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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Dima, post: 25338617, member: 18037&quot;]I had a chance to attend CSNS -- only about 20 minutes from me -- this past Thursday and had an absolute blast!&nbsp; I invited my dad and sister along and had a great time walking around exploring.&nbsp; Spotted lots of <i>very</i> cool collections (too many to list them all) and of course an incomprehensible amount of coins for sale.&nbsp; In past years I&#039;d attended with large wish lists of around 10x coins and quickly became overwhelmed with the plethora of options.&nbsp; This year, I had my sights set on a single coin, one of the keys of my <a href="https://www.pcgs.com/setregistry/publishedset/233832" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.pcgs.com/setregistry/publishedset/233832" rel="nofollow">Classic Commemoratives set</a>: the 1900 (technically, 1899) Lafayette dollar.</p><p><br /></p><p>I looked through about 85% of the vendors and only spotted six of them of sale.&nbsp; It&#039;s possible I could&#039;ve seen more if I&#039;d asked each vendor if they had any; and there was a very small number of tables I skipped due to very large crowds.&nbsp; But moral of the story: there weren&#039;t a lot of Lafayette dollars out there.&nbsp; Similar to established pattern based on auctions I&#039;ve tracked for the past few months, several were graded genuine/cleaned; couple were low MS but had some distracting dings; one was graded MS64 (and was of course selling for MS64 price) but <i>visually</i> appeared as beat up as a MS61 a couple rows over.</p><p><br /></p><p>But then the clouds parted and there in front of me was this absolute beauty, the one I&#039;d been searching for..</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1620619[/ATTACH] </p><p>[ATTACH=full]1620620[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>It&#039;s definitely a lower MS, but it doesn&#039;t have those distracting contact marks or unattractive toning which seems so common for this issue.&nbsp; The most significant ding on the obverse, right in front of Lafayette&#039;s chin doesn&#039;t really take much away from the eye appeal.</p><p><br /></p><p>I wanted to write up some of the historical details about this piece and, as I&#039;ve done in the past, copy/paste some snippets from the Whitman Commemorative&#039;s Guide, but I think [USER=15309]@Lehigh96[/USER] already did a <a href="https://www.cointalk.com/threads/lafayette-dollar-a-numismatic-treasure.50032/" class="internalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.cointalk.com/threads/lafayette-dollar-a-numismatic-treasure.50032/">tremendous write up back in 2009</a>.&nbsp; Thanks to the excellent photos there, I was able to confirm that my dollar is die pairing 1-B.</p><p><br /></p><p>Couldn&#039;t be happier with this addition to the set.&nbsp; Now I can start saving for the next super expensive key, the 1928 Hawaiian.&nbsp; Maybe by CSNS &#039;26..? <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie1" alt=":)" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p>In closing, here is the song &#039;Guns and Ships&#039; from the musical Hamilton.&nbsp; Every time I saw a Lafayette dollar at the show, I&#039;d think back to this song; the way they yell &quot;LAFAYETTE!&quot;</p><p><br /></p><p>[MEDIA=youtube]0D3zz6byFT4[/MEDIA][/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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