MS-67+ Red 1911 Lincoln Cent, One Of Two Finest Known, Brings $15,243.75

I wanna see the MS-68 coin.

Do you really think you can tell the difference

That may be why I posted what I did, and a good point.




No, but I would like to attempt to find what the differences are between (according to PCGS) a $17,500 MS-67+ and a $40,000 MS-68. Call it morbid curiosity because I will never buy either.

Oh so many things I'd rather have with that money.

Registry collecting would seem to be the best thing that could have happened to TPG services and auction houses. Whether it is good for the hobby as a whole is debatable, I suppose, but it's not my money, so have fun. As I mentioned in a post elsewhere, the whole business of conditional rarities fascinates me, but I suspect that it is also an area in which ego and perhaps auction fever can creep in quite easily with the best pieces. I also suspect that it is one of the riskier areas of collecting, as my "only one certified" 67+ can lose a stunning amount of its value on the day someone shows up with a 68. You can find some very interesting examples of that by looking at the PCGS charts and noting where a certain coin has a highest auction price of something like $20K a number of years ago, but coins of the same grade now sell for about 20% as much, as the population at the same level, or worse, a higher level, has expanded. In summary, the coin at hand here is beautiful, but if I'm going to pay $15K for a "common" Lincoln, it darn well better be *the* best, with good prospects of staying that way. This of course, means that this variety of collecting is excluded for me by budgetary constraints, so I watch as an interested observer.

I am not trying to cause a problem here - but how can we all know what you are proposing is factual either?

Granted, we don't know if people proposing the:

are correct either.

Fact is not subject to human wishes/desires/whims. And until there is verifiable data, statements that bidders are not just registry collectors paying for the label have absolutely no more validity/legitimacy to them than statements saying the opposite.

One more item to consider though is that since the registry sets were implemented online (genius by the TPG marketing departments to promote their product) costs/winning bids have gone up for slabs with the highest known grades.

Couple this verifiable fact with another verifiable fact that humans naturally are competitive, and the rise in prices does seem to follow typical human trends.

It is more logical to assume (note that word) there is competition and some ego involved than assuming these incidents occur from just a bunch of rich guys having fun throwing large sums of money around b/c they like the metal disk enclosed in the plastic that just happens to have the highest grade (or close) known on the printed label.

Also, since these bidders are having fun with it, its their money, and they choose to ignore/care about the profiteers laughing, then all the more power to them.

Beanie Baby collectors also once were of same mind and "knew" their collectables were bullet proof. So if a better slab is made, and the value of this thread's slab goes down, the result will either be an expensive lesson to someone who does not see the whole picture, or the result will be just a a small loss to someone for whom the amount spent means little.