Unique US Coins You Can Buy Right Now Or Could Have Bought In The Past - Page 2

To participate in the forum you must log in or register.

Author	Replies: 48 / Views: 4,754	Page: of 4

numismatic student Bedrock of the Community United States 11898 Posts	Posted 09/24/2022 01:26 am That is spectacular and interesting westcoin. Thanks for sharing. As I look at your exhibits I find myself asking myself some questions. I think that for me there is a distinction in numismatics as to what is a collectible coin. There is a process at the Mint and BEP where coins and paper money are monetized by the Federal Reserve. Before that happens it is just a pile of metal or stack of paper. For many trial pieces, patterns and bullion, these were never meant to be money, but just experiments in design or assayed metal. As such they were never money. As a numismatic coin collector, trials and patterns that were never intended nor had the Federal Reserve waive its magic wand to turn it into money, I don't consider those coins or money. They are extremely interesting as documentation of the process through which money actually came to be in a certain form, but I tend to think that I am a collector of money. That's just my thinking and maybe it's too narrow. What do my friends here think? Does a coin need to be monetized for it to be a coin? IN NECESSARIIS UNITAS - IN DUBIIS LIBERTAS - IN OMNIBUS CARITAS THE MAN IN THE ARENA, Theodore Roosevelt at the Sorbonne Paris on April 23, 1910: "It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat." My coin website:https://fairfaxcoins.com Edited by numismatic student 09/24/2022 01:28 am Report this Post to the Staff
thq Pillar of the Community United States 3343 Posts	Posted 09/24/2022 11:47 am I'll go one step further than monetizing. Unless it functions as money it is a medallion. Carr's Half Dime is a perfect coin. The last example of its type. IMO uncirculated coins fit if they were used by the bagful as transfer payments (all gold coins). Proof coins are in the category of medallions and I say this from the standpoint of liquidating modern proof sets, worth $0.91 each. GSA coins BIG meh. Another shiny coin-ish collectable. "Two minutes ago I would have sold my chances for a tired dime." Fred Astaire Edited by thq 09/24/2022 12:13 pm Report this Post to the Staff
westcoin Pillar of the Community United States 9792 Posts	Posted 09/24/2022 3:10 pm Quote: Does a coin need to be monetized for it to be a coin? Technically I would say - yes, otherwise it's still a collectible none the less. Patterns, trial pieces, splashers, tokens, medals, other exonumia pieces, etc. are still collectible in my mind, and still fall under the numismatic umbrella. Many of the early British provincial tokens and pre-federal America "colonial" coinage would also fall under that umbrella as well, not being monetized, yet often used as money or as an exchange medium, while not expressly officially monetized by any government agency or monarchy. I will agree that none of the items I listed in my post are technically coins per say (except one). All are merely representations of coins (patterns/trials), or more likely tokens, with the exception of the New England III pence, which I believe was intended as a coin and monetized as such by the colony leaders. The others are a trial piece a fantasy piece (made for fun or profit) and a token that I'm really not sure why it was made. Perhaps the 1714 Gloucester Courthouse shilling was more a medallion to celebrate the courthouse as so few were made (or at least survive today) many more would have been produced if they were to serve as a medium of exchange, despite it's name of shilling. Sylvester Sage wrote on it: Quote: It appears to have been intended as a pattern for a shilling of a private coinage, by Richard Dawson of Gloucester [county?] Virginia. It is probable that no tokens of this intended issue were actually put in circulation, as we find no specimen in silver. But two specimens of this are known, both struck in brass. So that leaves the New England III Pence piece left as the only real money or coin I listed. Yet all, I believe, are still very collectible as part of a coin collection. "Buy the Book Before You Buy the Coin" - Aaron R. Feldman - "And read it" - Me 2013! ANA Life Member #3288 in good standing since 1981, ANS, Early American Coppers Member (EAC), Colonial Coin Collectors Club member (C4), Conder Token Collector Club member (CTCC), Civil War Token Society (CWTS) member, Liberty Seated Collectors Club (LSCC) & Numismatic Bibliomania Society member (NBS), USMex, Member in good standing, 2¢ variety collector. See my want page: http://goccf.com/t/140440 Edited by westcoin 09/24/2022 3:11 pm Report this Post to the Staff
thq Pillar of the Community United States 3343 Posts	Posted 09/25/2022 1:17 pm Case in point with GSA is the 1885-CC Morgan. Of the 174,250 PCGS population only 225 are VF-20 or lower, or 0.1%. It's easier to buy an MS67 than a F12. The GSA turned a genuine rarity into a souvenir which never functioned as money. "Two minutes ago I would have sold my chances for a tired dime." Fred Astaire Edited by thq 09/25/2022 1:24 pm Report this Post to the Staff
