Shipping By The US Mint

At least your coins have shipped. My 3 coin ASE sets: ordered Oct 30th, and still say "expected to ship 12/8/2006

San Fransisco comm: ordered 2 weekas ago, Expected to ship 12/19 or something

2 ASE "W": Expected to ship 12/15

I had to laugh when I received my last order in 2 separate shipments 1 day apart. Why the mint didn't ship it all in one package is beyond me. All that is left is a few "W" ASE's that are slated to ship 12/13. I wonder if they'll send each coin in a separate shipment!

When I ordered the W- mint mark ASE I got a shiping date of 12-8-06 then it was 12-13 then 12-18, 12-19, 12-20, and now back to 12-13 the mint keeps changing my date so when it gets here it gets here.

Sorry Guido, I don't send coins in to be graded no more. Biggest waste of money there is. Send them money and get plastic in return. I have learned that most times, with most collectibles, the rarest to find are the ones in their original packaging. IMHO, I think when the dust clears from this current "feeding frenzy" over slabbed coins that this will hold true for modern commemoratives, Goodacre dollars, ASE sets, etc.. maybe not now, but I'm talking in the near future when these modern sets become "old" and harder to find.

I don't know what is going on at the mint. Lately the shipping has been extremely slow. I know that during the holidays shipping is slow due to the heavy volume of packages, but lets face it, September and October aren't busy shipping months. Plus, recently a lot of people complained about the shipping for the SF mint commemorative gold. The mint even suspended shipping of the SF gold in early November, because too many people were receiving their coins loose in the box. Of course the mint "corrected the problem", and resumed shipping. If that problem was corrected, then why did mine fall out of the box after opening it? I only ordered it two weeks ago and received it this week. Then you have all those ASE anniversary sets that are "expected to ship 12/8/06". Wasn't that yesterday?

kg2blade, I was in the same boat as you not very long ago, I would only buy coins graded by the big 3 because I had absolutely no confidence in my grading skills and even though I may have paid a little more I at least knew that I had an experts opinion on the grade and I knew it was problem free (which is a big deal to me). I do most of my coin buying online so it is very hard to tell what grade or what problems the coin has by pictures, even really good pictures because different lighting can make a coin look more different than night or day. Spending the time I have on this forum and learning more and more each day and even though I didn't answer allot of the grading questions I was taking in the information and learning along the way and now even though I am not 100% confident in my grading skills I feel I can get pretty close and have ventured out into some raw coins and have been pretty successful so far in doing so, so keep sticking in there and soon you will feel confident enough to where you do not have to pay the premium for the graded coins but as for now I totally understand where you are coming from

quote:

---

Originally posted by kg2blade
SE, I have to disagree with on this subject. A lot of the new collectors & this list will grow (myself included), trust the plastics around the coin. Because sometime you cannot trust the dealer and the naked eye. I recently went to a coin show and had anxiety because many of the coins are loose or in 2x2 with grades (even on ebay) and I have no idea how to grade or tell if its correct. However, the ones graded by the top 3 TPG I can look at no question asked. Maybe with more experience I will be beating a different drum, but not now.

---

K.G.

Being the thinker that I am , I've thought about the perspective of using a TPG and I've concluded that the cost of having a coin graded would be passed along to the consumer. You're not only paying for a nice coin, you're paying to have someone tell you that it's a nice coin. Dealers or coin collectors who sell slabbed coins are ultimately going to get paid for their time and trouble in providing this "premium" service, and they can charge a premium price because the coin is "slabbed."

If you can establish that a dealer is trustworthy, you can save a good deal of money.

quote:

---

Bryan1315
kg2blade, I was in the same boat as you not very long ago, I would only buy coins graded by the big 3 because I had absolutely no confidence in my grading skills and even though I may have paid a little more I at least knew that I had an experts opinion on the grade and I knew it was problem free (which is a big deal to me)....so keep sticking in there and soon you will feel confident enough to where you do not have to pay the premium for the graded coins but as for now I totally understand where you are coming from

---

You know what that's funny because it seemed like you have an answer for multiple topics in this forum. You and a few others seems as though been collecting since childhood(morganfred, olddan, etc.) I guess everyone has to start somewhere, but thank you. I have gotten better at not getting rake over the coals because of this forum, which is greatly appreciated. I am hoping with this grading book I am reading slowly it continue to help.