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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;ahearn, post: 1370154, member: 18211&quot;]I have one of the NGC slabbed coins dated 1781 that I bought a few years ago. Seems to me I paid about $175 but bought a few raw versions later for about $75.</p><p><br /></p><p>All the coins were corroded and required heavy cleaning. Although most were dated 1773 and fresh from the Mexico mint, there were also many (I&#039;ve never seen any exact numbers) other older coins of the same type in various sizes dated 1772-1782.</p><p><br /></p><p>If my memory is correct (and sometimes it isn&#039;t), after the coins were recovered from the wreck south of New Orleans in 1993, they were held in storage for a number of years as the salvagers tried to negotiate deals for their purchase. After a few small sales, they negotiated a large deal with Franklin Mint to purchase the best quality coins. Franklin Mint had them slabbed by NGC, put them in nice wood boxes, and included &quot;certificates.&quot; FM then struck an exclusive sales deal with Home Shopping Network to sell a certain large quantity on TV. HSN was the only place you could get those first coins. I had heard news of the deal in the business press and decided to buy one, not knowing if they were going to be available any other way later.</p><p><br /></p><p>After Franklin Mint&#039;s deal expired with HSN, they began selling the remainder of the slabbed coins themselves. They sold out within a couple of years and are no longer available from FM -- although they are still available on the secondary market (as you know) -- and other lesser quality nonslabbed coins have been sold by other retailers with taglines such as &quot;Silver Dollar of the American Revolution.&quot;&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>Here&#039;s a cute little video on FM&#039;s website that tells some of the story: </p><p><br /></p><p><a href="http://www.elcazador.com/" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.elcazador.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.elcazador.com/</a>[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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