Hole-Fillers: What They Are and Why You Should Avoid Them

More than 50 years ago, I decided to put together complete date/mintmark sets of Barber dimes, quarters, and half dollars. At the time, I wasn’t fussy about grades. Goods were just as welcome as XFs. After several months of going to coin shows and scouring ads in numismatic periodicals, I had reduced my want list to the three key-date Barber quarters: 1896-S, 1901-S, and 1913-S.

I bought a nice Good 1913-S for $50, which would probably grade G-6 by today’s standards. This was well before Professional Coin Grading Service (PCGS) and Numismatic Guaranty Company (NGC) came online, so I sent it to the only authentication service available at the time, ANACS. This was when it was associated with the American Numismatic Association. I had no reason to suspect that the coin had an added mintmark; I had just decided that if I paid $50 or more for a coin, I would have it authenticated.

I got a letter from ANACS telling me that there was too much crud around the mintmark for them to make a definitive decision on the coin’s authenticity, and they requested permission to clean the coin sonically. Unfortunately, I gave this permission, the coin was sonically cleaned and found to be genuine, and I hated the result. All the original patina had disappeared, and I didn’t even like the coin as a hole-filler because it now looked cleaned to me.

So, what is a numismatic hole-filler anyway, and why would you ever buy one? One online definition told me that it’s “A coin intended to fill the hole in an album that lacks the presence of a higher quality piece. It should resemble the intended ‘keeper,’ but often is heavily worn, in poor condition, and has little value.”

Continuing to search for the big three quarters, I found an 1896-S advertised as having XF detail but problems. Like my formerly nice 1913-S, this “gem” was priced at $50.

Nowadays, you can see pictures of items before ordering them by mail, but this was not the case at the time I saw the ad. I ordered the 1896-S hoping it would be a good filler before a better coin came along.

Do you ever find coins, pennies usually, that have lain in a parking lot for weeks? Have you ever found one that looked like it had been run over repeatedly by a car with chains on the tires? Well, that’s what my “bargain” 1896-S 25-cent looked like. To make matters worse, it had also been cleaned!

Needless to say, this would have only been a hole-filler if I were trying to put together the worst set of Barber 25-cents imaginable. One question that could be asked is why I ordered a coin with problems in the first place. After all, decent low-grade pieces could be purchased for less than $100 at the time. Unfortunately, I have no reasonable answer to this question, and I got rid of the awful coin ASAP.

Obviously, coins that are harshly cleaned or badly damaged or worn almost to the point of illegibility are sometimes purchased as hole-fillers if the price is right. Almost always, these are scarce or rare coins, coins that, if decent, would have price tags well beyond the collector’s budget. They’re only purchased to fill a hole in the collector’s album.

Are hole-fillers ever wise purchases? Obviously, they can be reasonable purchases if the desired coin is so rare that there’s nothing better available.

Consider a coin such as the 1793 Chain Type large cent. In the case of a coin as scarce as this, an example with corrosion and damage may be the only thing available as a hole-filler.

When buying a hole-filler, the key question is whether or not you’re going to be satisfied with it long term. Or are you going to decide you can’t abide having it in your collection next to all the decent examples?

Here’s another example from my collecting experience. Shopping on eBay, I spotted a Morgan dollar that appeared to be a bargain price. I studied the photographs carefully and decided that the coin was indeed the grade it was certified to be, which was XF-40. The certification, by the way, was by one of the smaller services.

When the coin arrived, I was initially pleased with it. At some point, however, I tilted the piece in a particular way that allowed me to see that a previous owner had enhanced the hairlines on Liberty’s head, perhaps with a pocketknife or an ice pick or a nail. And once seen, the multiple scratches could no longer be unseen. My bargain coin turned out to be one that I didn’t want anywhere near my collection.

Some people put together complete collections of hole-fillers. And sometimes they’re even reinforced for their collections of coins most collectors would shun.

Have you heard of Low Ball collections of PCGS coins? These are coins earning extremely low grades by PCGS. Coins with grades of AG-3 and G-4 are too good for a top-flight Low Ball collection.

At one major coin show I attended, the highest-ranking Low Ball collection of Morgan dollars was proudly displayed. Can you imagine a complete date/mintmark set of Morgan dollars, all graded PO-01? To me, the collection looked like a large number of silver slugs, some of which had hints of the original design. Occasionally, you could see a mintmark in a field of nothingness on the reverse.

