Research Request: NGC Liberty Nickel Sample Slabs

If you have an NGC Liberty nickel Sample Slab (Schwager# NGC-005-4-1) that you did not obtain in the last couple years off ebay, I would like some information about it - I'm working on a study of the population of this unusual sample and maybe an article for the Numismatist.



(If you did buy from the ebay, I have the data from ebay, but would love to match people to sales)

Instead of a coin series or grade, these list "CIRC. 5C" and are "SAMPLE FA 00 NGC" which is also used for several dime samples.

What I'm interested in:

Cert#, e.g. 199998-025
Coin Date, e.g 1905
Label Color - known are "brown", "green" and "grey"
Where you obtained it
When you obtained it

Price paid if you care to disclose it


I know of the example from Sample Slabs.

If you have any information about their history or are willing to own up to having had them made, etc. I'd love to hear from you via PM if you don't want to go public.


Interestingly enough while 199998 and 199999 are common invoices for sample slabs, the 199998-xxx in the NGC database actually matches to these (but does not indicate how many times the invoice was reused even for the CIRC. 5C samples).

So far these are known with all dates from 1898 to 1912 (a 1913 being HIGHLY unlikely ) and the coins are pretty uniformly G4 grade.


MODS: Please don't move to TPG section - these are somewhat of a novelty and I'm trying to hit the wider audience who might have one "lying around from back-in-the day" Thanks!