Congrats! If you need the $ to pay off debts, sell it asap. If not, put it in a safe deposit box with lots of moisture absorbers and you will sleep very well. It will be part of a great legacy for your heirs.
Oh my God!!! Amazing pick. I can't believe I missed that, I am alway's looking at 1909 Lincoln Cents on eBay. But with it ending right around Christmas, I can see why I missed it. Congratulations and it's not the first time I've heard of GSC getting picked. It is an absolute stunning looking cent, that I know I would have bid on, had I seen it.
That is absolutely insane, congrats on such a great find! Makes you wonder just how many legitimate matte proofs, even key dates like 1909 VDB, are still floating around out there.
IMO, not a cherrypick, since you did not buy it knowing what it was. However, it was an incredible stroke of luck and you made the right choice to ask around and send it to PCGS. Very Nice!!!
Were on the same page with that. People almost never would publicize an occurrence like that. Last thing you do when you make money is run out and tell everyone else how to do it
So the most likely story is that GSC put the coin on auction knowing what it was, put in a large bid at the end to make sure one of their people won the coin, and finally went on CT to post the "find." Perfect strategy to further increase the amount of viewers for their auctions and to have people bid up common coins in hopes of the ultimate pick. Or it was all real....I guess we'll never really know.
But the coin literally sold on ebay. For under $60. Meaning if it is a marking gimmick, they risked someone else outbidding themselves for it.
I doubt they did that, but who knows. Seems like a lot of risk in that strategy. Plus, the poster did not disclose who he got it from, I did. Now they have a $40,000 to try to unload without selling it themselves if that is the case.
You may have just unseated the previous eBay cherrypicking champ. At the very least, you're the first one to give him a run for his money that I've seen...
I'm not 100% certain that this is fake, but the risk is not huge. The snipe at 40k would beat out any other bidder (if not, then they have an over 40k sale) and GSC can then cancel the sale if their own person wins it. Also, the picture in the OP looked like a GSC picture and they assumed someone would find the auction on ebay even without stating the seller. Finally, getting rid of the coin won't be a problem. This isn't a typical ebay item and it would easily sell in a Stacks or Heritage auction without much info coming out about the ebay sale. In general, the whole situation is weird. Either it is one of the greatest picks or an incredibly clever scheme by GSC.