How strict are you with coin quality?

Stories about how & why coins were minted prompt me to try to add one .

 

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This was the seated dollar in my collection for many years. I was really proud of it since it was my only seated dollar and had a lot of meat for my meager budget. However, after receiving many condescending comments from collectors and dealers alike when I showed it to them, I put it on eBay and took what I could get for it. Yes, holed coins are treated like lowly junk.

 

I would not.

I would only want a damaged coin if it was significant for other reasons. For example, if I could acquire the Large Cent Abraham Lincoln kept in his vest pocket where he engraved his wife's name on it, I would buy that. Would I want a 1913 Liberty nickel that some kid marked up with an exact blade? No. Not even for $100

 

For me, it's all about eye appeal and if the coin in hand "pops" and of course price has a lot to do with it. I appreciate graded coins and currency, but most of my collection is raw. I collect what I like, period.

 

When I was buying for my personal collection, I was very strict. When buying for a flip not so much as long as I can make a profit while still being fair to the buyer.

 

Was that AD or BC...

 

I strictly collect what I like and have many different collections. I don't have the opportunity to get them out and enjoy them often, but when I do, I have no regrets.

 

My current coin budget doesn't allow me to go after the examples I'd rather have, but I do try to go with the best quality I can afford. I'm more conscious of quality now than I was as a teen. My biggest struggle is sometimes having the urge to buy a coin just to get an example in to my 7070. It would still be a nice or decent example, doing that allows me to fill a few slots in my 7070 versus just one really nice coin every few months or for the year.

One of my favorite pickups is a cleaned 1875s double dime. Ironically enough it's in an ANACS holder, not raw, but I snagged it for around $100 off ebay. I'm perfectly content with a little cleaning on this one.

 

When I built my buffalo set, my goal was to stay at clean MS63 and above and strong strikes (a lot of buffalo dates are notorious for weak strikes). I am now working on a WLH short set and my goal is again to stay at MS63 and above and white coins only, no toners. Both of these sets are in PCGS or NGC holders.

 

I too shy away from weak strikes and toners. Also, for earlier series i stick with slabs for MS examples. I'm assuming that few, if any, high end raw examples exist.

 

Yeah, the urge to fill an empty hole is powerful. It's one of the reasons I stopped doing sets.

 

I won’t add cleaned/damaged coins to my set, but this is a good candidate for a danaco and a great deal for $100.

 

I found a couple nice details coins to fill slots for early copper in my 7070 album. Both coins have slight corrosion but the strikes were sharp and eye appeal great.

 

It is funny you ask this question OP, because i was thinking of starting a thread like this yesterday. I am extremely strict. I'm fussy over obtaining coins absent of digs, hits, and scratches, even on lower graded, straight graded coins. I will not buy details coins. I just can't appreciate a details coin enough to merit buying it. I will always look at that coin and think to myself "if this didn't have the cleaning, scratch, tooling, etc, it would look so much nicer!"


My main criteria of quality is in order of Wear Pattern (even wear is necessary), Surface Quality (absence of scratches, cleaning, digs, porosity is necessary) and overall eye appeal (eye appeal must be positive, ie, no spots, unattractive toning), but Eye Appeal often directly corresponds to Surface Quality.

I always rely on my own eye. It so happens most of my better coins are slabbed, however that is due to the fact most of the better coins on the market now are slabbed. This doesn't mean I won't consider raw coins so long as I can determine them authentic. Anybody that needs professional validation to tell them if their coin is of high or low quality should not be buying coins in the first place and needs to study more. I'm not saying it isn't good to get a second opinion from someone more knowledgeable, but you should have a general idea of the quality yourself. For instance, I often bug my mentor with coin questions, "what do you think of this?" "Does this look like xxx to you?" "Is this environmental damage?" But I don't rely on the TPG's label or a sticker on a slab to influence my decision of whether or not something is quality or whether or not I should purchase it.

If a coin is "nice" and a reasonable price, I'll take it. A lot of this question has to do with price and availability. If I can find a "nicer" coin or one superior to the "nice" one, I'll be patient to find one superior for the grade.

 

There is no simple answer to this question when it comes to ancient coins. There are times when having high standards with regard to condition makes sense. If you are simply trying to accumulate one coin per emperor in a Roman collection or one coin per city in a Greek collection -- with no attention to variety -- it makes sense to have high standards. The well-heeled collector will have no trouble assembling a 12-Caesars portrait set of denarii in FDC condition.

However, if one is a specialist collector, you have to take what you can get. The specialist often encounters coins that are in suboptimal condition but only come on the market once a decade, if that. I specialize in Antonine women. These coins, for example, may look common, but they are scarce varieties that have only come up for sale a few times in the past 20 years:




Now these coins aren't unattractive, to be sure, but they don't grade higher than VF.

When it comes to Roman provincial coins, the specialist collector is at a particular disadvantage. The mintage of any particular issue was limited and there are numerous provincial coins which are apparently unpublished or known from only one or two examples. Try to find any of these for sale:






Some coins typically circulated for decades and even the specimens in museums are well-worn, such as this semi-autonomous issue from Smyrna:



Provincials collectors can't be too choosy. Have you looked at the plates in Lindgren? Had Henry Clay Lindgren been concerned about condition and grade, he wouldn't have had much of a collection.

Don't be such a condition crank that you pass on fun and enjoyable coins. Don't obsess about the faults of the coins you do own, but look at each coin as a learning opportunity. That coin with the ragged flan illustrates ancient flan preparation techniques. The off-center provincial with the interesting reverse type may never come up at auction again in a decade. The well-worn sestertius of Antoninus Pius was handled by thousands of people in ancient times and passed through the hands of laborers and gladiators and slaves and merchants and aristocrats.