Cheerios Sac Dollar

Yes Katie and super congrats to both you and DKA~!!

Here is a link to some photos of the coin. It's hard to photograph a coin through plastic lol.

https://onedrive.live.com/redir?res...folder%2cJPG

Now you have a choice. Leave in ogp and hope it's the pattern or cut it out and send in for grading and encapsulation. Even in ogp (without assurance it is THE pattern coin) they still sell in the 4-5k range!

Keep in mind that not all of the coins have the special pattern. Most do, but not all of them. No need to involve a coin dealer unless it's someone you already know and really trust. You can send them in directly yourself and thereby eliminate the potential of a dealer ripping you off. Even if it was only a 1 in 100 chance that a dealer would rip you off, it's not worth it. Most are honest, but certainly far more than 1 in 100 are dishonest.

If you sell the coin on ebay, their take is going to be about 13% including the paypal fees. Heritage auctions takes about 17%. I definitely wouldn't have a dealer consign it and take more of a cut.

BTW, I'd love to have that coin if it comes back with the pattern and would make you a fair offer depending on the grade.

Also, do not remove the coin from the packaging yourself. If on the off chance it came back as not being the special pattern type, it would still be worth more than a regular one if certified by a 3rd party grading service that it came from the original packaging.

KatieG, can you post a picture of the reverse also? I heard there are special markers on the reverse.

KatieG and congrats on an AWESOME (years ago) find!!

My fear would be that the obverse die with the marker somehow got used with the first non-pattern reverses that came in a minority of the Cheerios packaging. I'm not willing to gamble thousands of dollars to find out I lost. I'm not at all big on 3rd party grading, but this is one case where it's a must for me.

I definitely understand about it being difficult. One thing to remember, most people who collect or sell coins are not experts about Sacagawea dollars. If you spend $50 having it 3rd party graded, it will probably be the best $50 you've ever invested. Just take the necessary time and it will pay off.

The area to focus on is the shoulder right above the date. Read the article in the link below:
http://www.smalldollars.com/dollar/page20c.html
It will tell you pretty much everything about this coin. There is a picture of the obverse die marker (lines from polishing the die). I'm guessing it will be pretty difficult to get a good picture of it through the plastic, but you can try. Assuming it has the die marker, my suggestion still is to have it 3rd party graded.

BTW, there are very few sales of this coin. As you can see from the prices shown in the link above, the prices went down and then stabilized (though the information is 7 years old). Recent Heritage auction results that I've seen seem to be in the $4k to $7k range. I'll be glad to list them for you if you'd like.