag. These are now "officially recognized by NGC" varieties of this date! My "Wide Spaced Date" variety coin is just one of FOUR (so far) of this rarer date variety from S. Korea in the NGC Census (Wide Spaced Date 1969 Five-Won). The whole story behind this variety is told here: https://medium.com/@mlovmo/five-won-coin-die-varieties-1969-c4cf429a4f6b ..and in my book: http://dokdo-research.com/SouthKoreanCoinBook.html
The "finest conclusion" would have been NGC giving me the variety acknowledgement the FIRST time that I asked so that I wouldn't have to pay them TWICE, but yes, it IS concluded!
But, then it would not have been Perseverance (and as we know, that is what is required by all pursuits Korean in nature), and would have just been your average gimmee success after the first whine. There is no challenge in that..... (don't bomb me, Bro...I'm old).
When was your book published? Do you think because a reference was available detailing the variety, NGC had their arm twisted a bit? Congrats though, really neat.
The book was published officially on August 1, 2022. Maybe not the book, but it was likely that NGC saw multiple appeals to recognize these varieties (in addition to my initial appeal) and then changed their minds. Also, the person in Korea asked the NGC office in Hong Kong if they would recognize the varieties, and I think THAT did it. The NGC staff there are much more willing to conceded to Asian varieties, according to the scuttlebutt I've heard...
