Weak Strike / Weak Edge Lettering

The appropriate explanation for this travesty uses wording I am not permitted to employ at Coin Community.

No one hates you. We are upset that these companies label these things the way they do. I am very surprised to see PCGS doing this crap now. I am not an expert on these but from what I read on the PCGS website they are considered by PCGS as minor variety (which in my opinion and many others is not an error).

"When the coins were first released in 2007, there was a lot of excitement in the coin market and media about the new coins, especially since the last time the U.S. Mint struck coins with edge lettering inscriptions was back in 1933 on the Saint Gaudens Double Eagles. More excitement came once missing edge lettering dollars were discovered. These are considered major mint errors. Other more minor varieties have surfaced since then, including double overlapped edge lettering, double inverted edge lettering, and weak and partial edge lettering varieties. With so many different Presidential dollar coins, errors and varieties, this is a definitely an exciting coin series to collect."

Quoted from the PCGS coinfacts website. http://www.pcgscoinfacts.com/Hierar...1650&redir=t

I would contact them and see what they have to say about it. They "might" take them back and refund you the amount you paid to have them labeled and graded, which is probably more than you can sell them for.

I believe this is one of those things that they knew when they were labeling them that they should not be doing but were making so much money they went ahead and did it anyway. If they would have called them a variety it would be different. Something like this I do not see a problem with because they are not calling the coin an "error" http://www.ebay.com/itm/2007-1-ADAM...em2c7ae9a2ca (What is a SP63?)

Since, I really don't know anything about these new dollars, I have to ask what is the difference in position A and Position B? I can see that the Position A for many of them sell for around $200.

Another question I have is the weak edge lettering do to a grease filled strike? Or something else?

Position A and B refer to whether the edge lettering is right side up or upside down relative to the obv. (right side up is Position B). Since the struck plain edge dollars are just dumped into a hopper and no sorting of them into heads up or heads down takes place before they go into the edging machine, roughly 50% of all the dollars will be Position A and 50% will be position B. So neither position is rarer than the other and no premium for one over the other is justified. (The proofs are a different case, they are all Position B.)



The edge is applied in a method similar to how the edge of the planchet is upset. The coin is rolled through a channel and compressed against a rotating die that has the edge inscription on it. If the machine is not properly set up and the distance between the channel and the rotating die is very slightly too great (probably less than .1 mm off) you get weak or partial edge letting.

The seller is picking numbers out of the air. If you look at the PCGS Certification on these 3 coins, you get The following:


2009-D Zachary Taylor Weak Edge Lettering Error PCGS MS64 Pos A is valued at $60.

2010-P Lincoln Weak Edge Lettering Error PCGS MS65 Pos A is valued at $50.

2007 P Washington Partial Edge Lettering Error PCGS Pos A is a DAMAGED coin and PCGS didn't give it a grade, only that it's "Genuine - UNC Details (98 - Damage)", but the seller thinks that the PCGS label is wrong, because it's really a position B Coin.

Errors on the label of a graded coin are just a mistake made by the grader. The true value of this coin would be maybe $10 or so. Coins that are damaged don't go up in value because PCGS called it pos A when it's pos B, and $760? The seller just grabbed a number and listed it.

The coins he did sell were sold for the amount the buyer offered. He may have sold these coins for $20 each, but the high price with "Best Offer Accepted" makes it look like the coins are worth more than they really are.

I guess it's all the exclamation marks that make the coin worth so much.

Ben

Bravo!! That is class I am impressed awesome! So impressed would buy you a cold frosty treat if I could