If you went to your local bank on a random day in 2003, and the teller told you that they had just gotten in a new shipment of cents, and you purchased a box of these new, never touched or searched coins, took them home and sent each of say, 5000 coins to the PCGS, probably 99% of them would come back “red.” The next designation is “red and brown” which is more what you would get from a cent that was saved 50-100 years ago, but had developed some subtle tarnish. But not much. Just doesn’t have that “new” bright red color. PCGS only certifies copper coins as “red” “red and brown” and “brown.” They don’t use terms like “full.”
As to why this is worth that kind of money–I can only give you my professional opinion. There is currently a mania for coins that are as close to perfection as possible. If the coin had graded MS69RD, it might have sold for $25. But there are lunatics out there. And it only takes two.
There were Beanie Babies trading hands for over $1000 at one time. Where are the buyers today? Fads come, and fads go. I can list coins that sold for $50 in 1965, and today they fetch $10. Great investment, eh?
Never say tarnish to a numismatist. It gives them the shivers.
I grew up in Philly and toured the mint a few times. I never heard of different strikes and dies for different grades of pennies. Ah, the things you learn on The Straight Dope…
Um… actually it would be a lot more useful to all of us if you’d list some coins that sell for $10 now but $50 in forty years. Speak slowly, I’ll be taking notes.
I’ve got some time on my hands and I like to talk, so I’ll address some more points.
Well, as Giles mentioned earlier, coins that are meant to be sold to collectors are a separate class called “proof” coins. Each proof coin die is polished to produce an extremely smooth surface and used for a limited number of coins. Planchets (“blank” coins) are hand fed to the coin press, and are struck at a higher than ordinary pressure. These coins are sold as proofs and never intended for handling or circulation. Trying to tell if a coin is business strike or proof is never really an issue. It is simply the fact that a coin of this quality was struck but not as a part of the proof process that is surprising.
You seem to be talking about error coins rather than ultra-high quality coins, but your concerns about errors are quite valid. The mint does do quality checks to catch defective dies, which is precisely why big die errors are so rare nowadays. Errors in striking a coin, such as off-center or multiple strike coins still occur, although again almost all of these are weeded out by automated systems. As for counterfeiting errors, while I’m not exactly sure how prevalent the practice is, it isn’t as easy as you may think. The mint uses a lot of very large and very expensive equipment to strike coins. The high pressures involved make the task of home-producing coins in the same manner rather daunting. While still not easy, it is much easier and more profitable to just counterfeit paper money than most coins. Counterfeit coins do, of course, exist, but I doubt errors are a particularly attractive area of coin collecting to target. Error collectors are a niche market within numismatics (meaning smallish market and lowish prices), and if a thousand identical off-center 1860 half dollars suddenly appear on the market…
Just as a warning, a lot of the above is informed speculation on my part. I’m not an expert on either error coins or counterfeiting and its prevalence, but I know enough to give you a general idea of what the market is like.
You raise some excellent points. Marring due to coins jostling does occur and in fact has its own name – such blemishes that occur in mint distribution bags are called “bag marks.” If the coin in the OP went through distribution in this way, it is again simply a matter of chance that it survived so well. The other possibility is, as you say, that it was cherrypicked before it went in the bag. I’m sure this does happen, but I couldn’t tell you how commonly it occurs.
As for the coin ratings the bottom line is that ratings are subjective. There are many more or less objective features that can be arranged in a sort of rubric, but as far as the actual rating decision on a particular coin, subjective judgments necessarily take place. The reason for the existence of coin-grading services such as PCGS and NGC (the two largest and most successful in the US) is to try to establish as objective a system as possible. These two agencies are as successful as they are because they are very good at what they do and have a reputation for quality and objectivity. Expert graders examine a submitted coin independently, and they have review processes that I don’t remember the details of if there is disagreement in assessments. Suffice to say that a rating from PCGS is pretty well trusted in the industry, but a rule of thumb is to “buy the coin, not the case.” That is, always examine the coin yourself and always take an assigned grade with a grain of salt. It does happen that a coin receives a lower grade than the owner expected or wanted, and if the coin’s value is high enough to justify it, coins are sometimes broken out of the protective case and resubmitted in the hope of a higher grade.
It really isn’t that this penny has a halo and all other pennies are pale imitations – if presented with this penny and a bunch of others MS67-69, there’s pretty much no way I could tell the difference. A lot of the value of this coin is in the fact that there is no possible higher rating, and a lot of people are willing pay orders of magnitude more money for the best rather than the good or even the great.
While I can’t guarantee this is how most MS70RD pennies are found, I can tell you that there are people who do this. I’ve done it myself a few times, but I look for whatever I can find. I was mostly looking out for errors, and a time or two where I knew one existed for that year I’d watch for double-dies as well (a double die error being doubling of the text on the coin due to the die having been struck twice during its production - one of the most dramatic examples being the 1955 cent double die). Picking through coins may not sound like your idea of a good time, but if you love coins it can be fun even when you don’t find anything.
I have to confess here that grading is not something I have a lot of experience with as a casual collector, especially when it comes to toning. I do own variously toned coins and understand toning in general, but I have never actually submitted most of my coins for grading – most of them are worth less than the cost of certification. Toning is more complicated on silver coins, but for copper coins tone pretty much just means brown, red, and varying shades in between. Copper coins turn brown over time, so redder is better. Most of my experience with graded copper coins is with old ones, so red is reasonably uncommon and well-valued. I realized that my earlier post is misleading as to the rarity of red tone, since high quality new coins are probably almost all red.
What matters isn’t that it didn’t touch anything, but that it doesn’t look like it touched anything. If it still looks perfect, then no harm, no foul. Coins are, IIRC, evaluated using microscopes, so even really small blemishes will be detected. It may be hard to destroy a coin, but it is very easy to make enough of a mark to see if you’re looking for it.
You probably won’t have any luck finding anything near MS70 in your pocket, but I can tell you that I got my compulsion to check my pocket change after I discovered a 1919 wheat cent in my mom’s change when I was about 7. I got into coin collecting largely because treasure hunting through change was fun and surprisingly successful. I have to admit my most valuable find was worth maybe a dollar or two, so don’t quit your day job, but part of the fun is that there is the potential, however small, to find something big. You never know if there are still 1909 S V.D.B. cents out there in somebody’s change jar.
As I mentioned in my first reply to gotpasswords, some people are willing to pay through the nose for that last little bit of quality. I could probably get a 2003 Lincoln cent in PR68 or PR69 (proof grades are PR60-70) for about $20 or $30. I mentioned earlier that error collecting is a niche market. Well, ultra-high grades is another niche market in the industry, and a lot of the people interested in these have very deep pockets and a small dose of crazy. While it’s easy for even an outsider to appreciate the astronomical value of the Mona Lisa or 1907 ultra high relief St. Gaudens double eagle (a beautiful and rare $20 gold coin), those canvases with a splash of paint and the 2003 MS70 penny that go for five figures may mystify. Most people in the coin world would be right behind you in line to pay $15,120 for a late-date penny.
Yeah, a lot of it is a crapshoot. Usually, if the coins are being hyped strongly, it’s going to be a poor long-term investment. Fifteen years ago, the hype was all about silver coins and how the value of silver was going to shoot up and how this is a great investment, blahblahblah. The few silver coins I bought back then are worth marginally more now. Gold, on the other hand. . .
[nitpick]*Epitome *does not mean *apex *or ultimate. It’s closer in meaning to average: “a person or thing that is typical of or possesses to a high degree the features of a whole class.”
