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Great resource for grading paper money

If you’re like me and and don’t know squat about grading paper currency, this page is for you!!

http://www.panix.com/~clay/currency/grading.html

I use it all the time to help me get a better ballpark… It’s like Grading Coins by Photograph – my favorite book! – only with paper money (and it’s free).

It’s particularly helpful for lower grade notes (AG-XF) as you can more easily tell the differences vs UNC 60=70. (I swear, even with coins I can’t tell a 68 from a 69 or 70!)

Hope this helps!

And massive thank you to Clay Irving for putting this whole thing together… Been using it for years and it’s immensely helpful 🙏

// Link to book above is an Amazon affiliate link…

06/12/2026
What’s the deal with this coin?!

Good morning! Long time!

I was flipping through a friend’s trade binder last week and this 1896 South African 2 1/2 Shillings stood out to me.

Yes, because I’m a sucker for toned silver and the guy is rocking a pretty impressive beard to boot!, but also because of it’s odd toning. If you look around the edges of the coin it’s so clean and almost white looking as if it’s never been touched!

And then when you flip the coin over, you’ll notice some strange staining on the reverse, kind of in the shape of an upside down “V”. (Sorry the pics are a bit blurry – snapped them real fast as my kids are yapping in the background waiting for me to take them to the pool!!)

Still, you should be able to spot it:

I was trying to figure out how it got there? Was it laid against something over the years?? Did someone manually, or purposefully, do something to the coin? Why would the entire obverse be toned but not the rim?!

And then it hit me…

It was probably enclosed in a pendant of some sort! That would explain why the edges are so bright compared to the center, though it doesn’t exactly solve the reverse staining conundrum. I ran the idea by my friend and he stopped me and said, “wait a minute… I have a faint memory of removing it from a silver clasp! Let me see if I can find it…”

And a week later we had our answer :)

It was inlaid in a brooch!

And of course had to put him back in there since it’s his rightful home, lol…

Mystery solved :)

Which probably only I care about, haha, but figured I’d share anyways in case there’s a coin in your collection you’re stumped on. I’ve had many coins in pendants over the years but always takes me a while to put two and two together. Always makes it a fun adventure though! Hope your collecting is still going well!

Stop by and say hi and what you’re collecting if you have time. I always enjoy hearing what people are up to :)

Your friend in numismatics,

06/06/2026
Rare Mint Error Discovered on New 2024 Kennedy Half Dollar (!!!)

Just got this press releases emailed to me and had to share!

Look at that star error – unbelievable!

Here’s the full release below, courtesy of Jeff Flynt (thx man!)

******

Rare Mint Error Discovered on New 2024 Kennedy Half Dollar, Certified by PCGS as “Dropped Star Obverse”

Fort Worth, TX – April 29, 2025 – A collector has made an extraordinary discovery on a brand-new coin: a 2024 Kennedy Half Dollar featuring a rare and potentially unprecedented mint error. The anomaly, a striking star design element found on the obverse (front) of the coin, has been authenticated and certified as a genuine error by leading third-party grading service PCGS (Professional Coin Grading Service).

The coin, recently found in a fresh bank roll, displays an incuse (recessed) star on President Kennedy’s cheek, a location where no star design is intended.

PCGS has specifically designated this as a “Dropped Star Obverse” Mint Error and assigned it a high grade of MS 65, indicating its excellent uncirculated condition. According to this error classification, a “dropped” design element occurs when a piece of compacted die fill, often shaped by a design cavity from the die (in this case, likely a star from the reverse die), dislodges and falls onto the planchet (coin blank) before being struck into the coin, leaving an incuse impression.

While minor mint errors exist, finding a prominent and well-defined error like this, particularly a design element like a star appearing in such an unexpected location on the obverse of a modern coin, is highly unusual. Experts note that errors of this nature, especially a specifically attributed “Dropped Star Obverse” on a brand-new U.S. coin series, are exceptionally rare, making this a potentially historic discovery for the series and for collectors. The fact that it was found directly from a fresh bank roll adds a compelling element to the story of its discovery.

This find highlights that vigilant searching through current circulation coinage can still yield remarkable numismatic treasures. Collectors are encouraged to examine their own 2024 Kennedy Half Dollars closely for similar anomalies.

******

*HEADS TO THE BANK ASAP AND STARTS FEVERISHLY CHECKING ROLLS**

04/30/2025
Dryer Coins For The Win!

Good morning, friends!

Got an email from a friend wondering what the heck those coins are above (his subject line was literally: “Fake dimes?!”), and after being stumped for a few minutes I did some sleuthing :)

Turns out, these aren’t actually fake coins at all – they’re 100% authentic! And they even have a name!

Dyer Coins

I.E. coins that are accidentally left in pockets when they’re put through the wash, only to fall out and get stuck in the process of drying and get spun around and around (and around and around and around, ad nauseam!!!) until eventually their rims are flattened and overall diameter shrunk.

According to an entry on CoinCommunity.com,

“Commercial machines had an inner (clothes) tub, and an outer tub that surrounded the inner.

Coins would slip out of clothing being put into the machine and fall into the skinny opening (at the “mouth” of the machine”) between the two tubs and be tumbled through many cycles.

