On Saturday I came into temporary possession of my friend's coins. Several times I've been told by family/friends that there are coins that I could look at if they hadn't been sold days prior (not an exaggeration, mere days!). Not only is this the second time I've looked at someone else's collection, it is also the first time I've ever been asked to survey the coins, inventory and in some cases, grade them in order to get an estimate of the total value of the collection.
Sunday afternoon found me spending a few hours getting a chance to grade and inventory the dollars, half dollars, and quarters. A little background. There is a small second bedroom in the abode in which my wife and I live. It serves several duties as a guest room, her office and my numismatic nook.
OK. I'm going to come back to this later as the latent carbon disulfide fumes are making me sick.
Back and feeling much better!
This was the first time since we got married where I was really able to use my numismatic nook for numismatics and that was thrilling. I had my Red Book, latest Coin Values, a quad ruled notepad and my ANA Grading book all spread out along with the coins. I enjoyed being able to get a bit more grading experience by looking at the halves and quarters and then getting a grade in my head, checking the ANA book to see if I was close and then reevaluating if I needed to. Needless to say that even doing halves and quarters was enough to wear me out! But I knew that I needed to have them done by the end of the week and it was going to be a busy week. So I pulled out the dimes and there were far more of them than the higher denomination coins put together. Remembering some experience I had while watching someone else sell common date silver dimes I decided against grading all of them and just inventoried them to show a potential buyer. Now by the time I had finished the dimes I was getting pretty weary and decided to do the rest of the coins the following evening.
Which I did! The nickels and cents were quite numerous and I relied mostly on an inventory given me by my friend so that I could search through them and look for ones that were better suited for pocket change and those in which a dealer could be interested. This was a lot of fun because even though most of the coins from the last 50 years were better as pocket change there were a few really nice pieces in there that were quite lovely!
After finishing up with the cents and nickels I moved to the three jewels of the collection. While none of these are earth shattering they have much larger numismatic and historical value than most of the other coins.
The first was an 1856-O dime in F-12 (I think that's what I graded it). Having been minted in the antebellum South brings up a wealth of historical information as well as being the type used from 1840-1853 and 1856-1860. A few tidbits from 1856: 1) James Buchanan is elected president (and only president to have never married), 2) Lawrence, KS is sacked and burned by pro-slavery forces, 3) Nikola Tesla is born and 4) Khedrup Gyatso the 11th Dalai Lama dies.
The second is an Indian Head small cent from 1859 which was the first year of the Indian Head series that would run through 1909. It is also a one year type coin in that there is no shield at the top of the wreath. In 1860, this reverse would be replaced with one bearing a similar but quite distinctive wreath and a shield. This particular specimen had a nice obverse but a relatively well worn reverse though all the design elements were still visible. Here are a few historic tidbits from 1859: 1) A Tale of Two Cities is published, 2) The Pig War between the Americans and the British in the San Juan Islands is "fought," 3) John Brown and his followers storm the US Arsenal at Harper's Ferry, VA and 4) Pierre Curie is born.
The final jewel is an 1864 copper-nickel small cent. In that year, the composition was changed from 88% copper/12% nickel to bronze (95% copper, 5% tin and zinc). This change, coupled with a reduced weight for the bronze cents made melting of the previous small cents alluring and that coupled with the ongoing Civil War (aka War Between the States) makes survival of some of this issues a collecting challenge. And finally, a few historic tidbits from 1864: 1) The Confederate submarine CSS Hunley sinks the USS Housatonic becoming the first submarine to sink an enemy vessel, 2) Delegates meet at the Charlottetown Conference to discuss Canadian confederation, 3) American songwriter Stephen Foster dies and 4) Abraham Lincoln is reelected President after running against his former Commander of the Army of the Potomac, George McClellan.
Finally there were a number of interesting coins from Canada and Newfoundland. Most of them were half dollars from the early 20th century but the were enough coins to cover the monarchs Victoria, Edward VII, George V, George VI and Elizabeth II. Never having seen much of early Canadian coinage this was quite fascinating to me.
In all I prepared a three page letter describing what I did and recommendations for selling. Through today, that is all the information that I have but I will keep you posted on any further developments!
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