The Old Saying Is True...."don't buy problem coins...you will regret it.."

For hundreds, not for a thousand years people have been trying to turn copper and lead into gold - You are a contrarian rebel. Love it. Yes, pieces from those closed mints have a mystique all their own.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

Always buy the best coin you can at the lowest price you can.

 

Not so much a problem coin as an uninformed buy. I found this on craigslist, a couple of years back. In my defense, I had never seen a Large Cent before. It was part of a collection inherited and being liquidated, but the son shared the optimism of the new grader, so impossible to get him down from his sky high estimations, and I wasn't an expert or even amateur either.

He wanted 60$ for this VF something large cent, turned out the reverse was damaged. The coin was probably worth the 18$ the father had on the 2x2, but I paid 40$, weighing the stupidity of that move against the possibility of future good buys, which never materialized. He had some seated halves and dollars that would be worth quite a bit, never got to see them... wish they would resurface.

I still like the coin very much, as I did when I saw it, but best not to compare it to anything nicer.

 

I posted my 1839 Proof dime with flaws and a provenance going back nearly 90 years, where it was known and published as "the impaired proof", on another thread. Obviously, it is an extremely rare specimen coin that happens to have great eye appeal. In these occasions, I think the issue of whether a 'problem' coin has a place in our world is moot. I could care less if any of the TPG would details it or not, as an important part of this hobby is about coin history and what came before us. I think the pursuit of the perfect coin is fine, but I do not think it is the absolute end for all of us. There are many historic coins, or even nefarious ones, that fit this example, we could enjoy owning and preserving, so that their stories can be told to future collectors. In short, there is definitely a place for problem coins with the right heritage.

 

I wonder what I said that needed censorship?

 

As damage goes, this is quite minimal. But it would probably be labeled the dreaded TOOLED by a TPG. This is the exact type of coin I like if I get the appropriate discount. I'm a buyer of overly discounted (in my opinion) coins.

But with so many people not understanding the terms DETAILS and GENUINE being indicators of a necessary discount or any idea of how to judge how much it should be discounted, it moves the market up for such coins.

That's when the art of recognizing bargains and laughable overpricing come into play.