I'm watching Art & Coin show seeing an ad for brilliant uncirculated Carson City silver dollars. (10) coins for 2,795.00. This is for (3) 1882 (3) 1883 and (4) 1884's brilliant uncirculated CC's at $ 279.50 each. Now I know the Carson coins are in great demand, but $ 280.00 a coin sounds awfully high to me. My question is, how do they get so many of these brilliant looking coins in a quanity to sell ? The coins shown have mirror surfaces. Could they have been dipped ?
Most of these that were released from the GSA hoard were white or only lightly toned, so it is quite easy to get CC Morgans in quantity that are white.
Yes ! I understand about the hoard. I have an 1885 CC GSA, but it sure doesn't have the brilliant shine that these coins show. My question is, do they dip these coins to get the mirror finish.
There is nothing wrong with coins that are properly dipped. Many high grade slabbed coins have been previously dipped. The price is a bit high.
Dipping will not cause mirror finishes. That is a characteristic of a strike and that has not been altered/cleaned.
I was at a Long Beach Convention coin show in the late 1980's and a guy in a suit was going to every dealer and buying all of their 1882, 83, and 84 GSA dollars regardless of their price. I asked the dealer whose table I was at and he said the man was a telemarketer. This was before PCGS and NGC started grading them. It didn't matter what he paid since they were going to be marked up at least 50% of their average cost. I didn't see any dealer not sell all they had to him. A sale was a sale to them and what he did with the coins was none of their concern. They knew what he was doing it didn't seem to bother them that he was taking advantage of people who knew nothing of the value of those coins and were caught up in his hype of their historical aspect. Telemarketers have been doing this for a very long time and as long as there are people who buy coins like this on the TV home shopping shows they will keep doing it.
Although they seem a little pricey, they are probably much more over priced than many realize. Most of the raw “BU” (s/b ms63) silver dollars I see on TV are way over graded, either au or ms60 or worse, improperly cleaned/damaged. The way you describe them as having mirrored surfaces/brilliant shine and not frosty, sounds like improperly cleaned.
