Wtc Silver Eagle Dollars - Genuine?

"The COA is meaningless, the slab certifies it as from the WTC.
In either case, it seems to be simple exploitation."


Thanks TH, I thought that might be the case but wanted to check it out. I also can see your point of view as regards exploitation, I have collected gold sovereigns for a number of years now, and any that have come off wrecks, etc, always carry a premium, because of the history behind them. I suppose the company that salvages them have to attempt to get some of their money back, I`m sure the same can be said in this case. However, the proof in the pudding will be whether these silver eagles are still commanding this premium, in years to come, only time will tell. But I think that they will. Slighty off topic, I have a couple of sovereigns used during the first gulf war, I`ve seen them on list since I bought mine, and they`ve certainly gone up in value?

"They have no qualifications as CU has no graders. CU is a corporate entity or holding company that produces nothing and merely owns other companies. They simply told one of the companies they ownd to "Put these in holders" The coins are not graded at all. Gem Uncirculated is just a catch all term used on ungraded coins that are at least MS. And how often have you seen circulated silver eagles? So they simply made all of the CU coins Gem Uncirculated"

Okey copy that, seems a bit of a sneaky trick to be honest. To that end, mine is in a slab with no numbers & has a hologram & PCGS on the back, is this a genuine WTC coin?

Are there any examples that have been proved to not be from the WTC, thus avoided?


"I believe most of the COA's come from the companies that sold the coins on the open market. They did not come from the slabbers. I'm not sure what numbers you are referring to. If you mean grades, refer to my first post in this thread. If you mean the 1 of XXX that appears on some of the slabs, these were fake "Limited editions" created by the people who submitted the coins to PCGS (Not CU) for slabbing as WTC coins. These will ALL say 1 of XXX. You will not see a 2, 3, 4, or any other number. These were a scam from the word go. The only "limit" to this edition was the number of coins in the submission, the submitter would then sell each of them as the FIRST coin of a limited edition, and if they managed to sell them all, they just sent in another batch and created another "limited" edition."


Now this is a really sneaky trick!!!!! Why are people so intent on trying to rip people off these days. Surely when collectors all start having 1 of XXX, then then alarm bells would start to ring, and court cases insue?

Surely there must be records somewhere of how many coins were recovered? I see what you mean about the BU, but some of them are claiming to be og higher grade too? Surely if they`d been in bags in a vault, then they must have been BU, to start with thus couldn`t get a higher grade or can they if they`ve sustained no bag marks?

Finally what does MS mean?

I had no idea things could be so dodgey in the coin would. I left medal collecting for just this reason. I think I`ll just stick to buying boxstandard eagles for their bullion content, as apposed to collecting proofs & WTC, etc,etc.

Many thanks for your help, if you can answer any of my questions, I`d very much like to ehar from you.

GS

GS,
Collectors Universe(CU) is the parent company of PCGS. They also own companies that certify/authenticate currency, stamps, gems, and sports memorabilia.

PCGS is considered to be the top dog when it comes to grading services.

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Surely there must be records somewhere of how many coins were recovered? I see what you mean about the BU, but some of them are claiming to be og higher grade too? Surely if they`d been in bags in a vault, then they must have been BU, to start with thus couldn`t get a higher grade or can they if they`ve sustained no bag marks?

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I am sure records exist as to how many were recovered but that number is largely irrelevant. The important number would be how many were sent to CU/PCGS originally. However, I do not know this number. As far as I know, Silver Eagles are never stored in bags. The large bullion dealers that can purchase Eagles directly from the Mint purchase them in a package called a "green monster." It is a large green plastic box containing 25 rolls of 20 coins for a total of 500 Eagles. This type of packaging protects the Eagles from marks that they would acquire sitting in bags. BU is a general descriptive term, not a reference to a specific MS(mint state) grade. Before slabs and minute grading differences were prevalent, the following terms were commonplace- Unc(uncirculated) is generally MS60-62, BU(brilliant uncirculated) is generally MS63-64, and Gem BU is MS65+. Silver Eagles that have been handled properly should grade MS66+ since they do not have issues with contact marks from bags.