I confess that I wouldn’t be proud to own such a collection. I admit, however, that such a set is the ultimate collection of hole-fillers.

Amazingly, some of these had earned “green beans” at Certified Acceptance Corporation (CAC). In other words, the graders at CAC had determined that the coin was in the top tiers of the grade of PO-01. That strikes me as an oxymoron, but maybe I just don’t appreciate the beauty of a coin in such a grade.

Another hole-filler that I don’t understand is the dateless 1916 Standing Liberty quarter. As I’m writing this, there are several dateless 1916s on eBay. One is graded Genuine by PCGS, with damage and a grade of P/Fr detail. The price is $1,750 for what is called an “album filler.” Although it’s not specifically mentioned on the holder, there’s a small hole that someone started to punch in the date area. All in all, it’s a pretty terrible-looking coin. For $1,750?

There’s another PO-01 dateless 1916 quarter priced at $2,808 on eBay, and one such coin recently sold for $1,995. If you pay nearly $2,000 for a 1916 Standing Liberty quarter, surely you would want one with at least a hint of a date.

The late Alan Herbert, a.k.a. The Answer Man, was once asked how much a dateless 1916 Standing Liberty quarter was worth. His response was something like, “It’s only worth its bullion value.” Of course, this was wrong, as you can see from the previous paragraph.

The reason a 1916 without a date is worth many times its bullion value is that it can be differentiated from a 1917 quarter without a date. The 1916 has only one curl at the back of Liberty’s hair, whereas a dateless 1917 has two curls. In addition, there’s a difference in the way the bottom of the gown appears, with the gown on a 1917 curling upward and clearly separated from the foot. On a 1916 coin, the gown has less curl and appears to nearly touch the foot.

Before spending $2,000 for a dateless coin, I would look for a G-4 or a low-grade 1916 with minor problems. I found several in the Heritage Auction archives that would have been worth a look. One NGC details coin that was cited for improper cleaning had the bottom of four digits visible. It sold for $1,860. Another 1916 graded G-4 by PCGS sold for $2,640. Most of the “6” was visible on this coin.

In my opinion, restored-date Buffalo nickels are hole-fillers that are only marginally better than dateless 1916 Standing Liberty quarters. These too should be avoided.

Another hole-filler you might want to avoid buying is the nice coin that’s a grade or two below the coin that you ultimately include in your collection. I bought several such coins when I was working on a PCGS Registry Set of silver Washington quarters (1932-1964).

To give you an example, let’s say I initially bought an MS-65 1937-S quarter. This is a date with the third lowest mintage (1.65 million) in the series, behind only the set’s keys, the 1932-D and 1932-S. It’s not particularly expensive, however, particularly in grades below MS-67. Current values in the PCGS price guide are $500 in MS-65, $575 in MS-66, and $2,150 in MS-67.

Assuming I paid $500 for an MS-65, given the cost of an MS-66, it would seem reasonable to upgrade to the higher grade whenever I found a suitable coin. What should I do with my MS-65 1937-S?

The likelihood that I could recover my purchase price for a coin I had bought at retail is slim or none. As a result, it’s a coin that I might take to a show and offer to a dealer, with the comment, “I’m buried in this quarter, what’s your best offer to get me out of the hole?”

You can see how this type of hole-filler, although it involves nice coins, is an exercise in how to lose money buying coins. You can see what happens when I realize that my MS-66 1937-S doesn’t advance my Registry Set ranking and decide that what I really need is an MS-67 1937-S. Fortunately, there’s nowhere to go beyond the MS-67, as there are no MS-68s, according to the PCGS Population Report.

Well, there is the 1937-S in MS-67+, but this is an $11,000 coin. Also, so far, only 10 pieces have received this exalted grade.

Obviously, I’ve cast a rather jaundiced eye on the whole idea of hole-fillers. Remember, this is just my opinion based on my collecting experiences. If you feel that you wouldn’t mind having a dateless 1916 Standing Liberty quarter, or restored-date Buffalo nickels, or any other hole-filler I’ve written about negatively, then take what I have to say with a grain of salt. Remember the old saying, “One person’s trash is another person’s treasure.”

And above all, collect what you like and like what you collect.