CarrsCoins Pillar of the Community United States 756 Posts	Posted 10/11/2022 9:07 pm after a significant amount of thought I have decided that I'm going to take my 1800 LM-5 Half Dime to auction. ive had it for almost 20 years. I did the work to get it listed. ive had my adventure with that piece. its a bit of a bittersweet feeling but its someone elses turn to love it. so...if you want to own a unique coin you will have an opportunity next March during Stacks Rarities Night in Baltimore. Report this Post to the Staff
numismatic student Bedrock of the Community United States 11898 Posts	Posted 10/11/2022 9:47 pm Congratulations on your decision. I look forward to seeing when it is listed and catalogued for the sale. I trust you'll create a thread for it. I'll be cheering for a strong and high spirited sale. One thought that I have been rolling around in my head is that it looks like we are on the road to an economic recession here and around the world. Many experts expect it to peak in the first half of 2023. I wonder whether it will affect your bottom line in March. I think the recently concluded Long Beach Show was not as financially strong as sales that took place in 2021 or even earlier this year. I think it is a direct function of financial asset prices at this time. Hard to gauge what will happen in the future during these uncertain times. IN NECESSARIIS UNITAS - IN DUBIIS LIBERTAS - IN OMNIBUS CARITAS THE MAN IN THE ARENA, Theodore Roosevelt at the Sorbonne Paris on April 23, 1910: "It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat." My coin website:https://fairfaxcoins.com Report this Post to the Staff
CarrsCoins Pillar of the Community United States 756 Posts	Posted 10/12/2022 11:12 am thank you! the current economic climate is one of the big things I was thinking about while deciding what to do with the coin. its a bit scary thinking of selling anything going into hard times. ultimately I decided that a number of other factors outweighed that issue. here is some of my thoughts: its hot right now. it just got listed, just got published, and I have had a couple of people ask me about it. that hype and interest wont stick around. more may show up. as a unique coin it is worth more than if there are several available. it is damaged and very low grade. I doubt its position as bottom pop will ever be challenged, but it could lose its top pop status. draped bust Half Dime die varieties are niche coins. the price is all about the finances of a rather small number of people. for all I know those people are flush right now. i dont really need money at the moment. its not good to be broke or need money for a project and try to sell something super niche. i was offered what I felt was a strong number a few years back. at that time I said that I wasnt going to sell it until it was listed. now its listed. walking it through the process of being accepted as a new variety is a cool experience. that is my adventure with this coin. I not collecting these. I have had my journey. if I dont sell it now I probably wont ever sell it. I like it and its fun. discovering a new variety is one of the more unique things I have done. its easy to put it back in the safe. if I do itll sit there till I die. I dont need for it to sit in my safe till I die. its ok with me if someone else gets the opportunity to own the coin. i think sometimes about Dan Holmes and the 1847 N-43 large cent. Dan assembled a fabulous and nearly complete set of large cents by variety. he had all the sheldon varieties, all the NC varieties, every middle date. he was only missing the '47 n-43. there is only a single 1847 N-43. the guy who owns it discovered it and as far as I know has no intention of selling or collecting the series. dan made several offers for it. dude likes his coin and doesn't want to sell it. I like my coin but I dont want to be the bottleneck to someone elses passion in that way. my take from that is that I wont ever get a better opportunity to sell the coin. someone else may be able to make money off of it in the future and thats ok. for me this is the time. --- i do have a thread about the coin on ccf already. you can see it here: http://goccf.com/t/429293 Edited by CarrsCoins 10/12/2022 11:36 am Report this Post to the Staff
jbuck Moderator United States 189053 Posts	Posted 10/12/2022 12:00 pm My sentimentality always gets in the way, but you seem to have given this all the necessary consideration. I wish you good luck! Coin Collector Since 1978 Avatar Old Avatar 7070 Eisenhower Australia Canada World CCF Members on eBay CCF eBay Search Engine Report this Post to the Staff
numismatic student Bedrock of the Community United States 11898 Posts	Posted 10/12/2022 6:56 pm Same here. Seems like you spent a fair amount of time thinking this through. IN NECESSARIIS UNITAS - IN DUBIIS LIBERTAS - IN OMNIBUS CARITAS THE MAN IN THE ARENA, Theodore Roosevelt at the Sorbonne Paris on April 23, 1910: "It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat." My coin website:https://fairfaxcoins.com Report this Post to the Staff
newguy22 Valued Member United States 277 Posts	Posted 10/12/2022 7:54 pm Here's a piece I thought was pretty interesting: An old pattern trial piece struck in copper for the 1794 flowing hair dollar! When I first saw this piece, what caught my attention was the lack of stars. I'm not too sure if a silver example is hidden somewhere out there, but that could possibly surpass a million! This particular piece sold for $840,000 in 2021 at Heritage. Link: https://coins.ha.com/itm/patterns-a...bnail-071515 Report this Post to the Staff
