1836 Gobrecht Dollar - Letter About

What a great story, and mad props to you for the willingness to do what is intrinsically right in this situation.

Contact the dealer whom you sold it too. Force him to contact the next dealer. Make it happen. Follow through. Drive this. It won't be easy for you - you will have to be the engine behind making it happen. Follow the lead to ground, like a detective. It won't be easy, but the reward is the chance to create a complete chain of provenance in an area where that is very rare indeed.

You have the chance to do a service to numismatics. There isn't some cheap, easy one-size-fits-all venue where you can be sure that your words will find the right person. It doesn't exist. This is on you, and I could not more strongly urge you to do the due diligence required to make this chain complete. If, in your mind, there is anything I could do to help you in this quest, please say so.

Since the second dealer doesn't have any information about the buyer (assuming that is true), I think what you are doing is your next best bet. Just visit all the coin sites and let everybody know. You should have the certification number on the receipt from when you sold the coin. Maybe the right person will see your story and get in touch with you.

Good luck.

Thank you to all that replied already to my situation. To SuperDave. The dealer I sold it to says I am at a dead end. I have pleaded with him to give me information. He says the dealer he sold it to has no information on whom he sold it to. Just a stranger who I guess paid cash. There is an implication that there are issues of confidentiality and even paranoia about sales like this. Maybe tax issues too (I paid taxes on my sale). My dealer feels that whoever has this coin will not come forward because of these issues. I don't know about certification number. I guess my dealer has that information. The coin is listed in his archives section. So, this is why I'm going to coin forums. I don't know what to do if I do find the coin. I would like to buy it back, but am afraid it will cost way more than I sold it too. How much would a letter add to a coin's value? Thanks.

That is too bad you didn't find the letter before you sold the coin, but you'll have to take things the way they are. You need to follow thsi just like Dave said....and you need to get the cert number somehow if you don't have it. you may have to hound the dealer - and speaking of dealers, has your dealer given you the name of the other dealer? if not, why? is he hiding something? it should be no skin off his back if he sold it to another dealer, so he should readily pony up the other dealers name and the cert #, if he has it. get whatever info you can from the coin too - like what die alignment it is, etc?.

The other prob you might have is that if/when you do find the new owner they may decide they want a lot more for it if they know why you want it, so be wary of this. Good luck.

P.S. - you an also join the pcgs site or find someone who is already a member and check the population to see how many of these were graded PR-62....gotta be a pretty small number. I'm a member of NGC and they don't have many listed, but it's even lower after the breakdown of silver vs copper and variety (gobrecht or J-58 to 65). I imagine the pcgs numbers aren't much different then NGC's, so you may be able to whittle it down. The dark side of this is that the coin could have been re-submitted and received a slightly different grade or an upgrade or is now an ngc coin, etc.

Well, I didnt buy it from you, so that eliminates one more person from your list

That must have been a NICE coin though!

Thank you all for your replies and help. I am on vacation until Oct. 6 and will get back on the forum soon after that. You've given me some ideas of how to proceed.

Hello, I am back from vacation and wanted to respond to all the helpful questions/advice. There is no certification number in the paperwork I got from the dealer I sold it to and I don't know how I would get it at this point. I sold it in October 2010. The web site that has the picture of it is:http://www.richuhrichcoins.com/archives.php. I obviously went into this sale quite naive and now can't really get info on the sale. I don't know if the Park Avenue coin might be mine. Would PCGS be able to give me a certificate number if my dealer says he doesn't have it? It was definitely graded last year at the Long Beach Show in late September of 2010 It was brought to that show by Harry Laibstain. Then it was brought back to my dealer and sold at the Philadelphia show of Sept. 30 - Oct. 2. I will call my dealer again and see if I can get info on the certificate number, but I'm not hopeful. If the coin is found and is too expensive for me to buy back, then my next choice would be to sell the letter. I do feel they belong together. Thanks all.

Thanks, I'll contact my dealer and PCGS and try to get the certification number. I also registered with the Park Avenue site and will see about that coin listed (price a lot higher than I sold mine for!) I'll keep you posted.