Greetings fellow shut-ins! Today is Wednesday, April 87th. Since there are 120 days in April, that means we have only 33 days left of this month. Buck up! Word has it that May might only be 75 days long, but that is strictly unofficial. Today I got out on parole. My wife and I went to the grocery store during the “senior hour" at 7 AM. The aisles are now marked “one way,” and there are pit bulls stationed in the middle of each row to set any wayward shoppers straight if they might be waking in the wrong direction. But let’s think of those wild and wooly days when you could go to coin shows and personal contact was normal. Like the Margaret Mitchell novel, it seems like a time that has Gone With the Wind. Here is a chronical of that distant time before “The Plague.” Almost 40 years ago I owned an original 1909 Proof set. I acquired the set at the 1976 ANA convention which was held in New York City. I sold the set in the early 1980s to raise the down payment on my first home. An original Proof set is a set of coins that has been together since they were purchased from the mint. Original Proof sets are important because they can provide clues as to when certain types and die varieties of Proof coins were issued during a given year. They are also collector favorites because the coins are usually of uniform quality with similar toning on the silver and gold pieces. In recent decades many original sets have been broken up because they often yield high grade Proof coins for certification holders. I had a small regret about giving up the 1909 set, but it was a good financial move for me at the time. Still I thought about buying another original set or failing that to assemble a Proof set from the pre-1936 era. As it happened I fell into putting together a 1913 Proof set after I had half of the coins for the set, and perhaps my experiences with this project will be of use or interest to other collectors. My story began in 2005 when I purchased a 1913 Type I Matte Proof nickel at the FUN show. NGC had graded the piece Matte Proof 66. At the time the coin went into my business inventory, but I had hopes that I might be able to keep it for a 20th century Proof type coin set that I was building. Finally I decided to keep the coin. In November of 2007 I spotted a 1913 Type II Buffalo Nickel in PCGS Matte Proof 66 at a Baltimore show. A complete 20th century Proof coin type set includes both the Matte Proof and Brilliant Proof Buffalo nickels. Therefore this coin fit into my collecting plans. After I came home I had second thoughts about the coin. I contacted the dealer who had it, Gary Adkins, and he sent it to me. Now I had both varieties of the 1913 Buffalo nickels. At the January 2008 FUN show I spent some of my time shopping for a Matte Proof Lincoln cent for my type set. As it is with the Buffalo Nickel, a complete Proof type set includes the Matte Proof and Brilliant Proof Lincoln Cents. Ultimately I purchased a 1913 cent in NGC Matte Proof 65, brown. The fact that I ended up with a 1913 Matte Proof cent was not surprising because it is the most common Matte Proof cent in the series. In those days Proof sets were sold in groups. The cent and nickel were sold as a set and the silver and gold coins were also sold as sets. It is for this reason that the mintages of Proof coins within those three categories are very similar. In 1913 collectors who wanted both types of nickels in Matte Proof had to buy two cent and nickel sets. Therefore the mintage for the cent was quite high for that period. The same situation occurred in 1909 for the Liberty Nickel. That year collectors had to place three orders so that they could obtain the three types of cents (Indian, 1909-VDB Lincoln and 1909 Plain) that the mint issued that year. If you add up the Proof mintages for the three cents, it is very close to the mintage of the 1909 Proof nickel, which has the highest Proof coin production for the Liberty Nickel series. After I had acquired the 1913 cent and the two nickels in Proof, I started to consider the possibility of assembling a 1913 Proof set. It was certainly possible, but completing the set turned out to be harder than I would have thought. If you look at the Proof mintages and the prices listed in sources like The Red Book, the Gray Sheet and Coin Values magazine, you will find the mintages and prices for 1913 pieces are about the same as those listed for earlier Barber Proof coins. The Proof coins that were issued at the end of the Barber series appear less often on the market. One reason for this might be that the Philadelphia mint production of Barber quarters and half dollars was low toward the end of the series. For example in 1913 the Philadelphia mint issued only 484,000 quarters and 188,000 half dollars. Both coins are now semi-key dates in their respective series. Perhaps a number of collectors have placed Proof coins in those slots in place of the scarcer Mint State coins, and maybe a few speculators are holding these Proof coins off the market in order to realize higher profits at a latter date. In November 2011, I went to the Baltimore coin show with the 1913 Proof Barber dime, quarter and half dollar on my want list. I did not find any 1913 silver Proof coins at first, but I let one of my old New England friends, Tom Caldwell, at Northeast Numismatics know that I was looking. Tom commented that the 1913 Proof Barber coins were harder to find than the earlier dates. That night I accessed a website, www.collectorscorner.com/. A number of leading dealers post listings there of coins they have for sale. I found a 1913 Proof Barber dime, but when I located that dealer’s booth at the show and checked out his 1913 Proof dime, I found it to be dull and unappealing. Fate has treated me very well during my years in my coin hobby. I can’t count how many times I’ve been lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time. On this occasion I was walking by Tom Caldwell’s booth at the same time as a wholesale dealer, who did not have a booth at the show, was passing by. Tom called us both over and asked him to get out a 1913 Proof quarter that Tom had seen earlier. PCGS had graded the coin PR-64 Cameo, and it was very high end for the grade. The price had been a little too high for Tom to add the coin to his inventory, but for a retail customer like me, it was perfect. Tom bought the coin, and I gladly paid him a $100 profit. I had my first 1913 Proof Barber coin! Though out December 2011, I kept my eyes on the Collectors Corner site looking of the 1913 Proof dime and half dollar. One dealer posted a Proof 1913 half dollar, but he had sold it by the time my email reached him. A dime in PCGS PR-66 popped on the site, and I asked that dealer to show it to me at the FUN show. He agreed, and I purchased the piece. That left only the half dollar to go to complete my set. I had hoped that the Heritage FUN auctions might include a 1913 Proof half dollar among the thousands of lots that they were offering. There was only one piece, and it was in a PR-66, Cameo holder. I didn’t like the looks of the piece from the photo in the catalog and on-line because the coin had been dipped white and there was a residue of the original toning in the left field. My opinion of the piece did not change when I saw it in person. Still someone paid $4,887.50 for it at the auction. On Saturday NGC held their annual NGC Collectors Society luncheon at the FUN show. By chance I sat beside a gentleman with whom I had a pleasant conversation. He asked what I was looking for at the show, and I rattled off my list which included the 1913 Proof half dollar. He recalled that his business partner, who had a booth at the show, might have one in stock. He made a quick call on his cell phone, and sure enough he had one in PCGS PR-64. I went down to the bourse when the luncheon was over, and the coin was close enough to the others in my set to fit in with it. Fate had smiled upon me again! My set was complete! It takes more than money to locate the right coins. Sometimes it takes some digging, some knowledge and sometimes a bit of luck.
I've said it before: I didn't get into this hobby as a way to spend more time hanging out with other people. Stories like this, though, show why human interaction remains important. If I ever want to play at that level, I'll need to grit my teeth and shake some hands, or whatever we do instead in that bright happy future where we're allowed to be in the same place at the same time...
Thank you for sharing your story, felt like I was walking the floor too. Beautifully matched set of proofs.
@johnmilton your stories are as captivating and entrancing as your coins. Please don't stop composing the trials and tribulations of your search for these magnificent specimens for us to absorb in awe and wonderment. Thank you!
As I have said many times, if I had a 1913 Liberty Nickel, I'd sell it and buy some real coins. The '13 nickel is one of my least favorite coins.
That was an absolutely fantastic tale of your journey, and some beautiful coins in the end! Thanks for sharing!
