1856 $20.00 NGC AU53 CAC

After years of telling collectors that the Philadelphia Type One issues from 1853 to 1859 were the best values in the affordable Liberty Head double eagle arena, interest (and price levels) has started to finally increase for these issues. Despite this fact, dates like the 1856 remain outstanding values in nearly all circulated grades. This example has the luster and body of an AU55/AU55+ coin but it has been net-graded to the AU53 level due to the presence of scattered abrasions in the fields and some reeding marks located on Liberty's cheekbone. The coin still has very nice overall eye appeal with nice natural yellow-gold and pale greenish hues. Really a scarce coin this grade and hard to find choicer.

1856 $20.00 PCGS EF45

The 1856 is one of my favorite sleeper Type One double eagles. In the EF grades, it sells for virtually no premium over a common date like the 1861 yet it is dozens of times more scarcer. This is a pleasing, wholesome example with nice even light green-gold color atop lightly abraded surfaces that retain some luster. There are two tiny reeding marks in the lower left obverse field that do not detract. A great value for the savvy double eagle collector on a limited budget.

Ten Tips For Selling Your Coins

As someone who sells a lot of coins, I have some selling tips/tricks/thoughts that I'd like to share. 1. Don't Get Into a Forced Sale Situation. When it comes to buying coins, most people (dealers and collectors) are sharks. If they know that you are in a situation of desperation, it is likely that they'll take advantage of you. The worst thing that you can do as a seller is to tell someone--even someone that you have a "close" relationship with--that you have to sell a coin and that you need a fair offer. In my experience, a forced sale can cost you 20-30% or more.

Ideally, you want a sale of an individual coin (or collection) to take at least 45-60 days; possibly more for an in-depth specialized collection. That will give you enough time to prepare the coin for sale, market it, and give the buyer time to pay if this becomes a factor.

2. Pick the Right Time to Sell. Although the internet is blurring the traditional coin seasons, the two best times of the year to sell your coins are still around the FUN show in January and at the summer ANA in July or August.

This holds true for selling a coin yourself, on consignment, or through auction. You are likely to do better when people are in the mood to buy coins; not when they are preoccupied with summer vacation or preparing for the Winter holidays.

3. Send Your Coins to CAC. I don't subscribe to the theory that you "have to" buy CAC coins and nothing else. If you are a savvy, educated buyer you should be able to discern what is nice and what isn't within your specialty.

But when you are selling I think it does make a difference to have a CAC sticker on your coin(s). I think the best thing about CAC is that it instills confidence in buyers and makes a coin more liquid. I certainly notice that CAC coins at auction tend to sell for more money than non-CAC, and appear to sell to retail buyers/end-users more often than non-CAC coins.

4. Strike While the Iron is Hot. Let's say you read about an auction that contains some great Liberty Head eagles that bring very strong prices. You own similar coins. Should you turn around and sell as soon as possible?

Yes and no. Sometimes you get lucky and can find the underbidder who just missed out on a record-setting coin. But more often than not he was an underbidder who might not feel so good about the level he was at a second time. As a seller, replicating an all-time record price can prove difficult. But it might be worth an effort to at least experiment, no?

5. Clean Your Slabs. This sounds silly, but dirty, scratchy slabs can cost you money. Let me give you an example.

About a year ago I saw an interesting gold at an auction. Well I sort of saw it; the holder was so scratched up you literally couldn't see the surfaces of the coin. I took a chance and bought it, mainly because it sold so cheaply, then sent it to a grading service to be re-holdered. Lo and behold, it was actually very nice. It later got a CAC sticker and I sold it for a good profit; all because it looked great in its new holder.

6. Leave Your Old Holder Coins in Old Holders (sometimes). OK, I'll be the first to get up in front of the group and admit that I'm an Old Holder-aholic. I get excited by coins in older PCGS and NGC slabs and tend to overpay for them; as do most dealers. But for a seller there's a catch to this, which is why I put the "sometimes" after the statement.

If you have a $2,000 old holder coin that has the potential to be a $4,000 coin if it upgrades, leave it alone, and price it accordingly. Let the buyer take the gamble. But if you have a $2,000 old coin coin that could be worth $10,000 if it has a good upgrade....hmmm, that might necessitate regrading the coin yourself.

7. Attribute Your Coin(s). Its probably not going to happen to you, but what if the lowly 1794 Cent you just sold to another collector across town turned out to be a $35,000 rare variety? That's going to make you feel just great, right?

