Recent NGC submission

I am a die hard ANACS photo grade collector, I keep a membership at NGC for access to their databases. I generally only submit coins if it is a questionable match to the photo. However recently a dealer told me these old photo certificates never cross over and always lose 2-3 points in grade. This got me thinking maybe I should prove him wrong. So I submitted 5 coins from my collection to see what the outcome would be. The following are the original grades (ANACS grades consist of an obverse and reverse grade) followed by the NGC page with the new grades;
1939 s Walking Liberty Half ms 65/65
1918 Illinois Commem ms 63/65
1859 proof Half Dime pf 60/60
1900 Morgan ms 65/65 VAM 11
1883 cc Morgan ms 63/65

 

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So even the VAM was incorrect?

Nice score on the proof!

 

Yeah, but at NGC the 24 is more rare than the 11, only 5 higher and they show no other ms64+ grades in their registry and only 21 in ms64

 

Looks like you did alright.

 

Yeah, ANACS only graded proofs 60 or 65, no middle grades, so I knew it would go higher, was actually thinking 63 would be a great score.

 

When the 1900 was graded, the VAM 24 wasn't classified, and the VAM 11 has the same double die reverse. All VAM 24 were known as VAM 11s before the 1990s. This is actually the only photo certificate with a VAM designation I have ever found.

 

Nice score!

Chris

 

Thanks, Chris, glad to see these older photo certificates hold their weight

 

Congrats. Well done

 

great news. Goes to show by the coin and its apparent you did. Thanks for sharing.

 

Nice demonstration. I'd like to get ahold of a coin with one of these old certs, too. I don't care much about the grade. I just think it'd be a nice bit of numismatic history.

 

False. The VAM 24 is more common than the VAM 11. They share the same reverse, which is the "money side" of the coin. The VAM 24 was not discovered until 1997. As a result, there are many VAM 24 coins attributed as VAM 11 from before 1997, and many misattributed thereafter. The grade spreads are about the same for both.

In MS64 and higher, the SSDC registry shows 10 VAM 11 and 22 VAM 24.

 

I actually stated at NGC the 24 is more rare, meaning has a much lower population than the VAM 11, which is a true statement if you check NGC census records.

 

OK, but I don't put much stock in NGC population records for VAMs in general, and in this case they reflect the opposite of reality for the two varieties.

 

I never said you should, my post was about NGC submissions, I made a statement pertaining to this. If you read the entire thread, you will also see that I followed this with a post stating the exact fact you stated, that many VAM 24s were misattributed as 11s before the 1990s.

 

Yes, I replied before reading your other statement. All I'm trying to accomplish is making sure people don't assume that VAM 24 is the rarer of the two, and realize that any coin attributed as VAM 11, even recently, needs to be examined closely to make sure it's not VAM 24. My experience is that NGC has made this mistake more often than PCGS or ANACS.

Back to the first post, I do find the attribution on the ANACS photo cert interesting. What's the date on it? Is there a name it's "registered" to? There were not many VAM collectors active in the early 80s, and this may be traceable to one of them.

 

Ahh... good ol' Mr. Intercap Precious Metals. Probably a dead end, but I'll ask a few people who might know

 

It is a transfer certificate, so it could have had an individual on the original, the only problem is the ANA, did not save many records from this time.