Stone Mountain Half Web Site

A nicely toned acquisition this week and an MS67 to boot. I need to get it under a microscope since the toning can hide a lot of sins. But I like the color and the grade.​

 

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That is a very nice one!

 

I did get a high res image from NGC that helped greatly understand why they identified them as counterfeit. There are some obvious flaws. Even if the silver content is high I don't think they would make it to the MS status with any TPG, but maybe from time to time they have a better strike that would.

I ordered one from eBay yesterday that was sold as a fake and made out of base metal which is more what I have seen in the Morgan world.

 

Well here is the strange happening of the year so far with the SMH. I am building a grading set and needed a Poor 01 coin. One came up on eBay this week so I decided to grab it. The PCGS listed price is $45 which I think is a little low because of the difficulty getting heavily circulated coins in a holder.

So I put out a ridiculous bid of $250 knowing the bidding would never get that high but that I would save months and a lot of grading costs. Well boy was I wrong. One bidder went to $400 and was sniped by someone at $405.

Is there something here I am missing, or is this now the most popular commemorative?

 

I knew lowball Morgans were hot but I had no idea classic commems were that hot.

 

Apparently they are either HOT!!!! or someone cannot read the price guide.

 

Yeah, someone x 2...

 

A recent acquisition that looks like a sunset scene in an old western. An MS64 but with a lot of style points for eye appeal!

 

One I used to own. Purchased from Wayne Herndon:

 

A really nice one and has a nice sunset appearance

 

This is one of this week's postings and we like the color. This is an AU58 and the color retention is nice for a circulated coin.

 

Over the next month we will be posting a large number of coins to the web site as we work to complete a grading set and to do some serious die analysis. As with any grading set the mid to low grades can be the most difficult. But this month we conquered two grades and found a Very Good 08 and two Fine 15 coins.


This Good 08 is not the first for PCGS, but our first.



But these two are the first Fine 15 coins for PCGS and obviously milestones along the way to our complete set. We actually feel that the 37638249 coin is more representative of the grade and that 37638245 may prove to be an Fine 12.

This gives us 23 different grades, so we are narrowing in on the task, but quite a way to go. http://www.stonemountainhalf.com/ourcollection.html

 

Of all the coins we collect, grading the Stone Mountain Half has proven to be the most difficult. A coin with features designed to intentionally be somewhat soft and with no flat field can be difficult. The stars can be an indicator of the completeness of the strike for MS coins, and an indicator of wear for circulated coins. But locating all 35 stars has been a challenge for most coins because rarely is the strike complete.

To solve this dilemma we have developed a template we can electronically overlay on the large coin images to find traces of the stars.

This is a Mint State example with the stars easily located.



But down at grade VG08 and below this becomes quite a challenge!


So our little overlay trick has really helped. The stars are often more visible with high quality images than with the coin under magnification because the actual location of the stars can be quite a challenge once they begin to fade.

A good tool that may apply to other coins if they have soft features.

 

Late last week we located this coin for our grading set and for study. This is one of only two MS67 FS-101 coins graded by PCGS, so somewhat rare. There are none higher at this time.





And as we would hope at this grade, all the stars seem visible

 

We just added this coin, an MS 66+ to the collection and it is one that is a nice, but could have been spectacular coin.


It has some hints of color on both sides that are well into the toning cycles where greens start to appear. The coin also has some nice iridescence to the color.



A full writeup on this coin is at http://www.stonemountainhalf.com/25306817_66-.html

 

Gotta say, I love your approach to this thing we call coin collecting- to super focus on this coin and the 1881-O Morgan. Speaking of which, I need to send you new images of my 1881-O that we discussed previously a few months ago. The new image is TrueView size, so this might help to assign it a VAM. I’ll contact you via your site.

 

Thanks, drilling down on single coins seems to me to be the only way to really build in-depth knowledge.

 

Really solid work you're doing!!

 

Thanks, working toward the complete grading set for now then on to dies.

 

A new acquisition and an MS64 PCGS.