Message:

<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Stork, post: 4752487, member: 71642&quot;][USER=94602]@pprp[/USER] That is very interesting regarding Heritage’s history. You are 100% correct I did not know that.</p><p><br /></p><p>First I really was barely thinking about ancients. I almost certainly&nbsp; found this by plugging ‘griffin’ into the search engine looking for coins or medals.&nbsp; I was not looking for an ancient.</p><p><br /></p><p>Plus, I was recently retired from the Navy, and 2009-2013 were overseas. I particularly remember the latter two years as being slow in my purchases. Partly as I was VERY busy (including a fairly brief shipboard assignment) and buying was difficult logistically.</p><p><br /></p><p>I was living in Spain and a time I should have been learning more, well it never fired for me. Unlike Japan which during first tour is where my adult collecting was ignited.</p><p><br /></p><p>In any case I exclusively bought online (other than at the Tokyo coin show and rare shops I made it to), and coins were almost all slabbed.&nbsp; Heritage was an option as the shipped to APO/FPO. The issue with fakes in an area I did not collect was not on my radar.</p><p><br /></p><p>So, I had no compunction regarding buying a slabbed ancient from them. Very cool!&nbsp; An accidental confluence of events to be sure.</p><p><br /></p><p>As for the other auction, that is also interesting!&nbsp; This coin is not quite that nice to be sure. My earlier photos (that is a 2017 photo and all I did to upload it here was resize a bit) do run dark. I’ll have to reshoot those now. It is not as white as Heritage, but the shot I posted is not quite right either. It’s not the first coin from earlier HA photos that looks better (or worse) in hand from a few years ago.</p><p><br /></p><p>[USER=111037]@Only a Poor Old Man[/USER] you have summed it up perfectly. Just about any other griffin coins I notice and consider buying or bidding on do exceed my dilettante collecting budget. Not as nice or far too pricey are the general finds. The price level offers on this one are not a make/break for my budget (but as I recently quit/retired from my post military career that could change between now and collecting social security...), it makes much more sense to keep it.</p><p><br /></p><p>My logical side was thinking it’s not a core piece, take a profit.&nbsp; My emotional side loves it and wants to keep it. My practical side was wavering between the two.</p><p><br /></p><p>Well, ‘when in doubt, don’t do anything stupid that you might regret’ is a good motto. Unlike the old days at work where ‘when in doubt, cut it out’ was real.</p><p><br /></p><p>A wine infused Cointalk post does have a way of clarifying things by the next morning!&nbsp; Always helpful to bounce things off other collectors. And I will add ‘take new photos’ to my list of projects this week. My camera equipment has been little utilized of late.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

Your name or email address:

Do you already have an account?

• No, create an account now.
• Yes, my password is:
• Forgot your password?

Stay logged in