Letters to the Editor: Sept. 27, 2023

Review of Three Summer Coin Shows in Georgia

I attended three coin shows this summer. The first show was Summer FUN in Orlando, Fla. When I attended the Summer FUN Show last year, there were about 20 dealers’ booths, and I was disappointed at how small it was. When I entered the room this time, I was literally stunned. For a moment, I thought I was living in the Twilight Zone and somehow was attending the January FUN show! There were hundreds of dealers, and even the U.S. Mint was there but had little to sell. The place was swarming with collectors. It was the largest Summer FUN show I have attended since 2008.

My goal was to find an MS-60 or MS-61 Liberty $10 coin minted between 1900 and 1907 from a branch mint, preferably New Orleans. After two hours and wandering over half the floor, I had seen maybe two coins, but they were MS-63 or better and just too rich for me. I did notice that there were many Indian $10 available in the common dates in that grade.

The next show was the Blue Ridge Coin Club in Dalton, GA. I had closed a safe deposit box in Chatsworth that I have had since the late 1960s, and I wanted to get some coins graded so that my heirs would not be short-changed when they decided to sell. ICG and ANACS were the only grading companies there. (Although Dalton hosts the largest coin shows in the state of Georgia in April and August each year, NGC and PCGS have never attended). Collectors were noticeably few and far between, but the dealers were busy buying and selling. So it was that a member of ICG had time to sit with me and determine whether or not a coin was worth grading. Afterward, I found a dealer who had an attractive 1903-O in MS-61 at a reasonably good price. As it was a slow day, the dealer and I had a good conversation. He agreed with me that Liberty Gold Eagles are not so easy to find. Then he showed me his prize 1889 Liberty $10 coin that had a total mintage of 4,440! He said less than a handful had ever been graded. It was at least MS-63 (I failed to write it down). He let me hold it. He had paid $20,000 for it, and he believed that it could be worth much more someday. “If this were a Morgan silver dollar with this low a mintage, it would be worth over a million dollars,” he said. As it is, if he were to sell it now, he couldn’t buy a new automobile or truck for twenty grand!

The last show I attended was the monthly Greater Atlanta Coin Show in Marietta, GA. There I tried to sell some of my partial collections from the closed safe deposit box. I discovered that average circulated Mercury dimes were worth melt value, as were Franklin halves and Kennedy halves. I sold a complete average circulated collection of Roosevelt dimes from 1946 to 1964 for a little over melt value. The clad coins in the collection were returned to me. Brown envelope proof sets from the 1960s were wanted, but not the white envelope uncirculated sets. Proof Eisenhower dollars from the early 1970s sold by the Mint in single slabs fetched $7 to $8 apiece. I had an average circulated Jefferson nickel collection complete with the silver nickels, and nobody wanted it. I was told that nobody wanted to buy uncirculated nickel sets, so the dealers quit bringing them to the shows. Nobody, but nobody, wanted to buy clad coin sets, proof or uncirculated. Nor was there any interest in buying rolls of Statehood quarters. (Moisture can destroy the clad surface of a coin. I discovered this when I thought I had a quarter that had been struck on a copper planchet.)

The highlight for me was hanging out with Byron Bonds, a dealer from Chatsworth. We reminisced about our teen years when we had bought coins from F.R. Kendrick, the long-time clerk of the superior court in Chatsworth. He kept his surplus coins from his collection in the bottom drawer of his desk in his second-floor office across the street from the courthouse. Byron worked all summer mowing grass and saved enough money to buy a half-cent from the early 1800s. I had sold discarded Coke bottles to get money to go with my earnings as a paperboy in order to buy Barber coins. I’ve heard stories that Mr. Kendrick sold gold coins as well. I hope that other Mr. Kendricks are still around helping the youngsters to take up our hobby.

Henry C. Robinette, address withheld.

AU Has Four Grades, Not Two

I don’t ordinarily feel the need to write a letter to the editor, but I thought I would comment on F. Michael Fazzari’s column in the Aug. 1 issue. In the second paragraph, he mentions a suggestion from Paul Malone to reduce the number of grades in the Very Fine category. Instead of four grades (20, 25, 30, 35), just have two grades (20 and 30) as in the past. He states, “All the other circulated grades are divided into two parts and not four as is our present VF scale.” He appears to have forgotten the various AU grades (50, 53, 55, 58). It’s certainly true that there used to be only two AU grades, 50 and 55, but now we have four grades. I don’t think it was original with me, but I’ve occasionally said in articles that a coin in AU-58 might really be an MS-65 coin with just a touch of wear that kept it from being Mint State. I consider some of my AU-58 coins to be the best coins in my collection.

At the end of the paragraph, he asks, “What grade of VF would you assign to the coin in Figure 2?” To me, that coin looks like it’s well beyond the VF category. My initial thought was that it was some AU grade. As for VF, I would say VF-35 and a gold bean from CAC.

Just my thoughts and I always enjoy Michael Fazzari’s column.

Mike Thorne, address withheld.

Peace Dollar Design Similar to $10 Gold Coin

Give the U.S. Mint credit for making the Morgan and Peace dollars again. Why there were none minted in 2022, we will never know. I received my pair of 2023 Morgan and Peace dollars. The quality is excellent. What can you say about the price? Since the mintage figures are low, they do have the ability to increase in value.

As I was examining the Peace dollar, I came upon an interesting observation. I had previously looked at a 1915 $10 Indian Head gold coin. The similarity of the woman’s face on the two coins is incredible. It has been said that Mr. de Franciscus’ model for the ’21 Peace Dollar was his lovely wife. If this is true, Mr. Saint-Gaudens’ model for the 1907 Indian Head $10 coin must have been Mrs. de Franciscus’ older sister.

The eagles on the reverse of these coins may have shared some DNA also. What can I say? Both coins are classic beauties, so much more than anything designed in the recent past. My final word: Put these two coins side by side and tell me what you think.

Charles H. Allyn, Livingston, N.J.

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