The CU slabs are just assigned a basic condition descriptor instead of an actual numeric grade. If you had a CU slab with the BU grade, you should be able to have PCGS reslab it with the 9/11 provenance and an actual numeric grade.

Bio, found this....

Wednesday August 06, 2003 3:20 PM



There is a critical article on page C1 of today's Wall Street Journal about the encapsulated 9-11 so-called "death coins." The heading gives the thrust of the article" "'Sept 11' Coins Carry Hefty Markups and Heavy Baggage." The second sentence also has the same general thrust: "But the price markups being charged and the use of packaging with a 'Sept. 11' theme have some coin experts cringing."

Scott Travers is quoted as saying "It's morbid, disgusting and shocks the sense that any individual or corporation could capitalize on the Sept. 11 tragedy in this horrid way." On the other hand, Mark Renstrom, a salesman of the coins at Preferred Customer Club (as an aside, has anyone heard of this outfit?) says "There may not be a coin that has as much history as these do."

The article says that people in the coin industry said Lee S. Minshull of Lee Minshull Rare Coins Inc. in Palos Verdes, Calif., was behind the purchase of the raw coins from the initial owner, Bank of Nova Scotia. The bank sold the coins for $560,118 and donated the full amount to 20 charities.

The article noted that the coins were slabbed by PCGS and there is a picture of a coin in a PCGS slab. Mike Sherman of PCGS said "A submitter brought the deal and requested the pedigree." He said about 100,000 coins were submitted and the slabbing was discounted because of the large number. Mr. Sherman said "What's the alternative? Bury them in [the] ground or destroy them?"

The article says that people in the coin industry said Lee S. Minshull of Lee Minshull Rare Coins Inc. in Palos Verdes, Calif., was behind the purchase of the raw coins from the initial owner, Bank of Nova Scotia. The bank sold the coins for $560,118 and donated the full amount to 20 charities.

The article noted that the coins were slabbed by PCGS and there is a picture of a coin in a PCGS slab. Mike Sherman of PCGS said "A submitter brought the deal and requested the pedigree." He said about 100,000 coins were submitted and the slabbing was discounted because of the large number. Mr. Sherman said "What's the alternative? Bury them in [the] ground or destroy them?"


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Now my understanding is that they stopped slabbing them, after a certain number as there were just to many of them, and the rest just went back into general use. Do you agree or have I miss read this. I know it doesn`t give us a fixed number, but there must be a far few, who knows maybe even a none slabbed one, might just might be one from the WTC anyway, who can say?

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Okey copy that, seems a bit of a sneaky trick to be honest. To that end, mine is in a slab with no numbers & has a hologram & PCGS on the back, is this a genuine WTC coin?

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What do you mean by it has no numbers? Do you mean that it doesn't have a grade and just says Gem Uncirculated but has a PCGS logo on the back? If so are the four lines of text on the front closely spaced together or are the lines of text well separated? I have seen a very few mule slabs with the CU front labels and the PCGS back. The CU labels have the lines closely spaced and the back label is blank. (The CU logo and hologram are on the outside of the holder.) On the PCGS slabs the lines of text are well apart and the back label has a serial number and a barcode on it. (The barcode is mostly hidden by the hologram.) I don't believe I have ever seen a PCGS slab with PCGS label type that just said Gem Uncirculated.

I'm sure you coin is a true WTC coin, the only question is which company produced it.

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Are there any examples that have been proved to not be from the WTC, thus avoided?

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From PCGS, No. There is a series of WTC slabs from Global Certification Service that commemorates the WTC but these silver eagles are NOT part of the WTC recovery.

The only other company I know of that issued WTC recovery slabs with coins actually recovered from the site is a slab from ICG. These are much harder to come by than the PCGS and CU issues.

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Now this is a really sneaky trick!!!!! Why are people so intent on trying to rip people off these days. Surely when collectors all start having 1 of XXX, then then alarm bells would start to ring, and court cases insue?

