The difficult task of searching for the highest grades
When NGC awarded my "Gold Colon Coinage, 1897-1928, Circulation Issue" set as one of the Best World Sets for 2015, the judge's comments were that "The grades of this collection are outstanding". By the time of the award, 12 of my 15-coin set were either the highest solitary grade or tied to the highest grade. The difficult task was to work hard to be able to find those 3 missing coins to have a perfect set. One of those coins was an "20 co
The full pedigree of the Costa Rica 50 Centavos 1889
The Long Beach Convention Auction Sale of August 8, 1975 (Paramount International Coin Corporation), sold the collection of the estate of a mintmaster that consisted of 492 specimens from around the world. This mintmaster is considered to have been the one of the Heaton Birmingham Mint in England. The proof specimens sold at this sale, looked like they had been put away the day they had been struck and this is exactly what happened. The cata
Some success at this difficult art of improving grades
Today I added a new MS 67 grade to my Costa Rican Cristobal Colon Gold Set. Even though my set has been completed for several years, I have worked hard to improve all the grades. Unfortunately, the coins of this set are not commonly slabbed and the high grades on auctions are scarce. So, I have had to practice the difficult art of slabbing doubles. Many times, I have purchased raw doubles, which I believe might, just might, improve the gra
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