Advice On Gold Coin Purchase

I'd stay away from listings with stock photos (usually, the dealer will say that it's a stock phote). The coin you get might be spotted, badly toned, overgraded, etc.

Of course, there are worse things an ebay seller can do, like sending an empty packet, taking your payment and sending nothing, etc.

I've been buying the odd pre-1933 U.S. gold coin for several years but have stayed away from the graded/slabbed coins mainly due to te higher price. Over the past 2 days, however, I purchased one each of the final 4 years of $10 Liberty Eagles minted at Carson City from Coast to Coast Coins & Currency, as follows:

1890-CC
1891-CC
1892-CC
1893-CC

Each coin was shown with obverse & reverse as well as a pic of the PCGS slab with their reg number & grading info. I paid a premium for at least one coin but these are the last 4 years of production & were coined in limited numbers from the shrinking supply of Comstock Lode gold. These coins are history.

Not only were the CoastCoin people friendly & efficient in processing my orders, I was encouraged by their top rating with the BBB as well as their 100% positive feedback score in their ebay store. They also have a 14-day return policy, so I felt confident in dealing with them.

There was a thread 9 years ago in this board that spoke very negatively about this firm. Apparently that thread is locked because I could not post to it even after having sent a message to a moderator.

That is a shame on the fakes. I bought a gold dollar recently, but I am confident on the seller and the pictures they post to be legitimate.

As expected, both coins purchased on 10/22 arrived in my P.O. Box today: $10 1891-CC & 1892-CC. I am very pleased with both the coins & the service. Both PCGS file numbers check out online. The $10 1890-CC & 1893-CC should arrive tomorrow according to the USPS.

A local banker collects Carson City Morgan dollars & asked to borrow my book on the history of the Comstock Lode, which was the source of the silver that went into minting those coins. He is interested in seeing my 4 Carson City eagles so I will be stopping by his office on my way to my safety deposit box. It's a shame to lock up such beautiful & valuable coins but our quiet suburban town was the recent victim of a knife-wielding robber at a local book store. Five years ago there was a local rash of breaking-and-entering robberies in our quiet neighborhood. The gang would ring the doorbell to see if anyone was home, then check for unlocked windows & doors in order to gain entry unobserved. Our lawyer nearby was one victim. I've become compulsive about checking door & window locks. I leave the motion-activated floodlights in our side yard on 24/7. This is where my Kohler 14 kW genset is located & is fenced in, so the windows on that side of the house make ideal targets for B&E thugs, especially after dark. The floodlights would scare away anyone prowling back there because they have no way of knowing if it also triggered a silent alarm or CCTV camera.

From the Wiki article on the Comstock Lode: The Crown Point-Belcher bonanza was discovered in 1870. The ore body extended from the 900 to the 1,500-foot level (275 to 460 m), having a length of 775 feet (236 m) and a width of 120 feet (37 m). The ore, the precious metal value of which was 54 percent from gold and 46 percent from silver, lasted only four years.

'The total production of ore extracted and milled in the Comstock District, 1860 to June 30, 1880, was 6,971,641 tons, 640 pounds. Peak production from the Comstock occurred in 1877, with the mines producing over $14,000,000 of gold and $21,000,000 of silver that year (about $329,393,750 and $494,090,625 today).

The Comstock Lode was both silver & gold. When first found, the placer gold miners from the 1849 California gold rush were only looking for the yellow of surface gold & discarded huge quantities of a bluish material that, when later assayed, turned out to be silver sulfide (Ag(sub2)S). This is a naturally occurring mineral form of the dark coloration that you clean off silver ware.

I'm new here & can't figure out how to upload the pix of my new coins. Please let me know how. Thanks!

As a new collector I say just keep away from Gold for now.

It's unlikely that the Comstock gold ended up in the later cc planchets, but it was probably Western gold. Carson had a lot of issues, not the least of which were corruption and the proximity of SF. The assay office stayed open for years after, as did offices in places like Boise.

Granted, the photo upload is tedious Jacks. Even when you get used to its foibles. But they can't load up on giant picture files here.

That hot blue mud is what made Comstock mining dangerous. The lodes weren't composed of solid quartz and granite, and they sloped steeply. The stoped timbering system developed to keep them from collapsing was clever and allowed the companies to mine then out very fast. The hills around Lake Tahoe were stripped of their big Ponderosa pine for timbers, which were flumed down to the Washoe Valley, then hauled up to Virginia City by the V&T Railroad.