Coins You Have Once Owned, Sold Or Traded, And That You Wish You Had Again!

Impressive list Westernsky!!

Great question oriole! Economics. Simple answer is 21 year old son was a newborn, and he was gonna need some new shoes. You know how the story goes! He did get those new shoes. Senior in college now. Proud of him.

Not a U.S. coin, but I sold an ancient silver tetradrachm of Hadrian (Nilus reclining reverse), in February 1976, and bought it back again at public auction, as part of a job lot, about 20 years later.

with wanting them all back as a collector. Not so sure I agree the same when I was a full time coin dealer.

I built a few collections over the years, my favorite one, I built over a dozen years or so, finished off by it's sale to help pay my father's mounting medical bills. It was a really nice Two Cent Piece collection (complete in all but the 1864 Small Motto Proof), both for Business strike and Proofs, all coins were slabbed NGC/PCGS at 66BN or 66RB, (1867DDO in NGC MS64RB), the complete collection included the Small Motto in MS only, Both styles of Plain and Fancy 1865, Both 1872 Business and proof strikes as well as the proof only open and closed 1873 varieties.

A few other coins I had and either traded or sold I wish I could have back now:

1793 Chain Cent S-1 might go AU today but was easily an EF45 with no issues, it looked very original and had clean, porous free surfaces.

1836 Gobrecht dollar Pattern J58 Impaired Proof in an ANACS AU53 old small white holder, just hairlines from an old attempt at cleaning, really not too bad as the coin was starting to re-tone. This is the obverse with "C.Gobrecht.f." under Liberty.

1866 W/Rays Shield Nickle NGC MS66 (should've been a 66+ or 67 IMO).

A run of 3 strongly struck 1882, 1883, 1884 New Orleans Mint Morgan dollars, All of them with the cleanest cheeks and deepest full DMPLs I ever saw, (you would swear they were branch proofs, but ANACS nixed that in person). I traded straight across a Saint Gaudens double eagle for each silver dollar. Other dealers and friends thought I was nuts (at the time, early 1980's, that was probably about $375/coin). I ended up doing okay when I sold them, I actually made some profit. But, if I could have them today? In PCGS slabs I'd bet 66/67+ DMPL and $60K+ per/coin. They are still some of the finest Morgan dollars I ever saw in hand (until I got to see the Jack Lee collection up close and personal).

1878-S Morgan VAM 72 It ended up being the discovery piece I traded it to Larry Briggs, who figured out it wasn't the VAM 28 I thought it was. He ended up giving me a bit extra in trade at the next Long Beach show IIRC. Stand Up guy and dealer! Coin was pulled out of a "your pick silver dollar bucket" at a local "We buy Gold" shop in SoCal around 2000 for about $8 or $10, I also pulled two nice 1878-P 8TF VAM 9's from the same shop - XF/AU on all the coins.

I also stupidly turned down a chance to buy a 1878-P 7/8TF VAM44 ANACS MS63DMPL old white small holder, IIRC the price was about $2300.00 and it was right before the TOP 100 VAM book was released. That coin resold a few times over that year ending up being a $25K+ coin. So technically that coin just "got away" and I never had any ownership in it.

The only coin I really miss is the 1955 DDO Lincoln I inherited from my dad. I sold the s-vdb, a 14-D (which he pulled from circ.), 22 plain XF, that 55/55 and a 1942/1 dime for the 5k downpayment on my house in 2008. I like to brag my downpayment was $.14. He told me "don't ever sell the coins" but I am sure he would approve of that choice. I have since flipped a couple 14-D's and 22 plains. I don't miss them one bit. Some day I will get a 55/55 with more eye appeal than that AU details coin had. I will just hold it for a while and let it move on. Hopefully at a profit.