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 Replies: 68 / Views: 17,188 |
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
5324 Posts |
You are missing the point, rumour was he liked to free all his graded coins and clean them, if you are willing to clean the 11 dollar, most likely if not all the coins will be cleaned. The next question is will PCGS reholder the coins genuine or just not mention it, from some of the Heritage presale photos, looks like the rumours are true.
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Valued Member
Canada
50 Posts |
I spoke with a well known Canadian coin dealer today who sold him some coins. According to him he ruined almost all of his coins by deslabbing them and cleaning them. One of the few coins that was not wrecked was a 1934 fifty cent piece in specimen 69 that was from our collection.
When PCGS gets a mint cleaned coin it is returned slabbed as cleaned "uncirculated details" with no numerical grade.
In 45 years of collecting the only other time I heard of something similar was with the King Farouk collection of 1952. Many of Farouk's coins were spared. In this collection I was told apparently almost none were....unbelievable!
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Moderator
  Canada
10458 Posts |
I imagine we spoke with the same dealer yesterday... this dealer also did not mince words, he called Cook a "numismatic murderer"... how is that for a legacy?
I actually sold George some coins, but most were mint state or PL 1-cent strikes, which were bright red and cherry picked from rolls and mint bags. I assume, since they were already "perfect", he didn't mess around with them (unless he put fingerprints on them)... mind you - none of what I sold him would ever be called a "numismatic treasure of historical value"...
I really hope PCGS does the right thing here... after all, compared to some big US collections, this collection of Canadian coins is pretty small potatoes to be staking one's reputation on...
"Discovery follows discovery, each both raising and answering questions, each ending a long search, and each providing the new instruments for a new search." -- J. Robert OppenheimerContent of this post is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses...0/deed.en_USMy eBay store
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Valued Member
Canada
50 Posts |
I received a bit of good news today from my friends at Heritage. They claim that while approximately 20 out of the approximately one thousand coins of the late George Cook were cleaned none of the important key coins were cleaned and the 1911 dollar was not cleaned. They apparently lightened the photo of the 1911 dollar from the original photo of 2003. For me that is a relief. So this sounds more like the King Farouk collection of 1952 where the vast majority were not cleaned with a tiny percentage that were. So perhaps George heeded the advice of dealers early on and ceased this practice.
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
1352 Posts |
I hope so. At this point I am prepared to wait and see what the grades and final lot descriptions look like, then form my own opinions.
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
1463 Posts |
Geesh what a story! Thanks for sharing, this should give a fair heads up to those bidding, even if it means to just take extra care in bidding and or winning. Good to know. Thank you
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Valued Member
Canada
288 Posts |
Heritage has recently posted new pictures of the 1911 dollar, including beauty shots and slab shots. See here: https://coins.ha.com/itm/canada/wor...bnail-071515You have to be careful judging beauty shots. Just because they looked the way they did does not mean they necessarily showcased what the coin looks like in hand. The areas of bright white overexposure have been removed. The new images now compare favourably to the PCGS TrueView images: https://www.PCGS.com/cert/37098956These are probably excellent representations of what the coin actually looks like. Enjoy! |
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Pillar of the Community
Taiwan
606 Posts |
The photos do not resemble what the coin looked like when I examined it at the Belzberg sale. Also the coin
has been down graded from a Sp 65 to Sp 64. So something has transpired. The Cook coins will be on display
this week in Chicago at the CSNS so maybe we can get some feedback from a forum member.
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Valued Member
Canada
221 Posts |
I took the time to take a look at the additions that Heritage Auctions has made over the past week. And at the end, it's a really terrible observation. As of today, only for certified coins that have been published on the Heritage website, we are talking about more than 65 coins certified by PCGS with the mention «Cleaned» or «Damaged». And looking the coins that have not been certified by PCGS, I counted at least several dozen additional coins that seem to have been cleaned. There are even some coins certified without problem by PCGS, while I have serious doubts (Probably many dipped silver coins)... I really have a hard time understanding why someone would do that with coins of this calibre.  I'm sorry if my English isn't perfect... I'm learning a little more every day.
Edited by ainsivalavie
04/28/2019 12:25 am
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
1442 Posts |
Some of the cleaned varieties in the George Cook Collection include: 1c 1859 9/6 1c 1859 DP9-2 Specimen 1c 1884 Obverse 1 1c 1929 High 9 5c 1875 Small date 5c 1884 Near 4 25c 1906 Small Crown (possibly) 50c 1870 No LCW 50c 1872H A/V  Edited by canadian-varieties
04/28/2019 03:35 am
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Valued Member
Canada
321 Posts |
Also the fabulous 1905 specimen 50 cents, who was also the coin on the 2015 Charlton. As far as I know it was the only one known in private hands whit at least one in institutional collection. |
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
2781 Posts |
Quote:
They claim that while approximately 20 out of the approximately one thousand coins of the late George Cook were cleaned none of the important key coins were cleaned and the 1911 dollar was not cleaned. what else would you expect them to say  |
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Valued Member
Canada
221 Posts |
Quote:
I took the time to take a look at the additions that Heritage Auctions has made over the past week.
And at the end, it's a really terrible observation. As of today, only for certified coins that have been published on the Heritage website, we are talking about more than 65 coins certified by PCGS with the mention «Cleaned» or «Damaged».
And looking the coins that have not been certified by PCGS, I counted at least several dozen additional coins that seem to have been cleaned. There are even some coins certified without problem by PCGS, while I have serious doubts (Probably many dipped silver coins)...
I really have a hard time understanding why someone would do that with coins of this calibre. As of today, we have reached 99 coins certified by PCGS with the mention «Cleaned» or «Damaged». I'm sorry if my English isn't perfect... I'm learning a little more every day.
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Moderator
Canada
10458 Posts |
Anyone catch the latest Trends Commentary, in the June 25th Canadian Coin News issue? The last sentence, albeit a bit ambiguous and non-specific, has a powerful message when you read between the lines... Quote:
"A particular collectors' selfishness resulted in the absolute abuse of important Canadian numismatic rarities." Well done Mr. Findlay, for sticking your neck out and calling this one out for what it really is... a future pint of beer will be on me... "Discovery follows discovery, each both raising and answering questions, each ending a long search, and each providing the new instruments for a new search." -- J. Robert OppenheimerContent of this post is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses...0/deed.en_USMy eBay store
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
5324 Posts |
Just to add a little more info on this subject, as mentioned on another topic at the recent CSNS Chicago show Heritage offered to show me or anyone there about a hundred or so of regraded Cook collection coins but none of the real key dates. Of this 20 or so was noted as problem coins, another 80 or so seems graded fine but another 20 or so are I guess conserved and regraded with numeric label. I can clearly see hairlines on these, so that is why I mentioned buyer beware on my previous topic, glad that other more experience dealers see the same problem
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Replies: 68 / Views: 17,188 |
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Posted 04/01/2019 01:06 am
