Error Experts, Please Help; Is this a blank or a planchet?

Unfortunately, the small white ANACS holders hide the rim

 

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Is that for a presentation of some sort, as you were talking about in another thread recently? (and as is implied by "slide")

Honestly, there is way too much on there if this is for a presentation.

Think about a 65 year old guy sitting on the other side of the room - he'll see some fuzzy text, and get frustrated.

If you are making this for a presentation, remove all of the text. Have a headline, and then just use the picture.

All of the text is what you'll be talking about. Have a conversation about the picture, explain what you want to point out - tell them what the arrows mean. You don't want to read a slide to them... they can do that at home.

You as the presenter should have an outline to guide your points, but you don't want to have all that written out either - you don't want to read to them. You want to have an interactive conversation. Otherwise, then it becomes bedtime stories with JCro.

If this is a webpage, then yeah, it looks good. Lots of good information, clear indications of what you are pointing to, and key points to look at.

 

It is actually going to be a page in the book I am working on. It is a section on coins struck on Type 1 blanks.

What about the information itself within it?

 

Am I way off on any analysis or information, Fred?

 

Well, that's a very different question than you initially asked.

If this is a picture for a book, I would absolutely remove the greyscale large image background. It is distracting. I'd also remove the ANACS label with grade and such. I don't care what some random people put on some plastic. In a book, I want facts and descriptions, not the flashy sorta design that you want in a webpage. I want something I can reference, backed by research. I don't care what the grade is on this coin - I want to know what you can teach me about this error.

I don't know what sort of other text you have surrounding the image, but there needs to be significant and thorough description in a book. I would really have to see what else is in that chapter or in that section to determine if this description was sufficient for this particular coin. Keep this guiding principle in mind - when you are writing a book like this, you need to be the absolute authority on this subject. You need to teach me everything I need to know about this coin, and you need to do it in a way that I will remember.

You asked about a slide, but the fact is, advice on a book is quite different because of the different goals and expectations.

 

I will disagree on one thing: I feel it is important to show how the coin graded, and that is why the label is on there. It also prevents accusations that I am completely making them up. Many of my coins are very high MS grades, and it is important to come off as credible.

 

This is a matter of perspective. You seem to be beholden to the modern collector's mindset, where the TPG is the absolute authority. That is absolutely the wrong mindset when writing a reference like this. The TPG is merely an opinion - and you have to understand how to grade, how to identify errors, and how to compare your opinion to that of the TPG in order to be successful. If you are writing a book about errors, you are saying that you are an expert on errors.

Credibility comes from demonstrated mastery of a subject. The TPGs have a reputation of being credible, and thus they are deemed credible. You either have to build a reputation in the industry (such as Weinberg), or you have to demonstrate in your book that you are knowledgeable on your subject and should be deemed credible. This comes through original and well documented research (such as Burdette, Lange, and others), or a really, really good book.

So, you have to decide:

Are you referring to ANACS, NGC, and PCGS as the authority and merely explaining what they are labeling as errors?

Or are you explaining to us what the error is and showing us what to look for.

The question really is, who is the expert here?

The answer is - if you want me to buy and read your book, you need to be the expert. You can quote Fred Weinberg and use him to help your explanation; you can use NGC as a comparison point for the name of the error or how they label it, but you must absolutely be the expert. If you're simply repeating what the other experts have said, why wouldn't I just go listen to the other experts?

(this, to answer in a succinct fashion the question you posed in another recent thread, is the difference between a collector and a numismatist)

Also, in a book about errors, the grade is absolutely irrelevant. To error collectors, the grade means almost nothing compared to the error. I couldn't give a rip if they called your double-flip overstruck broadstruck Lincoln a 55 BN or a 64 RB - the premium comes from the error, not the grade. How many times did you see Arnold Margolis talk about the grade of the coin in his book? Not a single time. You are not writing a book about grading, you are writing a book about errors. (You may have a chapter about the grading of errors, but I'm assuming that is not your primary focus)

So, I stand by my point - the ANACS label is completely irrelevant.

 

Very good and sound points.

 

I do not feel a TPG's grade is the ultimate authority. I have avoided many full step war nickels because I feel they were overgraded and/or weren't full steps. I just feel most people actually want to see how it graded.

 

I'm trying to learn something here but I'm getting more confused. If I understand the basics I thought a blank is just a blank until it goes through the upset mill and only then does it become a planchet! Sorry just trying to figure this one out. Maybe I need this one explain in layman's terms! Lol