To buy or not to buy: 1990 no S cent

As a personal rule when I join a forum I will always contribute to others before I ask others to contribute to me. Today I am breaking my own rule in hopes of obtaining some much needed and fairly time constrained advice.

I have found a 1990 no S proof Lincoln cent still in mint packaging on eBay. The cent itself has some corrosion on the rim but it looks like the trained hands at either PCGS or NCS could successfully remove the corrosion. My biggest worry is they cannot remove it. My second biggest worry is I wind up with a details graded 1990 no S cent that essentially makes me the owner of damaged coin that will not have the long term value of the numerically graded coins of the same type.

The coin in question is priced at $2,450. After preservation and encapsulation my assumed total investment would be around $2,800. I know the recent discovery of another 1990 no S cent brought market values down and created a grand opportunity to buy the coin. This particular coin could make it even more grand. That is if it can be restored and numerically graded.

Any advice from members will be greatly appreciated. I apologize for joining a forum simply to probe the members but this is the kind of purchase where I want to obtain as many opinions as I can.

eBay auction number:362086861147

For what it's worth, the seller and I have conducted many dozens of transactions over the years and I have no issues completing a transaction this large with them.

 

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They might be able to stop the corrosion from continuing, but removing it will not be possible. It will always be a details piece.

 

If I was going to spend that much money, I would really like better close-up photos of both sides of the Lincoln. If the seller is familiar with you, there should be nothing wrong with your request.

Chris

 

It's a "NCB" coin, and the most important thing I ever learned from Brian Silliman was "stay away from NCB coins".

NCB = "Nice coin, but..."

 

NCB really says it all. Thank you.

 

I saw one at my local coin show that is beautiful for $900

 

What’s the best guess on how many exist? And I don’t mean how many have been graded. That tells me nothing useful, frankly.

 

ccording to the mint about 3,500 may exist based upon how many coins are struck per die. More than 200 grading exercises have been performed and the best guess has varied from less than 100 to today’s estimate of between 200 to 300. Likely it’s closer to 500 before the mint officially stopped the machines and fixed the error.

 

Should have jumped on it, that is a ridiculously low price. Even a 63 lists at over $2,000

 

Many thanks. Interesting. I know some people live and die by pop reports from TPG's. I couldn't give less of a rip about TPG pop reports if I tried. In my opinion there's BOTH too many coins that have never been within 1000 miles of a TPG's office, and too many coins that have been there multiple times. Result? Pop reports are useless.

 

The question which comes to mind for me is, were these being manufactured to order, such that they could strike as few as (say) 500, and then find and correct the mistake yet have already lost the bulk of them into buyer's hands? Or did they deliberately release them? Or is 500-ish a typical die life for a modern Proof? 3.3 million were minted; it's hard to imagine planning that many dies just for the Proof issue. Genuine question, with no (well, very little) snark intended.

 

Excellent questions, all.

 

Typical die life for a proof die (since around 1973) is around 3000 to 5000 coins but can be much lower. Once these were discovered the Mint went through the stock of proof sets they still had on hand and pulled those that they found. They did find some but I have no idea how many they found. So it is possible that the bulk of the mintage never left the mints hands.

Earlier proof dies lasted much longer because when the dies would start to lose their mirrors they would simply be repolished. No attempt would be made to retain the cameo contrast. That is why cameos are so scarce on proofs before 1973 and why the brilliant proofs of the 50's and 60's have that "melted" look. The dies were used way too long. After they decided to have all the proofs cameo they stopped the repolishings. As soon as a die started showing flowlines in the field (What the mint calls "starburst".) the die is retired.

And 3.3 million coins with a 3000 coin die life is only 1100 dies. 9 billion business strikes with a million coin die life is 9,000 dies. If they can make 9000 business strike dies they can surely do a 1000 proof dies.

 

If it would slab with a straight grade, the seller would have already had it slabbed by a TPG. I'd stay away from this item.

 

At various times in the past several major dollar error stamps (primarily inverts and missing colors) have been proven to be made to order to fund the CIA black ops. Since it worked so well with stamps its not a leap of logic to try it with coins or other collectibles. I'm guessing that if they were behind it the available quantity will prove to be around 50,000 and they will be slowly fed out into the market at "bargain" prices of $950 for a $2000 coin. Eventually the facts will come out so your question to answer is do you want to possess it bad enough to risk feeling taken later. That same basic question applies to all errors and varieties. Do you risk overpaying to be one of the first owners of something that surfaces in mass quantities later or do you hold back and watch a true rarity get so expensive that you will never own it? My personal process in all collectibles is to sell all hot varieties as soon as they are discovered at market prices then several years later when and if the market has cooled buy back a nice specimen for my collection. Nine times out of ten the prices collapse after everyone who wants one has one.
Sometimes I have the "satisfaction" of knowing that I got "top dollar" for something that moved on and went through the roof. LOL.

 

Wait, what?

 

Just another conspiracy theory

 

Amusing that folks call it a conspiracy theory and the catalogs say otherwise.
CIA deals drugs and you think they would have too many scruples to make collectibles?

 

I don't put anything past our Government but I'm curious to know where you obtained this information.

 

Yeah, not that there was any chance of, for just one example, 2017-P cents ever being a true rarity, but that didn't stop the early stupid prices either. I can't believe how many idiots will pay large sums for temporary shortage pieces. What? Are they afraid they'll forget later? Or is it that contrived artifice known as "Early Release" TPG labels?