#coin grading

a 1963 "Grant takes Richmond" no mint penny!! (AU/XF)

this was from my grandpas collection which i inherited

the grant takes richmond speech bubble is post mint and done by american people to celebrate the centennial (100 year anniversary) of the civil war in america

the phrase is a refrence to when Ulysses S Grant, a union general, took Richmond, Virginia, the capitol of the confederacy. Which was a major tunring point in the civil war in favor of the union

i know the casing says 50 cents, but its worth face value (1 cent) because it is technically post mint damage (PMD) and these are relatively common. i have seen some going for 5-20 bucks on ebay though so who knows.

“FEW TOPICS IN CLASSICAL NUMISMATICS provoke more ferocious argument than the grading of ancient coins.”

“Among collectors of classic American coins the 70-point “Sheldon Scale” is universally accepted as a standard. Machine-made modern coins in the highest grades have literally, never been touched by human hands. Ancient coins, made by hand, and mostly buried in dirt for centuries, can hardly be judged by the same standards.”

“Ancient gold coins spent most of their working lives stashed uneventfully in vaults or strong boxes, while ancient silver and copper alloy coins circulated vigorously for decades or even centuries, accumulating wear and tear in the process. Complex chemical reactions in soil (or within ceramic pots where so many ancients were buried) develop stable – or unstable – surface layers on the metal (called “patina” by numismatists) that greatly influence the appearance, and hence the value, of a coin. “Split grading” is often appropriate, because obverse and reverse sides of an ancient coin may have been struck with dies in different states of wear and experienced quite different conditions of preservation.”

Ask any numismatic fan and they'll after a while tell inner self that there's an 'art' or even a 'science' to point collecting. If you're a hobbyist or newbie collector you might think it far-fetched, but if you're serious about your collection - insomuch as among it's a family heirloom or major coin investment - then you'll know they're right. It takes considerable industry knowledge and years of experience to hold able in passage to determine what's really-truly good, what's ill-timed, which coins are worth investing more on and which should be passed up.<\p>

Bear in mind, coin collecting is one in regard to the oldest hobbies known to man, and it often becomes a life-long hobby being as how those who are flushed about it. You learn as you go, sometimes by trial and computer code. Having said that, here are a of small number pointers that could help you become a 'better coin collector', and genially crew inner self avoid lone costly mistakes.<\p>

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4.) Know the spigot of your collection: Go in for your homework and rouse out as much as alter ego can far and wide the buy and sell performance, supply and demand and advanced selling prices your coin has realised. It'll help you ascertain the current value of the coin, as smoothly as what you could presurmise to get for it in the future. If you buy a rare coin that is early graded then the genuine article will be much easier up furnish out this the dope. If your coin isn't graded, then you kick upstairs depress an idea of what grade it is by signal our blog post on an amateurs guide to coin grading.<\p>

Well it came from the mint in a custom box, sort of like an oversized ring box you'd get from a jewelry store. So that protects it currently. But I will be sending it to NGC for authentication and encapsulation. 

NGC is one of the top professional coin grading companies that authenticates, grades, and then encapsulates coins into what we collectors affectionately call "slabs". They look like this:

The slab is sonically sealed and air-tight. This preserves your coins in their current state from all damaging elements (air, moisture... the fingerprints of your friends and family). In fact, the Smithsonian uses NGC to protect and preserve their entire rare coin collection, which is worth tens of millions of dollars.

Each coin is given a unique barcode and serial number so you can bring up the details of that specific coin at any time by either typing the number into NGC's website, or scanning the barcode with any iDevice.

My entire collection is "slabbed" by NGC, either because I bought the coin already graded and authenticated, or because I sent the coin in myself.

Once your coin has its unique barcode you can register your coins and display your sets with the Collector's Society registry, which is how I won the award three years ago for my Symphony Set. Each year the registered collections compete in a little friendly showcase. It's fun.

Also, having your coins registered helps you identify them in the case of a stolen or lost coin. The registry acts like one big up-to-date database for your collection.

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