"The Best One" -- a Saint-Gaudens Double Eagle from the Wells Fargo Hoard -- is up for sale over at GC (ends Sunday night). It is graded MS-69, one of 10 from that hoard. There was never an MS-69 Saint before that hoard was found. With Morgan Dollars, I believe there are about 10-12, adjusting for crack-outs. Those of you who collect the traditional coin series that were so popular in the 1950's, 1960's, and 1970's....are there MS-69 coins for the series you collect or follow ? I'm not aware of any MS-70's even with a coin series that was collected from Day 1 like 1909 Lincoln Cents.
"The Best One" would be the 1793 Wreath Cent. It took almost a century for the next 69 to appear in 1880 for Morgans. There's one 69 for Trade Dollars but its a proof
There are virtually no MS-69 coins in all of the series that I collect. I don’t look for them anyway because there is no way I could afford them. Among the early U.S. coins I have really like through the years, I am super pleased with AU-58 coins.
link to picture for funs https://auctions.stacksbowers.com/l...state-ii-vine-and-bars-edge-ms-69-bn-pcgs-ogh
There's a MS69 1939 Merc that's over graded. I and others have seen it in hand. Then there are 25 MS69FB 1939-D Mercs.
Looks to me like there aren't any MS69 Walking Liberty Halves graded by PCGS. And only one by NGC. There look to be 2 or 3 dozen MS68's between the two.
I would guess it's easier for a large coin to have dents and dings in the fields and on the devices as it comes off the press.
There is, or was, a 1906-S 50c NGC MS69. The cert is invalid and it doesn't show in their census; I suppose it may have been resubmitted. https://coins.ha.com/itm/barber-hal...a/360-4244.s?ic4=GalleryView-Thumbnail-071515
Not a lot of people could afford to be collecting 50 cent pieces during two world wars and a depression
By limiting your question to coins dated before 1950, which by doing I can only assume you're trying to take the more modern coins out of the running, you're presenting a slightly different variation of the basic question covering all coins. There's nothing wrong with doing that and I can understand the reasoning behind it. You want the more modern coins removed so as not to skew the results. Or at least that's what I assume your desire is/was. But when you start asking questions like that you must also take into to consideration the time frame, as in when, what year/s the grading took place. To help illustrate what I'm talking about, I'd suggest you'd take a look at these two posts and threads, and make note of the dates of when they were posted. https://www.cointalk.com/threads/whizzed-coin-or-not.6104/#post-46890 https://www.cointalk.com/threads/pcgs-ms70.347080/#post-3719245 And then for comparison purposes make note of what you see at this link, also provided in one of those posts - https://www.pcgs.com/pop/pcgs-population-totals - and compare that to the numbers you saw in those 2 posts. My point here of course is that changing grading standards, and when they were changed, makes all the difference in the world !
Yup, that's it GD. I figure today with regular coins that we use to buy stuff (pennies, nickels, dimes, etc.) you can probably get lots of 69's and maybe an occaisonal 70 (I'm not talking proof sets or stuff like that, regular circulateds). I will, thanks. Could have a lot of free time on my hands next week. Noted....thanks ! Yup, and I know you are a stickler for grading. Just curious....have you seen that Saint-Gaudens MS-69 WF Hoard "The Best One" -- would be interested in how you would grade it? https://www.greatcollections.com/Co...lls-Fargo-Nevada-Gold-The-Best-One-PCGS-MS-69
Well the number of contact marks on the obv and rev both would preclude a 69 all by themselves. And the wear in the usual places - breast and left leg, and a bit in the fields - mean it's not even MS. Of course PCGS says, and says it in writing, that wear doesn't count. That coins with wear like that can be graded as high as MS67 - but no higher. But since they gave it a 69 that kind of proves they don't even listen to themselves anymore. Which is something I've been telling folks for years.
On their website ? Not that I'm aware of. But if you look at page 22 of this book - https://www.amazon.com/Official-Guide-Grading-Counterfeit-Detection/dp/0375720502 - you'll see it easily enough.
I know we've had this debate before so I won't go into the "is it wear" thing again....but you do know that it is almost certainly the case that the Wells Fargo Hoard coins simply hit against one another inside the bag and saw no actual Circulation Wear, right ? Of that we can be almost positive. They stayed in the bag for decades.
I would probably give it a 68 myself, though if you are going by comps, I can see why it got a 69. I see some tiny dings on the reverse rim, but they are almost certainly from clanking around inside the bag. The fields are nice. I really need to see the coin under a 5-10x glass -- ideally before it got holdered -- to check out the "wear" on the high points. Insider, how would you grade this one ?
If you include world coins, there are a few. I made this one back around 2010. Came from an original roll. A bunch others from the roll graded MS68 and MS67.