Question On Older Lower Quality And Damaged Better Quality Coins

Seeker, the value of a coin is what someone will pay for it. I'm often baffled by the prices that cull, holed, etc., coins bring, but it's not a market in which I would speculate.

There are no rules. Your 1876-CC dime is in better shape than a $3500 chain cent I saw a week ago. Coins as rare as the chain cent may be the only ones you'll ever own. IMO it's better to fill the hole than wait forever. You can always upgrade. Finding the coin is the challenge.

That theory is true, unless you specifically plan on liquidating it in the future. In that scenario, you shouldn't be buying anything that you don't believe you can resell—and realistically, resell without taking a major loss.

After being back in the hobby for a year, I have found myself in the minority on the subject of holed coins. I don't view intentional holes like corrosion, graffiti, scratches, dents. Often if you compare a holed coin to a straight graded coin at the same price, the "good" coin is going to be terribly worn, perhaps AG3-G4. Many times you can get an XF45 or AU50-58 holed coin for a similar price. I would personally rather have 100% damage to 2% of the coin surface, rather than 80% deterioration to 100% of the coin surface. That goes with some caveats, such as preferring that the hole be cleanly punched and not through the head. Although even there, I would consider it if the remaining coin details are sharp.

Empty holes in my albums bug the heck out of me - If I cannot afford a VERY nice one at the moment, I'll settle for a lesser grade but keep searching for the 'one' that will make me happy.

The reason why TPGs refuse to slab a damaged coin is because there is no hard-and-fast ready reckoning guide for converting certain kinds of damage to a certain catalogue value - as assigning that value would in essence be a framework for net-grading a damaged coin.

Some collectors simply refuse to accept anything other then either perfect examples or coins with nothing but "honest wear", no matter how hard to get such coins might be. Other people, while still obviously preferring their coins to be "undamaged", are nevertheless happy to take beat-up examples if they're "cheap enough", but "cheap enough" is a very squishy, ill-defined concept, and because of the existence of that refuse-to-touch-them cohort, there can never be a net-grading here-is-the-catalogue-value answer to the question of holed and damaged coins.

Take holed coins as an example. We'd all probably agree that the size of the hole matters; a bigger hole is worth less (or a larger negative value, depending on your point of view) than a smaller one. But placement of the hole is also important, as is the "neatness" of the hole: a coin carefully drilled near the top of the obverse or reverse so as not to disrupt any of the obverse or reverse lettering, is going to be more attractive and thus more valuable than a coin that's had a nail smashed through its centre., even if those two holes are physically the same size.

It is perhaps helpful to consider how to approach it in terms of the damage being a separate object having "negative value", especially for slabbed coins with "details" grades. You have a coin that's say, "AU Details", except for a hole. The coin would in theory be worth the catalogue value for an AU-50 coin if it didn't have the hole, but it will be worth less than that, purely because of the hole. So the hole has a "negative value".

It's rare to obtain objective data on something that is truly a subjective opinion. But I once saw one data point. At a coin show a couple decades ago, someone was selling two old silver coins from Georgia (the country in eastern Europe, not the US state). The coins seemed identical in terms of wear, toning etc, but one had a small neat hole drilled through it, the other did not. The unholed coin was being offered for $75. The holed coin was offered for $25. I was budget-conscious and only wanted "a coin from Georgia" for my one-from-every-country collection, so I bought the cheaper one. Both coins sold at the show, so both are "fair market value" since somebody paid those prices. So, one could argue that I now own a coin from Georgia that's worth +$75, and a hole attached to that coin that's worth negative $50.

Now, my negative-$50 hole would not have that same value, if you could magically transfer that hole onto some other coin - it's negative value is based entirely on the coin that it's sitting on, where the hole is placed on the coin, and on the personal opinions and attitudes of the buyer or potential buyer towards holes on coins. Transfer that -$50 hole onto a Brasher Doubloon and it's suddenly worth negative-tens of thousands of dollars.

While grading services are dismissive of damage, they are extraordinarily picky about the appearance of uncirculated coins. MS67 vs MS66 means hundreds of dollars on a common date Morgan. And then there's proof-like..DPL, PL, DMPL..does the field reflect readable print from six inches.It's interesting to know but pretty subjective.

In order for coins to be in such a state of perfection they didn't ever function as money like that beat up cc dime did. I like having some MS coins around to look at but they're not my main interest. Someone will always have a better coin than mine. It's not a competitive sport.