Take a few minutes and attribute your coins. If you don't know how, send them to NGC's attribution service or have a trusted collector friend do it for you.

8. Have an Emergency Plan. Life is full of unexpected turns. Have you fully planned what would happen to your coins if you were to suddenly die or become incapacitated? You obviously don't want your wife walking into the local pawn shop and getting taken advantage of. Make it easy for her or your heirs and leave explicit instructions on how to dispose of your coins.

True story: a few years ago, a good client of mine passed away without a will and without leaving instructions on how to dispose of his coins. He was a secretive guy so I'm assuming the invoices for his coins weren't around and he peeled my inventory stickers off the back of the slabs which indicated what he paid. The coins were left to his sister who proceeded to take them to a "road buyer" at a local hotel. I would have paid close to a million dollars for the coins if she had called me. I'm told the road buyers paid her somewhat less than $200,000.

9. Do Your Due Diligence When it Comes to Pricing. Depending on the types of coins that you are selling, it should be possible to price your coins. But there are important things to consider.

In certain series, PCGS coins sell for premiums over NGC coins. Are your coins worth a premium? Is your coin approved by CAC and, if so, does this make a difference? Do you own a coin that's currently "hot?" Is your coin high end for the grade?

Common issues and generics are easy to price. Rare coins and very rare coins can be very difficult. Examine recent auction records. Are they consistent or all over the place? Has there been a comparable coin that has sold at auction in the last year?

If you have an extremely rare coin, it is probably best to put it in auction. But specialist dealers can be a great resource for selling rarities as well and they may be able to help you maximize the prices you get.

10. Leave a Little Bit on the Table for Everyone. Piggy sellers. Everyone knows them, and no one likes them. I'm talking about sellers who want to squeeze every last dime out of every transaction and make each sale an ordeal.

When I sell coins to other dealers I intentionally try to leave a little room so that they can make money on what they've just bought. This makes them happy and it makes them want to buy more coins from me in the future.

When I buy from collectors I try to be extra-fair and pay the most that I can while still leaving some room for myself to mark-up the coin up and resell it.

Do you have any tips for selling coins? If so, I'd love to know what they are and for you to share them with me. Please add them at the end of this blog or email them to me at dwn@ont.com.

1890-CC $20.00 NGC AU55 CAC

The obverse is just a bit on the reflective side with some hints of PL surface in the fields; the reverse is a bit more satiny. Both sides show nice light rose color and are very clean for the date and grade. This piece is so well-made and so free of obvious abrasions that it would make a perfect piece for the type collector or the new CC double eagle buyer who wants a choice, appealing frosty example for a reasonable price.

1883-CC $20.00 NGC AU50 CAC

This appealing, original example shows medium green-gold color that deepens at the borders. There are no serious marks noted and a good deal of luster remains. This is among the more common CC double eagles but it is never easy to find examples that are as choice and original as this one.

1846-O $10.00 PCGS AU50

Normal Date variety. Winter-2. This is the rare "Normal Date" variety which is seen far less often than the so-called "Overdate." This example is bright and lustrous with scattered non-detracting abrasions seen on the obverse and reverse. The strike is far better than normal with good detail at the centers; the radial lines in the stars are slightly flat as is typical for the variety. This coin was formerly in an NGC AU53 holder and the original NGC tag is available if the buyer desires it. There have been no PCGS AU50 examples of this issue sold at auction since Heritage 4/01: 7828 which brought $2,760. Think about that: none available in slightly over a decade. That's rare! And yet this coin is priced at a very reasonable level. This demonstrates, at least in my opinion, the excellent values that await the savvy collector of Liberty Head eagles from this era.

"What Do You Collect?"

Reader F.N. of New York City recently asked me an interesting question: "Do you collect coins and if so what do you collect?" I'd like to take the chance to give you a brief history of what I have collected in the past and supplement this with some thoughts on collecting coins in general. I started early in numismatics. I was pretty much hooked by age seven, and was obsessed with coins by the time I was nine or ten. I was always attracted to cool, older coins and the first things I can remember buying included a few bust half dollars, a holed small size quarter (that I tried to plug with candle wax; an early foray into doctoring?) and a few odds and ends.

When I was ten or so, I started a set of Indian Cents. I got bored quickly with this and could never really "get" why I'd have to pay $100 for a decent 1877 when they seemed to be so easy to find.