newguy22 Valued Member United States 277 Posts	Posted 10/12/2022 8:33 pm Here are a few more pieces that are also extremely rare. 1760 Florida Proclamation 4 Reales silver piece for Charles III. Believed to be unique in that this piece was struck. Sold at Heritage in 2021 for $132,000. XF40 1760 Florida Proclamation 4 Reales silver piece for Charles III. This particular example is cast, and it is believed around 5 pieces survived. This example sold at Heritage in 2021 for $28,000. AU50 1789 Florida Proclamation 4 Reales silver piece for Charles IV. This is another unique example that was struck and not cast. Sold at Heritage in 2021 for $156,000. AU58 1789 Florida Proclamation 4 Reales silver piece for Charles IV, except this piece was cast and not struck. It's believed around 10 cast examples have survived. Sold at Heritage in 2021 for $21,600. F15 Now here's something that's pretty interesting. According to Heritage, Spanish King Philip V had ordered some coins to be made for Florida back in the 1740s, with these pieces being made at the Mexican mint. However, no records from the mint or examples made are believed to have survived. However, this doesn't mean that one such example is hidden somewhere just waiting to be discovered. Sort of makes one wonder what American coins out there are so rare and so elusive, that no official photographs have ever been taken...yet Report this Post to the Staff
numismatic student Bedrock of the Community United States 11898 Posts	Posted 10/12/2022 10:25 pm Those die renderings of Charles III & IV look like they might have been engraved locally in the New World from the primitive renderings. Official mint NW mint dies came from Spain and had much more sophisticated portraits. Juan Estevan de Peña was the Royal Treasurer of Florida and likely had this engraved locally to celebrate the coronation of Charles III in 1760. Charles IV in 1789. Charles III Charles IV IN NECESSARIIS UNITAS - IN DUBIIS LIBERTAS - IN OMNIBUS CARITAS THE MAN IN THE ARENA, Theodore Roosevelt at the Sorbonne Paris on April 23, 1910: "It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat." My coin website:https://fairfaxcoins.com Report this Post to the Staff
newguy22 Valued Member United States 277 Posts	Posted 10/12/2022 11:59 pm Here's an early American coin with only 3 known examples (for this particular variety, maybe 8 total known examples when including other varieties). This is an old 1794 Talbot, Allum & Lee, New York cent struck in silver. The example above has a small ampersand on the reverse. Only 3 specimens are known for this variety. The other variety, with a larger ampersand on the reverse, has an estimated 3-4 known examples. Many many examples struck in copper have come up for sale in past auctions, but the silver examples are exceptionally rare. I'd imagine some of these tokens were traded on Wall Street back in the day. This particular example sold at Heritage in 2021 for $33,600, PF65. Link: https://coins.ha.com/itm/colonials/...ction-120115 Here's a great link to a web page that goes into greater depth regarding these coins/tokens. These pieces were "the first American merchant token produced on a large scale." Link: https://coins.nd.edu/colcoin/colcoi...t.intro.html Report this Post to the Staff
newguy22 Valued Member United States 277 Posts	Posted 10/20/2022 6:59 pm 1804 $10 Gold Eagle pattern piece made in silver. Plain 4. Only 4 examples are known to exist. Struck in 1834, this piece was a trial strike for the gold eagles that would be included in proof sets the US government was planning to give to other monarchs around the world as representative gifts of the United States. These sets are where the famed 1804 dollars come from. This example sold for $288,000 back in 2021 at Heritage. PR64 Link: https://coins.ha.com/itm/patterns-a...bnail-071515 Report this Post to the Staff
numismatic student Bedrock of the Community United States 11898 Posts	Posted 10/20/2022 9:18 pm nice! IN NECESSARIIS UNITAS - IN DUBIIS LIBERTAS - IN OMNIBUS CARITAS THE MAN IN THE ARENA, Theodore Roosevelt at the Sorbonne Paris on April 23, 1910: "It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat." My coin website:https://fairfaxcoins.com Report this Post to the Staff
	Replies: 48 / Views: 4,754	Page: of 4

First Page Last 15 Replies

To participate in the forum you must log in or register.

All Forums Category: US Coins and Currency Forums Forum: US Classic and Colonial Coins

Silver Gold Bull US is the United States leading bullion dealer. We deliver gold coins, gold bars, silver coins, silver bars and precious metals to your door. Order today!

The First Dollar, your premier source for bullion and rare coins. See our bullion list on the site and the coin inventory on ebay.

View Last 100 New Topics

View Last 100 Active Topics

Disclaimer: While a tremendous amount of effort goes into ensuring the accuracy of the information contained in this site, Coin Community assumes no liability for errors. Copyright 2005 - 2026 Coin Community Family- all rights reserved worldwide. Use of any images or content on this website without prior written permission of Coin Community or the original lender is strictly prohibited.
Contact Us | Advertise Here | Privacy Policy / Terms of Use

Coin Community Forum

It took 0.86 seconds to rattle this change.