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Sure but who are you going to sue? PCGS? They did nothing wrong, they just labeled them the way the customer requested. A guy on ebay selling them? Good luck. finding out who he is, where he is, and getting any law enforcement interested in pursueing a distant cross juridictional case for a relatively very small amount of money. (And don't expect to get any help from ebay.) You're not likely to get much interest unless you lose $50K or more. And unless you can also prove he is the original submitter (or can show that he has pulled the scam multiple times) He can just claim that he saw the "1 of" and thought that it must have been the first one.

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Finally what does MS mean?

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Basicly it means an uncirculated coin, or a coin with no wear. In US grading there are eleven levels of MS grades from a low of 60 to a high of 70. The differences between the levels are related to the sharpness of the strike, the quality of the luster, and the number of contact marks on the coin. Since they are not struck at high speed or handled like circulation coinage is, almost all silver eagles will grade MS-65 or higher.

Some of this is a repeat from earlier but this is what was printed in the Slabbook. (To the list mommy, yes I know this is copyrighted material but it's OK, I own the copyright.)

PCGS 6N4 These slabs, although in PCGS shells, were actually produced for their parent company Collectors Universe. The CU logo and hologram appear on the back of the slab instead of the PCGS versions. The coins and other items were recovered from the Comex vaults in the WTC complex. All of the items are graded as "Gem Uncirculated". So far I have seen the following in these slabs. Silver eagles, Silver Maple Leafs, 1961 Uruguay 10 pesos, all fractions of Gold US Eagles, 1 oz gold maple leaf, 1/4, ½ and 1 oz Australian gold bullion coins, Mexican 50 pesos gold, and one oz gold bars. All of the coins except the Uruguay and Mexican pieces have been various dates. See next.

PCGS 6N5 After the PCGS 6N4 became a market success PCGS decided they needed a piece of the action for themselves and they began slabbing WTC recovered coins under their own name. In order to keep the tie in a little more obvious though, PCGS only slabbed 2001 Silver Eagles. All of them are graded MS-69 and they have the PCGS logo and hologram on the back. It says a lot for brand names that after these came out the PCGS 6N4 with the CU logo slabs dropped in value by 2/3rds and these took off.

As of 11/24/02 this variety has expanded with a large number of new items being slabbed in this holder variety. For months (roughly a year), as mentioned above, the only item seen in this holder were MS-69 2001 silver eagles. Suddenly MS-68's are appearing along with 1991 silver eagles (MS-69), 1/10 oz gold eagles dates 98, 99, and 01, and the first platinum coin I have seen in any of the WTC holders a one oz 2001. In addition I have seen some "limited edition" versions of this slab variety, A 2001 MS-69 listed on the holder as being 1 of 1000, a 2001 MS-69 1/10 oz gold also listed on the holder as 1 of 1000, and another 2001 MS-69 silver eagle with 1 of 1440 on the label. I get the feeling that every piece in those "limited editions" will be labeled "1 of" instead of an actual number and eventually they will be showing up being hawked as "low numbered!" And of course once an "edition" sells out, they just submit another "limited edition"

(As mentioned earlier it turns out that was actually the case.)

As requested, images of the CU and PCGS WTC slabs (My apologies for the images not being the same size.)

CU



PCGS



As you can see on the CU slab front label the lines of text are very close together, and on the PCGS slab the lines of text are almost 3/4 the height of the text apart.

Many thanks for the pictures Gary. I`m still in two minds really, about whether there worth the currenlt asking prices or not. I think the prices will go up as apoosed to come down, but only time will tell. I`ve bought one a 1991 example. Just so I`ve got one in my collection. I certainly won`t be buying anymore, unless the price does of course come down.
There seems to be a distinct lack of information about them and there recovery on the net, which I think is a shame. I have however, been chatting to a guy via ebay, who told me that he`s currently writing a book about them, it won`t be out any time soon, but ceratinly something to look forward to. From what he`s told me its taken him a few years to put all the infomration together, so sounds like an interesting read. I recently watched the film `Loose Change` has anyone else on the forum seen it want do you think?

An Exploitation of a tragic event.