I always had an interest in Colonial and Revolutionary War history and this was fueled by trips with my maternal grandfather to places like Boston, Lake George/Fort Ticonderoga, Valley Forge, etc. It was around this time that I got hooked on colonial coins; Connecticut coppers specifically.

For a kid in the 1970's with a small budget, collecting Connecticuts was ideal. They were cheap, reasonably easy to find, and very few people knew or cared about rare varieties. After some searching, I discovered the standard reference by Henry Miller and started to learn how to attribute the coins by variety. I was good at this, and within a year I was able to attribute many of the better varieties by memory.

Growing up in New York in the 1970's was a great environment for a kid who loved coins. There were shops everywhere and a major show seemed to take place at least once every two months (sadly, these shows are long gone. RIP to the GENA, AINA, Greater New York, etc.) There were also shows every Sunday at the long-gone Roger Smith and Hotel Manhattan where I would, from time to time, stumble on a really good colonial coin.

I stayed loyal to colonials until the time I was a mid-teenager and discovered Seated Liberty coinage; specifically seated quarters. I can still remember the epiphany I had about this series: one day I was skimming the Redbook and realized that there were really rare coins with mintages of 20,000 or so that had guidebook values of less than $200. These coins were so cheap that, if I could find them, I'd actually be able to buy nice looking, rare issues for $100-200 per coin; my budget at the time.

My Seated Liberty mentor when I was a kid was the late Kam Ahwash. Kam treated me really fairly and I fondly recall combing through boxes of his seated coins at his tables when he would come to a New York show. I'd generally select more than I could afford, but I'd sell a rare colonial or two that I had cherrypicked.

Grading back then was far less exact than it is today and I would carefully check the surfaces of all the seated quarters that Kam had to avoid those that had been cleaned and retoned.

Given my budget and my sense of aesthetics, I developed a strict set of parameters for my quarter set that has stayed with me even today. I preferred coins in the VF-EF range as they showed good detail but were affordable. I loved coins that were original with warm gunmetal grey color. To me, the things that killed a coin were deep, unsightly scratches, rough surfaces, and rim problems.

I learned what dates were the most undervalued and wasn't worried about owning "too many" 1859-S or 1872-S quarters; I could always trade them for something else when the rest of the world learned how rare these coins were (they did; just 20 years later than I thought they would!)

Once I went to college and started my own coin business, the extra money I had went other places than coins. And when I finally did have some extra money, I either reinvested it into my business or bought real estate.

During the last two decades as a dealer specializing in rare U.S. gold coinage, I haven't really "collected" much in the way of what I sell; primarily because I don't want to have a conflict of interest with my clients.

About a decade ago, I worked on a set of MS66 Three Cent Nickels. I got to within two coins of being complete, but got bored and sold the set for a nice profit.

The most serious collecting I did was a year set of 18th century coinage (I specialized in a specific year that I won't mention here) that was complete from half cent to eagle, and which included a number of important varieties and sub-varieties. When prices for early type soared in 2006-2008, I decided that it was time to sell and broke the set up.

Today, I'm kind of a dabbler. I buy the occasional pretty, interesting coin and put it away. But I know I'll always be a seller of these coins, especially if I have a client who I like and who is looking for a coin of the sort that I have put away.

If I ever became a more serious collector again, there are a few parameters that I'd work within.

I love gem slider AU58 coins for the appearance and value that these coins provide. I'm talking about a choice, original coin that is a technical AU58, but which has the look and appeal of an MS64. These coins are far harder to find than you might imagine, but I do handle them from time to time. I could see having a random collection of 19th century gold coins with these attributes.

I love pedigreed coins. I find the coins that are hardest for me to part with as a dealer are ones that were owned by great past collectors like Harry Bass, Louis Eliasberg, James Stack, or the Norweb family. As a dealer, I tend to be more interested in the history of the coin business than the history of the coins themselves and there is something that excites me about being only the third owner of a specific gold coin since, say, the early 1900's.

I love gold coins with great eye appeal. If I buy a Dahlonega quarter eagle with really rich natural coloration, I sometimes think "I want to put this coin away." (I almost never do, though, because coins like this are so easy for me to sell.) Bright coins from the 1840's aren't appealing to me unless they are Choice or Gem quality and are naturally vibrant.

If I had to pick a specific era of numismatics from which the coins are most appealing to me, I'd have to say it would be from the late 1820's through the late 1840's/early 1850's. I think this is a great period of American history, but what I find most interesting are the designs of these coins, the richness of the naked-eye varieties, and the fact that there are coins from this period that can be found for less than $10,000 with superb eye appeal.

