WYNTK---Environ. Damage

[supertooth]

Hello Folks,

 

Have been very gratified at your responses to these last two WYNTK threads. Would like this week to show you a 1937-D 3-Legged Buffalo Nickel. This coin is one of my most sentimental coins in my whole collection. Have owned it approximately 50 years. This coin was retrieved out of change. Didn't cost me but a nickel to set it aside. And, yes, I did know that it had additional value at the time that I found it. I was actually quite proud at the time. Chest out and all of that kind of stuff. I was a kid of about ten or eleven then.

 

Here's the 2x2 that this coin sat in for many, many years.

 

 

I finally decided to have NGC slab it. Felt very confident that it would slab because of its total originality. I was somewhat concerned over the circulation mark through the word "LIberty" on the obverse. Something had made a flat mark through the whole word. I thought that it might have been a coin counter mark. But the coin deserved a slab IMHO.

 

So, off it went to NGC. What do you think of the coin from these pictures? Do you like it as a very nice VF coin?

 

 

 

Looks to me to be about 90% full horn on the reverse. Only the very tip has been worn away.

 

Well, since I am using these threads to talk about my NGC rejected coins, the coin came back in a BB for environmental damage.

 

 

Another bad day in Supertooth's life. Again, I was quite put off that the coin didn't slab. The four letter words went around the office that day, but naturally, not in front of the patients!

 

After I cooled down, I decided to take the coin to the next Baltimore Show. I patiently waited in the ANACS line and was told the coin was indeed genuine. I knew that already. My question was---would it slab? Was assured that it would, so I left the coin in ANACS's care.

 

Back it comes in this VF-20 holder. I wanted a little higher grade, but was happy that at least ANACS appreciated the coin enough to slab it. This was exactly four years ago.

 

 

Let's take a look now at the variety itself. Here is a picture of the leg that is missing. It is due to excessive polishing of the die. You can see why folks like to collect this coin. The missing leg is quite visible to the naked eye.

 

 

Now, do I blame NGC for BB this coin? Sure I do. But I knew it "was" a risk. I felt the mark through the "Liberty" was nothing more than what occurs to a coin that has been circulated down to a VF grade. The price of passage from an Unc to a VF grade. After all, the coin had circulated for about 20 years. Take a look for yourself.

 

 

IMHO it was another one of those subjective decisions that the graders must make. This time Bob lost "The Game" with NGC, but ended up OK with ANACS.

 

So, what have I learned from this 1937-D 3-Legged coin?

 

1 - Nothing is a guarantee at the TPGS. You play your cards. Sometimes you get the bear and sometimes he gets a chunk of you.

 

2 - My opinion of a coin is not necessarily what someone else may think of it.

While I think that if I had been an NGC grader, I would have slabbed this coin, I do understand that they apparently didn't agree with me. The owner of a coin usually "always" thinks that his coin is better than someone else sees it.

 

3 - Have a back-up plan. If the coin is worth a slab in your opinion, try your second choice grading service, or try a resubmission if you are brave.

 

4 - Wanted to protect this coin because of its "special" sentimental value to me. So was grateful that ANACS provided that security for me. I use ANACS as my fallback TPG. They get the coins that I do not think that NGC will slab. If I am fairly sure that NGC would BB a coin, why waste the money? That coin might still deserve to be slabbed as a 'market acceptable' coin. So, off to ANACS it will go. Currently, I have 34 coins at NGC and 16 at ANACS.

 

5 - Will "never" sell the coin. My son, David, will get it upon my death. He knows its value and its story. I doubt that he will ever sell it either.

 

Doing these threads has allowed me to poke a little fun at myself. It also allows others to see "actual" tru-life coins and why some are indeed "rejected". It's up to you to see the facts and decide what is your own opinion of the coins. Remember, most knowledgeable folks will tell you that "All" the grading services probably get it wrong one way or another about 5% of the time. Exactly what percentage is open to debate. I have heard a percentage as high as 20%----but, I personally do not think that it is anywhere near that number for coins sent in by collectors. But just think if you were right 19 out of 20 times. Would you accept that as an acceptable percentage? After all, a 95 is an "A" in anybody's grading system.

 

Until next time,

 

Bob (Supertooth)

 

 

[harvey8542]

Great coin and great story. Very usefull info if it would have been me I would have not thought of sending it to ANACS.

[dooly]

Top collectors story

 

i think i would have just sent it to NCS for genuine encapsulation if i was not bothered about grade/value..

imp cleaned

 

[MarkFeld]

I have said upon more than one occasion that often, the decision as to whether to grade or no-grade a coin can be just as difficult and/or subjective as the decision regarding what grade to assign.

 

In the case of the coin in this thread, apparently NGC thought that the toning had etched into the coins' surface to the extent that it constituted environmental damage, whereas ANACS did not.

 

As another general example: Often, a grading company reaches the easy conclusion that a particular coin has been cleaned. But the hard part is the determination as to whether the coin has been too badly cleaned to assign a grade, and if not, what the grade should be.

[bsshog40]

Great story Bob. I would have gambled for the grade also. The evrionmental Damage to me just looks like and old coin with an old look. Of course, having come from circulation so many years ago, they probably didn't have acetone back then to clean it before it sat in your 2x2 for all those years. Still nice coin to have!!

[Bruceswar]

I do not think the coin is damaged but that is just me. Thanks for the post.

[bigmanSAM88]

I think that it is a great looking original coin!

[TJ'S Coins]

Bob great story about a nice find from circulation!

 

Any thought about what happened to the word Liberty on the obverse? Is that from wear or something else?

 

I've seen Buffalo's from circulation with a similar toning pattern (nothing as rare as your 37D three legged variety). It seems natural to me, FWIW.

[TomB]

This is a good post, but I think it more likely that NGC did not care about the mark through LIBERTY while they cared more for the apparent porosity of the surfaces. The images make the coin appear to have been slightly corroded and this will lead to the environmental damage bag-and-tag. A personal anecdote about this happened when I submitted a deeply toned, MS 1913-D Buffalo nickel to PCGS. Upon a quick glance the coin looked corroded and it was rejected by PCGS as environmental damage. I took it to FUN and showed it to a Buffalo specialist who also quickly glanced at it and proclaimed environmental damage. However, I pressed him to look at it more closely and he decided it was simply deeply toned and not damaged. It was then sent to NGC where it slabbed MS64.

[supertooth]

Folks----- Tom B and Mark have done for me---without actually knowing it---a great favor. It allows me to step back in and explain---that every knowledgable collector or dealer has a subjective opinion. And so does 'every' grader at the TPGS.

 

Mark's words that the toning may have etched into the coin's surfaces.

 

Tom's words that the coin may appear slighty corroded.

 

My words that the line thru the word 'liberty' may have come from a coin counter---or from some other circulation source.

 

Just from these three separate thoughts we can see that----among knowledgable folks---we get different thoughts. None of which may be wrong. All of which may be correct. It brings out that the graders have a tough job. It shows that we all do not react to a coin exactly the same way. What may bother one person may not be at all important to another---or less important. What one person may like about a coin another person may not put as being that attractive.

 

Bottom line--- NGC graders---or any TPGS graders have but a minimum amount of time to decide. We, on the other hand, can take a lot longer. And, sometimes, you can change your mind about a coin if you look at it for a longer period of time. Bob [supertooth]

 

 

 

 

[MikeKing]

send it to pcgs, they'll grade it.