Do you know Aesop’s story about the fox and sour grapes? The story is about a fox that spies a bunch of succulent sweet grapes hanging overhead. He jumps for them but they are just out of his reach. They are really plump & ripe so he wants them and he jumps harder & harder but they are just out of his reach. The fox finally resigns stating that they are far out of his reach and they were probably sour anyway. I lived the sour grapes story last night. I needed to get home in time to bid on a great AU 1838-O dime on Teletrade. As I remember, the dime was original & really well struck and it would be a wonderful addition to my collection. I remember it was a really ripe & succulent key date dime. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get home in time to place a bid & of course I didn’t get the coin. Looking at the coin this morning, the coin really looked lifeless, dull, and probably had evidence of an old cleaning. I am very glad I didn’t get this coin as it was probably sour & sold for way too much money. Very best regards, collect89
Well, I already told this story before but I have a different, little more educated perspective now. At the coinshow I just went to a couple months ago, a guy was selling an 1892 Columbian commemorative. Pretty shiny, with a cool blue toning around the edge. He wanted 100.00 for it. I told him I'd give him 80.00. He rudely replies, no you won't! I walked away, pi$$ed off. Looking back, I suspect it was probably cleaned and likely was artificially toned. He said he had "several of them". Which makes me even more suspicious. I've never seen one like it before. At the time, I was mad about it. Now, I'm glad I didn't get it. If I had to do it over, I wouldn't even make him an offer on it.
