Additional US Gold Dollar Purchasing Questions...

Honestly? No, not really. Even the experts get fooled every once in a while, and the truly reliable places are going to be selling higher-end stuff than that. Gold is a field where the near-universal advice is "buy slabbed." Gold Dollars are pretty common; you're not going to pay a huge premium for a slabbed coin over a raw one.




You vastly overestimate us; thank you for that.

I'd be surprised if as many as half of our members shop in "gold coin" price ranges.

To piggy back on what Dave said a bit, you can look for stores that sell on ebay who have no reason to ever try and sell a fake. A lot of nationally known shops have ebay stores now. Places like a David Lawrence come to mind, whether or not they will have what you want is another story.

Also dont forget, anything thats slabbed is only a couple well placed strikes away from being a raw coin again if thats what you really want.

littleboy, you said:




This is a good point -- my only concern though is that there is one jewelry dealer in town who I know to have "coin experience," and he is one of the ones that felt that gold dollar of mine was probably genuine. That concerns me, since most here were strongly of the opinion that there was good likelihood that it was NOT. I totally agree with you that a piece that was formerly jewelry, but which has been carefully removed, could be just perfect for me...but that issue of "yeah, but is it genuine" still looms...NONE of those types of pieces would come with any assurance of authenticity...

basebal21, you said:




Good point; I may have to check into that. The issue is, the guy I bought the coin from had no reason to try and sell a fake; the issue was, he had NO IDEA it was a fake. I'm nearly certain after talking to him that he was just another guy like me, with little knowledge but a coin to sell. He has 100% feedback rating, on about 100 sales of various things (he's not a coin dealer or pawn shop type). So, it's not just people KNOWINGLY selling fakes, it's people selling fakes who don't even KNOW it...

That being said, your point is well taken.

You also said this:




Well-placed strikes, meaning "to break open the holder?" If that's what you mean, then yes, that's of course true. My problem though is not that it's in a holder per se, just that it being "slabbed and graded" adds substantial expense to a coin -- it's the catch 22. If I want to know it's genuine, it has to be authenticated. To be authenticated, that means "slabbed and graded" -- and thus much more expensive. I paid only $103 for that coin on ebay, and it just HAPPENED to be possibly fake. If my luck happened to be such that I paid that price and it WAS real (remember, the seller thought it was), then it would have been a great price...less than HALF of what I'll pay for a low-end slabbed coin...probably even less than that. I haven't seen a slabbed one go for less than about $250 (though I haven't been watching those ones closely, since they are out of my price range).

Anyway, I really appreciate the help, folks...and the time you are taking to assist me in this. Any other thoughts from anyone else?

Steve

One other question...how true would you say this statement is...

"If I take an accurate scale, that measures to 1/1000th of a gram, and the coin weighs precisely, or nearly precisely, what it should -- at least to 1/100th of a gram, then I can be certain it is genuine."

I would suspect this is NOT an iron-clad way to authenticate a coin, but I'd think it should be true in most cases. Am I right, or wrong, on this?

Steve

Thanks for the kind words. I'm all ears, and I love to learn.

On this next commment, I'm really going to show my ignorance, but...

You said:




I looked at that coin, and my utterly untrained eye would have questions...why is the rim on the left side of the obverse (adjacent to the word "United") much more worn, and the raised part of the rim seemingly more "narrow," than the rim 180 degrees opposite (adjacent to the words "of America", on the right side of the obverse.) You see that same "flaw" show up on the reverse -- on the right side vs. the left side. While I guess that could be just an artifact of the way that coin was struck, it would cause me and my untrained eye to wonder...thoughts?

You also said:




Your point is well-taken, and I've thought that my education needs to be upgraded as well -- part of why I have coming, as a Christmas present, a new book:

The Official American Numismatic Association Grading Standards for United States Coins by Kenneth Bressett. Hopefully, it's a good one...

Finally, you said:




Really? I had no idea. I didn't check into it, with respect to sending in this coin I had just bought, because I didn't have time (only 14 days to return the coin). But, I was of the impression anecdotally, that anywhere I'd send it would have charged much more than that...

Can you give me a little more info on the process, the cost, and which company would be the best to send a coin to, for my purposes?

The coin I linked shows things I would expect to see in a $1 Gold strike. That's where "knowledge" comes in.

OK, TPG Grading 101:

3 major TPG's - PCGS, NGC, ANACS. A couple more respectable ones. Those three are listed in the order the market tends to credit them - PCGS coins seem to bring higher prices than the others but not uniformly. PCGS and NGC require membership to submit (an ANA member has submission privileges at NGC), ANACS does not require membership.

Your theoretical $1 Gold would cost you $32 at PCGS, $30 at NGC and $19 at ANACS; all of these reflect a non-"minimum" submission level required of gold coins. Regular non-gold coinage can be graded more cheaply at all 3 places. Shipping and insurance are of course extra.

APMEX is selling raw Type 1's. You can save $50 if you don't care that it's been cleaned.

Dave -- thanks for TPG 101! :)

Can you tell me what you mean by "all reflect a non-minimum submission level?"

Heck, if $19 plus shipping through ANACS gets me confirmation that it's genuine, that would be worth it...

I haven't sent that coin back to the seller yet; if it's really only $19 plus shipping for ANACS to "authenticate" it, I wonder if I could talk the seller into extending my "return deadline," in order to wait until I send it in to ANACS...if it comes back "authentic," then I'd keep it; if it comes back "fake," then I could send it back WITH the documentation that it's fake...he might go for that...

For $19, that seems quite reasonable, to me...am I missing anything here?

Steve