I have alway wanted a high grade Franklin Half Dollar Business Strike set. I recently won an auction for a high grade set of Franklins and am thinking of just sending the whole album (all 35 coins) in for grading. Any one have experiences with gettiing their Franklin's graded? Who would be better to send to. NGC or PCGS? I am leaning NGC since I have sent quite a few other coins there. Grading fees close to $500 to get them graded by NGC which would make the total for the set graded $1000 (paid $500 for the set). Thanks in Advance.
Before I would send them in I would suggest grading each coin yourself and looking up the values----many times if the coin is only an MS64 it would cost more to slab it than its worth. Speedy
I am happy just having a complete set of all 35 coins in a new Dansco. Along the way I ended up with 8 extra and a 1956 type 2 proof NGC MS67. Several are FBL and I am upgrading one at a time to BU and FBL. The most I spent on any one coin was $50 for a raw 1952S MS63. The 1955 was $25. Some are from when my late brother and I were in 7th and 8th grade way back in 1962. So this set is a keeper. Franklins take a lot of flack. Comments abound about "ugly coin" and some say they hate Franklins. This may be due to the fact that bag marks, nicks and scrapes are so easy to pick up on. The obverse field is so large and smooth it is easy to mess it up. same goes for the face and cheek area. Personally I would not spend 100% of what I paid for a coin (or set of coins) just for grading.
Thanks Speedy- I was thinking on some of the coins it wouldn't be cost effective so I will try to pick and choice. Thanks.
I'm working on a Franklin set too and they're in a Intercept Sheild album. But it doesn't have slots for Proofs. Does Dansco album have slots for proofs too? If so I might have to transfer all to a Dansco album and then maybe sell the Intercept album.
shasti: I don't think that they have duplicate holes (regular & proof) like the Lincoln cents, Washington quarters and FJK half dolars.
ahhhhhh......a set without proofs is realllly bad...... the sets with PF66 halves look the best Speedy
That would be pretty tough to do, to the best of my knowledge there has never been a Frankie graded higher than MS68, and you can count those on 1 hand. There have been several Proofs graded as PF69 - maybe 150 to 200 of them. There's never been a 70.
Holy crap your right... I've looked at Franklins a ton in awe on ebay and at shops, etc.. but, I never noticed that none grade that high... I just looked at my redbook and they grade to MS-65 and PF65.... Wow.... I never knew that... See thats what I like about this place... I learn something new about coins almost everyday... Thanks for the insight.... I still want to build a set!!!
Don't use your Red Book that much---you can find them in many many more grades than just that---in fact there are some Proofs that are graded PF69 as GDJMSP said--- Speedy
