VAMWorld 2.0

Here are my hanging orders right now PCGS.jpg The bottom one is several Comitia Americana medals and they seem to really struggle with them My guess is that the number of graders for them is very low and this is probably outsourced to someone The top one is nothing more than Silver Eagle Proofs, but...

I guess I am just venting to be venting, but the slowdown at PCGS on grading and imaging is getting worse not better with my orders. I was cutting them a lot of slack during COVID, but the fun goes out of a lot of the collecting when a coin sits for three months. Heck, sometimes I cannot even rememb...

I think that opportunity has a lot to do with this discussion. Going to shows or dealers is out of my reach unfortunately, so I do a hybrid where I look for slabbed but unattributed VAMs. When your sole source is the internet slabbed coins avoid a lot of heartaches, but also gives a lot of opportuni...

Got me there!

I guess things just don't go according to plan right now no matter how we try. In the past three months we have lost two friends not to COVID but to just old age, which begins to date me a bit The 1881-O newsletter for March through May is now up and sorry it took so long, but it seems like everythi...

I have also had an issue with Trueviews and it seems like they lag way behind. Right now I have a group that was returned on March 23 pending the images. I am still pending images. Customers are hard to get and retain, easy to lose. I had hoped with new management that things might change, but I bel...

I was cutting PCGS a lot of slack because of COVID, but there has been plenty of time for them to recover their office.

I am now doing pretty good if I can get an order processed in 3 to 4 months.

Anyone have an idea what is going on?

Interesting note because of my last note from Leroy. Leroy concedes that VAM 1 might be mythical and not exist. I assume that his comment was more than the 1881-O series that I inquired about. If we assume (as I do) that VAM 1 is "Exactly as intended by George Morgan" then that coin might not exist ...

Our 2021 taxes are past due?

I think the observation on auction prices is spot on and I have seen some crazy prices out there for high grade recognizable VAMs. I bought an unattributed PCGS MS64+ 1881-O VAM 27 that I just got back from PCGS attributed. PCGS lists this one for about $1,500. PCGS shows that an MS64 sold on eBay i...

Well I would be pretty confident that many people here have a safe, somewhere. I hope no one leaves their coins laying around on a desk or in a drawer regardless of value. For most of us the value in the collection isn't in the bullion value or marketability, it is in the skill to build it. I would ...

Once your collection surpasses the volume of a safe deposit box it seems to me that you are on your own.

My answer is a large safe with a 3 hour fire rating and several guns.

Seems to work so far.

Good question and I will need to be more observant to answer the age question, but if there are a lot of new ones mixed with the old then it can feel like there are many more. I have also had a few N grades but I have shied away from trying to grade Toned coins because of the cost. The coins I am re...

I feel like I am seeing a flood of toned coins coming out of PCGS. In the past toned coins seemed to get a lot of scrutiny and many came back N graded. Now on sites like eBay I am seeing a flood of coins that I think are heat treated or altered in some other way. The TPGs have been somewhat of a fir...

I ran this by Roger and he and I are both scratching our heads. It is a double hit from something and has a crenelated shape, but unless someone can measure it and fit the shape to a coin, it seems unlikely to me that it is bag damage from another coin. This one might need some thought about other M...

For those of us who have never seen this little item, who do you know it is the edge reeding hit?

Welcome back

Well I thought it was an S over something, but the more I look the more I think the upper loop of the S has a lot of pitting. What else?

At least 20 years and probably more like 25

Well I have tried to stretch the life of my laptop and went a little too long. I have spent almost the whole month selecting a new PC and then making the transition from the old to the new. I ran into some issues with Adobe Muse and getting them to let me have a copy of my version, so this is just a...