As someone who has been involved with coins for just about his whole life, I know I'll never totally stop collecting. I wouldn't be surprised if, within a few years, I find a series that I want to start a small collection in. I just worry that, given the amount of passion that I approach the other collectibles that I specialize in, I would get too consumed by this new area. Given how selective a buyer I am that probably won't happen, but you never know....

1858 $20.00 SS Republic NGC MS62

As a rule I am not a huge fan of shipwreck gold coins but this piece is exceptional, both from the standpoint of appearance and rarity. The surfaces of this piece showe virtually no signs of exposure to seawater and are bright with a great degree of vibrancy. The "meat" on this coin suggests an MS63 grade but there are just a few too many scuffs in the obverse fields. For the sake of identification, there is a small barely noticeable grease stain on the obverse hanging off the lowest curls. This is one of just two MS62 1858 double eagles salvaged from the S.S. Republic; the other, sold as Bowers and Merena 4/05: 2015, brought $21,275 at a time when important high grade shipwreck coins were not as avidly collected as they are today. If you collect shipwreck double eagles or are looking for an important Condition Census example of this conditionally scarcer date, consider adding this impressive 1858 to your holdings.

This is one of just two 1858 double eagles graded MS62 found on the S.S. Republic. Noe were graded higher than this.

The Two Types of Coin Collectors

In my day-to-day dealings with collectors, I note at least two distinct typologies. First, there is the collector who has either been buying coins since he was a child, or who was a collector as a kid and has since rekindled his early romance with numismatics. And then there is the newcomer who is generally introduced to coins through precious metals/bullion/modern coins. The lifetime collector versus the precious metals advocate. Which is "better?"

My answer to this question is simple: neither is "better." And I think both schools can learn a little something about coins and the coin hobby from each other.

Whether you choose to admit it or not, financial considerations should enter into every transaction that you the collector makes. A true collector might not worry about paying an irrational amount of money for a much-coveted coin, but every purchase should be considered for its long-term implications. I've seen dealers write comments to the effect that "it doesn't matter what you pay for a great coin; the market always takes care of high-quality purchases." I think this is a self-serving comment and I think that price considerations are, in virtually all cases, important.

In other words, the dyed-in-the-wool collector sometimes needs to think more like an investor and consider what the upside and downside is for his purchases.

Since the 1980's and the era of coin telemarketing, many people have been introduced to numismatics by a simple three step process: 1) buy gold, usually in the form of bullion, 2) be converted or up-sold to semi-numismatics, usually in the form of St. Gaudens double eagles or, lately, Proof American eagles, and 3) become interested in rare coins and start a collection (or a random assortment) of numismatic coins.

Given their backgrounds as investors, these individuals need to think a bit more like collectors.

It's kind of a cliche, at this point, to write this but in my long years of experience in numismatics, the collectors that I see who are the most successful are a hybrid of collector and investor. And the ones that are the most unsuccessful are the ones who approach numismatics strictly as an investment.

Any sort of hobby, whether its crochet, yoga, or coin collecting, is made more enjoyable when it is approached with passion. In the case of numismatics, this means learning about coins, learning about the market, and becoming familiar with the buying and selling process. Coin buyers who see nothing more than market cycles and who study the CU3000 index more than the latest auction catalog and not going to get the fulfillment (emotionally or financially) that the old-school collector derives from his coins.

One of the great things about today's world is the accessibility to information that we all have. If I were writing this same blog ten years ago, it would be hard for me to tell an investor to go online and read a lot about rare coins to become a more confident buyer. Today, there is a tremendous amount of information available.

What can the investor do to orient himself more like a collector? Obviously, the first answer is to do as much due diligence as possible. Read. Learn about the market. Choose a reputable dealer. Become a specialist. Become as familiar as possible with the concept of eye appeal and comfortable with the basics of grading.

What can the collector do to think more like an investor? Learn not to make purchasing decisions based entirely on emotions and learn the concept of buying and holding. Study the ups and downs of the coin market and learn to buy at the bottom or middle of the cycle and not at the top. Become aware of who to buy the best coins from at the most reasonable prices.

I find that as the years pass, the pure collector becomes more of a collector-investor and the pure investor becomes more of an investor-collector. Ultimately, the "twain does meet" (sort of) and these two types have more common ground that you might actually believe.