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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Gallienus, post: 3083451, member: 42034&quot;]Replying to the OP;</p><p><font size="6"><u>Do 21st Century Coin Collecting Methods Drive Prices Down and Hurt our Hobby?</u></font></p><p>I believe that they can.&nbsp; I&#039;ll share my perception and an experience which led me to leave US coin collecting.</p><p><br /></p><p>I love US Liberty Seated coinage and back years ago in the 70&#039;s and 80&#039;s found virtually every denomination while in high school (including a 20 cent piece: bought for $1.35, 75-S, vg).&nbsp; After finishing grad school I decided to work on a ms type set &amp; really wanted Seated Dollars (reg issues 1840 - 65/ with motto 1866-73).</p><p><br /></p><p>I recall <b>Proof</b> seated dollars being very available but true unc business strike ones were hard for me to find except for low end uncs of the hoard years: 1859-O and 1860-O.&nbsp; I was able to buy other coins in slabbed 64 but I believe that every NGC or PCGS-63 Seated Dollar that wasn&#039;t downright ugly was cracked out and resubmitted endlessly to the grading services until it could make a 64 slab and a $20K price tag.&nbsp; As I posted elewhere, I did find <u>One</u> attractive raw specimen in the late 80&#039;s or early 90&#039;s (an 1844) but the relatively high price tag for the time scared me too much.</p><p><br /></p><p>Also I noted that a large fraction of the Seated Dollars I ran across had been &quot;dipped&quot; by the crude methods of the 80&#039;s or seemed cleaned.</p><p><br /></p><p>Once I even was trying to evaluate a piece in an auction and they passed me off to a &quot;coin expert&quot; to help answer my questions.&nbsp; It was Q. David Bowers in person.&nbsp; We talked for 20-30 minutes and he tried to help me grade seated dollars.</p><p><br /></p><p>I think a trend like this may exist for any US coin type characterized by a sharp gradient and higher prices between grades.&nbsp; Also there wasn&#039;t a real community like there may be for Colonials or for early US copper which can have a similar price vs condition gradient.</p><p><br /></p><p>Thus the dealer practice of constant reslabbing or cleaning in search of a better slab grade led me to not buy any Seated Dollar.&nbsp; I really wasn&#039;t looking for a particular slab grade but was looking for a particular appearance in the coin.&nbsp; Disappointed I eventually left US coin collecting as it involved too many years with too little reward (not one single coin).</p><p><br /></p><p>I ended up moving to more appealing World Coins of certain countries and Ancients which are a much smaller and less expensive market.&nbsp; However, I am happy to see the weakening in prices in USA coins and while I&#039;ll never be a big buyer of such, if I ever have a lot of surplus money, I might try to pick up a few nicely appearing US pieces.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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