Alan V. Weinberg wrote:
On Friday Oct 4th I had the
pleasure of a preview examination of the NGC-slabbed bust silver
coinage at Heritage's Beverly Hills office- all the silver bust quarters, bust
halves and bust dollars in the Eric Newman collection, most ex- Colonel
Green.
I was amazed at the quality
of the bust quarters. They did approximate the NGC slab grading in that they
did not appear to have been acid-cleaned by Col Green, had original lustre and
patina and beautiful National Pages toning. The stand-outs were
1806/5 B-1 MS-66, 1806 B-3 MS-65, 1807 B-2
MS- 66 CAC (green bean) , and the eye-popping 1815
B-1 MS-67+ CAC (green bean), surely one of the finest extant
bust quarters of any date. A "wow" coin. Also the 1833
B-2 FS-901 MS-66 CAC and the 1835 B-2 MS-67. The 1834 B-2 Proof
-66+ CAC was a revelation, indisputably a proof though with a
few trivial obv hairlines.
On the opposite end of the
spectrum, the 1804 25c B-1 AU-55 CAC appeared to me to be no better than EF-40 with considerable circulation
wear to the hair, face and shoulder (all flat!) but with beautiful old album
toning but no cartwheel or lustre traces.
The slabs were in contact
with each other, not separated in NGC plastic boxes which surprised me as this
will undoubtedly scuff up the slab plastic surfaces, thereby obscuring the
coins' details and surfaces, as they travel to shows and are viewed in
Dallas and NYC.
I then examined the bust
halves and the bust dollars. The 1794-95 halves were, in my opinion, egregiously
overgraded by 3-12 points with none of them exhibiting a trace of original
surface, lustre or cartwheel despite grades as high as MS-63. It has
always been my impression that any mint state silver coin should have at least
a trace of lustre and cartwheel. One of the 1794 halves O-108, graded NGC
Fine 12, had a reverse eagle so faint you had to tilt the coin to see its
shadow! What was NGC thinking? More like G-VG at best.
The bust dollars by and
large were not the gems suggested by the NGC slabs . The distinctive
"white" 1795 draped bust off-center B-14, BB-51 MS-66+ CAC (green bean) had a wonderful coruscating cartwheel which quite
literally stopped at the large right field toning area and then continued
below it. A most peculiar toning area where, I believe, the cleaning solution
used by Col Green was not adequately washed off. Many of the bust dollars
appeared to have been cleaned with diluted acid (as was the practice back then
when commercial cleaning solutions were unavailable) by Col Green and retoned
naturally in their album pages over the decades. A few exceptions stood out -
the 1800 Americai MS-65 B-19 BB-192 and the single bust dollar which I think
was undergraded relative to the other bust dollars (the key word is
"relative") : 1802 narrow date B-6 BB-241 MS-61+ which should
have been MS-63 , again relative to the other bust dollars' NGC grades.
One wonders why NGC,
rather than the market-preferred PCGS, graded the Newman coins?
Undoubtedly many buyers may try (good luck !) to switch over .
In my opinion, PCGS with its must stricter grading standards, would have been
"much less kind" in grading and that may have been a primary
motivation in choosing NGC over PCGS. I feel as if NGC was swayed by the
old attractive toning, the Newman collection name and perhaps by the notoriety
of slabbing the Newman coins. We shall see if bidders are similarly influenced
by the toning and slab grades rather than the coins' actual surfaces and relief
wear. Will this be an example of what I call "the emperor has no
clothes" syndrome?
This writer, while never
specializing in bust coinage, has been in numismatics and traveled to most of
the major shows and auctions over the past 5+ decades (starting auction
attendance in 1959 with the Stack's Chas Neumoyer sale and their 1960 Milton
Holmes sale) so I have examined up close in hand many of the superb
federal coinage appearing for auction or on the bourse floors. I know what to
expect when I see an utterly superb original surface bust silver coin that today
would, for example, PCGS-slab as MS-65. I distinctly recall the superb
"white" 1795 draped bust dollar in JHU/Garrett. And the toned
prooflike 1796-97 Lelan Rogers half dollars. They serve as a point
of reference.
And that's my opinion.
Alan V. Weinberg
------
Tom Little provided us with
the reverse image of an1818 bust quarter he wrote about last week:
------
Alan Bricker wrote:
Of potential interest to
collectors of Capped Bust Half Dimes is a selection of examples of scarce and
rare die marriages currently being posted on the eBay.com website this month.
To locate these eBay listings, readers can either (1) do a seller search
for eBay user ID "numiscene", or (2) do a title &
description key word search for "Loch Raven" under the category of
Coins and Paper Money. Regrettably, any items already posted to the
eBay.com platform, once listed there, are not eligible for
any "private" offers or deals generated as a
result of the item(s) having appeared on eBay.com.
Any unsold pieces which have been listed are subject to being
withdrawn at any time for any legitimate reason. To send inquiries,
please feel free to use eBay messages to contact me and I will accommodate
valid inquiries.
