Advice For US Collector Of Canadian Silver Dollars?

With both .

Hello. I want to share pictures of one of my Canadian Silver Dollars that I have a question about, but I am admittedly a 'technophobe'. I know posters are probably rolling their eyes (and I can't blame them), but would someone please tell me how to post pictures saved on my email and computer to a reply on this thread? (I don't see any button or link that would allow me to embed said pictures?).Thanks for your patience and any help you might be willing to lend me here.

Hello. Thank you for advising me:) Here is the picture I want to share. Please don't hesitate to tell me that it is too dark and/or blurry for you to answer this question (I haven't figured out proper lighting, and I unfortunately have a bad tremor so the camera shakes), but I am wondering if the 'R' in 'REX' was caused during mint manufacturing or whether it was filed off afterwards? One of my U.S. dealers (he doesn't specialize in Canadian coins) told me that he thinks it was done during manufacture/existed on the planchet, but I was hoping to get a second-opinion. Thank you!

About your dilemma of buying the more expensive key dates first. I started collecting silver dollars almost four years ago and started with the less expensive ones first with the exception of buying the 1945 a few months in when I found it at a great price.

The reasons I was starting with less expensive were that I wanted to be sure I was really interested in the silver dollars to begin with, I wanted to get better at grading coins and not overpay on a high ticket item, and I wanted to track what some of these higher priced coins were going for in real life - not just a number in a book.

Consequently the 1948 was one of the last coins I got. The price on some of those Canadian key dates has gone up a little but only to Canadians! Four years ago a $1500 CAD cost Americans about the same $1500 U.S. Now a $1500 Canadian Dollar coin costs in U.S. dollars about $1100 to $1150 U.S. This is probably a good time for Americans buying with U.S. dollars to buy any kind of Canadian coins.

Maybe Canadian vendors in Canada can comment if they have seen more Canadian coin sales to U.S. residents in the last couple of years - especially on higher end items.

Your picture isn't all that bad . Play with lighting
and take out of flip holder. And...

To Sturm, but also of course to anyone who gets value out of my humble opinion.

I have been collecting the entire decimal series - people told me I was crazy to try, but I enjoy the challenge. Lots of low hanging fruit between the big buys. I admit freely that my 5 cent and 10 cent collections are mostly pocket change date sets except for the odd key date purchase.

When I started people told me to collect the key dates in the best grade I could afford and that the handful of really nice pieces would be more satisfying than a binder full of high grade common unc dates. I chose not to take that advice, I started modern and worked backwards, grabbing a more expensive coin when I wanted to.

One thing that this helped me realize was that there is "instant appreciation" in modern issues, no one waits 20 years for a coin to appreciate to a certain value, they project the value and bam, put that price on the label. So being cheap I worked on trying my hand at grading moderns and submitting them myself. Rather than pay $30 for a modern loonie I'm paying say $8 plus my time, which while not free, is being spent in persuit of my hobby and enjoyment.

All the while if I see something that catches my attention I pull the trigger and buy it. I picked up a PCGS 1935 S$1 in 65 that I am pleased with every time I flip through my collection and I got it at a price I wanted to pay.

What's my point here? There's no right way to do this. If you want to continue filling holes and leave the challenge coins for the time where you feel confident, do it. If you want to grab that '48 and have a real gem to make you feel pride in your collection, do it. ICCS coins, especially at the gem level are pretty reliable, moreso in the 2 letter certifications. The great raging debate is whether the 2 letter flips are too strict or if the 3 letter flips are too permissive, but you can find lots of threads talking about how a ICCS 2 letter 65 became a PCGS 66 because of eye appeal or other non-condition releated grading factors. The advice "buy the coin not the holder" can't be more overstated. You're buying PL 66's? Then you have an idea of the technical level by making a study of that coin. Eye appeal is more personal, but do you like toned coins? Do you like bright white and shiny?

Collect your own way and keep enjoying, and don't be afraid to talk about your experiences on the forum, many people have been through the ups and downs too.

Two-letter prefixes were graded longer in the past. People think they were stricter then and have a better chance for a higher grade on resubmittal. People think the same about older green PCGS holders.

'It is always good to buy the coin, not the TPG grade. Something to pay close attention to with ICCS is that it is easy to get post grading damage on coins, due to the soft flip, especially for big heavy ones like silver dollars.'

That's good advice. I really have to 'baby' my ICCS silver dollars when I handle them since I tremor and a fumble could cause real damage. The big size of the silver dollars makes them susceptible to breaking the inner, mylar pouch (brittle to begin with by its nature) especially during shipping. I called ICCS and a gentleman (can't remember his last name but I think it starts with an 'S': he was interviewed by the RCNA Journal a while back) confirmed to me that it is a good idea to have such broken flips replaced by them, because the outer soft flip has PVC. I have seen the effects first hand: this greenish, powdery corrosion developed on one of my inexpensive ICCS silver dollars (on the side near the split inner seal).

Once this happened in tranist to a more valuable coin I bought from my Ontario-based dealer, but he was good about paying for all of the shipping involved to get it fixed. He told me the shipping on this coin was 'killing him' (I have bought quite a bit from him, though) and for me to please be patient (which was definitely a fair expectation). I did receive the coin OK the second time.

I've been thinking of someday taking up collecting a second series of Canadian coins. The one I have my eyes on are nickels:) I'm sure broken ICCS flips are probably not much of a problem with them (at least not like dollars). Thanks.