The Darkside Typeset: Accugrade 20th Century

Those of you who know me know I love slabs for the history. Old slabs. Sample slabs especially. ANACS and ACG. Even some ICG. Sure NGC and PCGS - can't avoid THEM.

And if you hit up the shows, you know THAT dealer who shows up to every coin show... and never seems to sell anything? Has a website, but 2000 wants its design back. The site has an address and a phone number and so it answers the mail. But it may be the last place on earth to use that template and was last updated in 2012.

Back to the show. You know they buy & sell a TON of PMs. You always see them doing deals, the Double Eagles roll in and they roll out. He has a roll of cash that would choke a Great Dane.

HOWEVER: The rare coins are pretty much fully priced at retail. Month after month, the coins in that 3rd row of the case are the same. As are the 2nd and 4th rows.

What happens when the two collide? tl;dr: a darkside typeset

At the last show in *********, ** I was talking to the proprietor of that table. * of *&* Enterprises in *********, **. Now he's a really nice guy. Jovial. Knowledgeable. There are far, far worse ways to spend the slow afternoon of a coin show than talking to him. I could be laying tile or grouting it.

He has had a 1929-D Buffalo nickel, in ACG plastic graded MS-**. He's had that coin (or its cousin) since 2018. I've looked at that coin a dozen times. And he's always asked for full PCGS MS-** money. I love ACG, but while momma raised an idiot child, this one is not quite THAT much of an idiot. I told him I had other ACG coins and he said, OK, I paid $### for it, make me an offer.

I quoted a number that just about would make Momma's 4% passbook saving account proud. Call it half the initial quote. And he took it.

Then we continued talking. He told me I should consign all my ACG slabs and let him turn them into real money.

I politely declined.

And he asked what I was going to do with them. And I didn't have an answer.

Something I'm reading a few days later triggered Peanut (that little piece of my brain that wakes me up at 3 am with either the answer to a problem or something crazy).

I know... I can create an Accugrade Typeset for the 20th century. It's doable because back in the day, lots of people slabbed coins in ACG plastic that they wouldn't slab in PCGS or NGC.

Of course, the OCD kicks it. It's not good enough to have ONE cent for a type set, in the 20th Century we have

* KM-90a, the Indian Head cent, 1900-1909
* KM-132 the original from 1909 to 1942
* KM-132a, the 1943 Steel cent
* KM-A132 the original design resumed, 1944-1958
* KM-201, the Lincoln Memorial, 1959-1982
* KM-201a/KM-201b, the ZLincoln, 1982-1999

Total it all up and there are 44 items in the set without any gold. There are also commemoratives and bullion coins. And eventually room for some oddballs I just happen to like.

It's a work in progress, but here it is...