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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;cannoncoins, post: 1195151, member: 28659&quot;]Hey guys,</p><p><br /></p><p>So after months of unintended anticipation (I wanted to send the coin off to make sure, and the coin shop I took it to gives a cheaper price if you wait to send coins out with a larger batch, and they don&#039;t get many of these...), I give you the story of my luckiest find to date :smile <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie6" alt=":cool:" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p>Although I lately make my home in the frigid Midwest (well, now in June it&#039;s pretty great, but I refer here to the other 11 months), I am originally from the humid climes of Southern Mississippi.&nbsp; In those parts, coin shops are few and far between- some of my fondest childhood memories during my first phase of coin collecting was visiting a store called &quot;Cohen&#039;s Coins&quot; in New Orleans, but that trip came just once a year.&nbsp; In any case, this past Christmas I found myself back home to visit with family and, having recently been re-bitten by the coin collecting bug, I found myself wondering where (or if) in the years since someone within driving distance might have set up shop.&nbsp; As it turned out, there was a single place- a local antiques mall where nearby flea market peddlers left their wares on consignment.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>So, of course, at one point running errands I decided to slip away from the wife and family and stop-in to see what this antiques mall had; after exchanging greetings with a few of the owners who had known me as a kid (just to reiterate, I had never been inside this store before; this is, to be sure, a small town).&nbsp; The coins were mostly what you might expect- lots heavily worn and overpriced v nickels and indian cents, a few almost humorously obvious counterfeits (at least someone had the decency to right &quot;NOT GUARANTEED&quot; on the 1885 trade dollar!&nbsp; Still, at 8 bucks, maybe not a bad deal!), some no-value foreign coins, a few random tokens.&nbsp; Still, as I always do, I picked up a few things that caught my eye; with the price of silver going up so much that time last year, there were some Foreign coins no one had taken the time to reprice like a sterling Australian crown, and there were a few nice Indian Cents.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>There was also a particularly interesting and intricate token that caught my eye; Let me be clear- I am no collector of tokens of any sort: I&nbsp; barely know a hard-times token from a Chucky-Cheese token.&nbsp; But for whatever reason this particular one- it had a nice color to it that looked original (not gold, but maybe gilded) and even though it was tiny (smaller than a dime) it had lots of really impressive intricate detail- and this for something struck in what appeared to be 1939, as part of the Golden Gate Exposition (thanks, loupe!).&nbsp;&nbsp; And, hey, for two dollars and fifty cents, what did I have to lose?</p><p><br /></p><p>I went home and, as I often do in these situations, did a little &quot;Googling.&quot;&nbsp; Nothing seemed to be coming up when I searched for &quot;PACIFICA,&quot; the name written in all caps on one side of the coin.&nbsp; I finally ended up with a string that looked something like &quot;Golden Gate Exposition 1939 token PACIFICA statue,&quot; and found this page:&nbsp; <span style="color: #666666"><font face="Tahoma">&lt;<a href="http://www.so-calleddollars.com/Events/Golden_Gate_Exposition.html" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.so-calleddollars.com/Events/Golden_Gate_Exposition.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.so-calleddollars.com/Events/Golden_Gate_Exposition.html</a>&gt; </font></span></p><p>&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>As it turns out, then, this was a very particular type of token- a &quot;so-called-dollar&quot;, which like many collectors I had heard of but never actually seen.&nbsp; And, as it turns out, as far as so-called-dollars go, this was a particularly well-known and scarce one.&nbsp; These were created by a San Francisco Fine Arts Dealer/Appraiser and miniatures maker by the name of Jule Charbneau; he made 2500 of these coins out of gold, 500 out of silver; they sold poorly, despite their oft-noted detail, and the vast majority were melted at the close of the fair.&nbsp; The reverse shows the statue of &quot;Pacifica&quot; constructed for the exposition, and the obverse manages to squeeze in the golden gate bridge, a major thoroughfare, an airplane, a boat, a motto, and a date, even- at less than 1mm high, the engraver&#039;s initials.&nbsp; From what I could tell, this was a subset of the silver token that was sold gilded- probably why it had ended up in a $2.50 flea market coin slip instead of melted.</p><p><br /></p><p>This particular variety, as it turns out, was described as an R-7; only about 10-15 known; at that time NGC, which is the only major company that certifies them, had only certified 9.&nbsp; There is no price list for this type of coin, just auction records, and one of these last sold in 2009 for nearly $1000!&nbsp; But, wait, who was I kidding?&nbsp; A) I wasn&#039;t even sure if what I had was real (Were these counterfeited?&nbsp;&nbsp; Were similar versions made at the Golden Gate Exposition with different&nbsp; details?) and, B) Even if this WAS real, which I suspected, it&#039;s very &quot;originality&quot; or &quot;old-looking-ness&quot; might be a problem-it had luster but didn&#039;t look &quot;blast-bright,&quot; so who knows how it would come back?&nbsp; For some coins that seemed to be the difference between an AU and a lower MS, and who knew how tokens were graded?</p><p><br /></p><p>So, in December, I sent the coin off to NGC (or actually, dropped it off at the coin shop and said &quot;just send it out when it&#039;s cheapest and let me know when it gets back&quot;- I didn&#039;t want to think about it or get my hopes up).&nbsp; I literally almost forgot about it until last week, when I got a call saying they had gotten it back...In an MS-63 holder!!!! :yes: Could not have been happier to own the 10th HK-487c certified by NGC.&nbsp;&nbsp; I think that&#039;s probably my dumb luck quota for at least the rest of the year, but I can at least acknowledge it as such and try to make up for it by doing the research on the back end!&nbsp; &nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p><span style="color: #666666"><font face="Tahoma"><br /></font></span></p><p><span style="color: #666666"><font face="Tahoma"><br /></font></span></p><p>Here are some pics (just for a sense of scale on the close-ups, these are indeed about the size of a gold dollar or half dime): <img src="http://i1178.photobucket.com/albums/x380/rcannon5/06012011/IMG_0413.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></p><p><img src="http://i1178.photobucket.com/albums/x380/rcannon5/06012011/IMG_0414.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /><img src="http://i1178.photobucket.com/albums/x380/rcannon5/06012011/IMG_0415.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /><img src="http://i1178.photobucket.com/albums/x380/rcannon5/06012011/IMG_0416.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p>I probably couldn&#039;t dream of putting together a collection of something like this, so now I just have to figure out what to do with this little fella; but that is, as they say, a &quot;champagne problem.&quot;</p><p><br /></p><p>Moral of the story: There is still some treasure out there to be found if you have a good eye and don&#039;t mind doing a little research!</p><p><br /></p><p>Happy hunting! <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie2" alt=";)" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" />[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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