1942/1 Mercury Dime - Double Over-Date Or DDO? Please Help!

What does ICCS know about US coinage? And what's your definition of "Prooflike?" If you cannot clearly read newspaper type from any pint on the fields of both faces at a bare minimum of 4-5", it isn't Prooflike.

The thing that really blows my pressure relief valve is that they won't guarantee the attributions which, in most cases, you pay them to offer you.

NGC is, to my mind, a little saner these days than PCGS has become. The moral greasiness of not guaranteeing your work aside, PCGS is turning out some really headscratching things in slabs these days, or undergrading coins into obscurity. NGC remains the reigning champion of administrative label errors but at least they seem to remember what "consistency" means.

Of course, my personal sampling is purely anecdotal and doesn't reflect a bit of the Modern Mint issues which are putting all their kids through college.

This is one that buying sight unseen stuff can turn bad, there's seem to be a gray line with PCGS guarantee. I would contact them either way and talk to a representative, at least send them this link!

A couple comments. Since this is so obviously MDD and not an overdate, and PCGS is not too likely to make this big a mistake, could this be a fake slab?

And while no TPG is going to stand behind an obvious mis-description (what they call mechanical errors) PCGS does guarantee their attributions (no this would still fall under the mechanical error category), NGC which also charges for attributions DOES NOT guarantee the attribution (Until recently neither one of them guaranteed them. Which wasn't surprising since both of them do a poor job on attributions.)

I consider anything that has come from a prooflike (flatpack/cello) mint set, or anything that is NOT a business strike to be PL or NC. A prooflike over here has brilliant devices over a brilliant field (mirror), just like the one you are seeing. If it were a business strike, the finishes of the devices & fields would be the same, but have a much more muted brilliance...

As for the 42/1...i dont see it being a fake slab for many reasons...
1. If someone could exactly replicate the PCGS slab, then the market would be flooded with high-quality fake slabs, which I only see junk that I can break with my hands...

2. PCGS has a registry, and for a counterfeiter to access this, and add his/her coin to the registry, they would need to be conspiring directly with PCGS, and that is nearly impossible.

3. If this piece were truly faked, IMO it would be in much better condition than F15.

Although I do agree that this slab is as questionable as a 3 - dollar bill....is there really much I can do about it?.

..at least the 1795 h/d was legitimate out of the group! ;)

There have been fake PCGS slabs on the market since 2008 and they are getting better all the time and they are becoming ever more common. Typically they have fake coins in the slab, but there would no reason they couldn't put a real MDD dime in a holder (They are common enough) and label it 42/1-D.




All it takes to add a coin to your registry set is to enter a PCGS serial number. As long as it a valid number and isn't already in someone else's registry set it will be accepted. Finding valid numbers is no problem. There is no need for a conspiracy. And as far as I know this piece isn't in a Registry set.



Why? if you have a genuine 1942 dime with MDD in Fine and you were going to put it into a fake slab what grade would you put on the slab? put a higher grade on the slab and it will get outed instantly. If you want a higher grade o the slab you need a higher grade dime. But why give up the hundreds of dollars the Fine will net you? It's better than the $1 the raw dime would get you.

It has already been stated that all these TPGS's are made up of people. Not some machine or computer but people. These people are hired for a job just like a department store and not all are really experts or may not even be close to an expert. I'm not sure how they use or even try to use a Quality checking system but possibly may not even have one. Regardless, the coin in mention is absolutely not a 42/41 so it should be sent back to them for re-evaluating. No big thing, we all make mistakes.