On a front-loading machine, after awhile the coin’s thickness could increase enough such that the coin would be rolling on its edge between the two tubs rather than continually being carried upward and dropping back down”

*******

So basically after going around and around for Lord knows how long, they’re eventually dug out and are found to be much smaller – and cleaner! – in the process, lol… Pretty neat! :)

And up until now I’d never seen any others in my entire lifetime, but funny how once you notice something it tends to keep popping up now that it’s in your conscious! Not only have I come across a few dryer coins in a collection I recently liquidated, but I JUST FOUND SOME IN MY OWN DRYER THIS WEEK TOO!!! What the heck???!

[In a collection I was liquidating – two dimes and a cent!]

[Found IN MY DRYER!! Look at that right cent compared to the left one – it’s gotten so tiny!!! If it weren’t for the remaining coloring and part of “Liberty” still showing I would have assumed it was a dime.]

[Close-up of rims after all that circling.]

Now interestingly that same member from Coin Community says these coins come from *commercial dryers* and not inside the main tub where clothes go, but turns out he’s wrong in both cases.

These puppies were found at the bottom of my normal average dryer, AND inside the main tub where my clothes were! I saw something shiny lodged down at the bottom in between a crevice, and when I plucked it out with pliers (it was in there good!) I noticed it was a coin! I scanned the rest of the tub and found two others lodged but I was able to pull those out with my fingers.

The crazy thing is that they couldn’t have been in there too long as I do our family’s laundry every single day and most likely would have noticed them? So I’m completely stumped here… Unless they somehow fell in between the tubs initially like that poster up above said, but then managed to squeeze through the crevices later to appear in the main clothing tub?! But that’s not possible right?

Either way, they’re pretty neat, and as you can see it afflicts all kinds of denominations – not just dimes. This below cent was particularly interesting – it turned so *glossy* and completely changed the coloring of it! I now see why my friend thought his dimes looked fake – they just don’t look, or feel, “right” when you hold them.

(The rim on the left is so thick and kinda looks like a “covering” on the coin vs a rim! I even slipped in a flat head screwdriver just to see if I can pop it off but had no luck ;))

45 years on this Earth and never come across these before, and now all of a sudden I’m the proud owner of 6 cute little dryer coins, lol… And maybe you have one in your collection – or dryer? – too and don’t even know it?! I guess you really can find coins anywhere! 😂

Happy Collecting!

PS: They’re not really worth anything over face value, in case you were wondering… though I bet your collector friends would trade you for ’em since they’re so cool :)

03/25/2025
Custom Coin Board… Table! With Legs!

Good morning!

So last week we showed off my new custom coin *board* that a friend of mine gave me in a trade, and as I was complimenting him on how helpful it’s been for me lately he shot me a picture of his latest creation…

A custom coin board…. TABLE! With Legs! (See above)

And boy has he outdone himself, haha… Unlike the original creation, this one comes with removable *cups* for even faster access, so now you can easily fill ’em up and swap them out without having to dig your hands into the squares to manually scoop them out! Genius!

You’ll also notice a smooth clean “sorting area” for easier pouring though, and then a raised edge for good measure so no precious babies fall overboard…

And then of course there are its legs!! Which collapse for easier storage!

Now this puppy only has *12* slots vs *50* so it’s not as expansive, but sometimes you’re only dealing with a handful of coins or countries anyways so in those instances it works great.

In fact, my friend says he usually starts out his sorting projects using THIS coin board first, and then whips out the other board second for more detailed sorting since that one has all those extra slots. So basically a 2-step sorting process – how fun!

Here’s a picture of the original board again for reference:

And then here’s a couple more of the board table, sans coins to better see it in all its glory ;)

[Legs in use]

[Legs folded up]

Pretty cool, right?

What a great way to harness one hobby to improve another… You have outdone yourself again, my good woodworking friend! Congrats!

And similar to my note with the other board, if this is something that could really help you in your own coin journey, pass me a note and I’ll see if my friend is willing to make another one. I hear he’s a sucker for foreign coins! (Hint hint)

PS: We’ll be back to our usual *coin* posting next time… I just couldn’t pass up the chance to show off yet another great invention! Coin collectors are the best!

12/03/2024
Custom Coin Board!
Hello coin lovers!

Picked up a pretty cool tool recently and thought I’d share :)

It’s a custom coin board built by a friend of mine to make sorting easier! How cool is that?! He’s a huge *foreign coins* guy and routinely sorts though pounds worth of bags at a time, but was having trouble finding the perfect set up while watching TV.

So what does a carpenter do when faced with such a dilemma? Head to his workshop of course and builds one for himself!

And what a beauty it turned out to be! A perfectly sized tray of 5 rows and 10 slots, making it a dream to sort while sitting on the couch enjoying your hobby…

And I know this as I’ve been doing just that myself while giving it a test spin :)

[Sorting pennies from a recent collection I was evaluating]

[So easy to sort them by decade – or even year!]

[Sorting modern change]

[Closeup of change – tall enough to fit a lot!]

[Another closeup…]

[Sorting Morgans by year!]

[So pretty – and easy]

My friend showed off one of these boards during a presentation at our coin club, and when I asked afterwards how I could get my own hands on one of these, he shot back with that familiar response: “what do you have for trade?” ;)

And, well, one thing led to another and he’s now the proud owner of a few early 20th century type coins, and I’m the proud owner of this coin board featured here in this post! Score!

And there really are so many ways you can use this!
- For sorting coins by YEAR
- For sorting coins by DECADE
- For sorting coins by TYPE
- For sorting coins by COUNTRY (this is the main way my friend uses it – he separates out the countries first, then goes back and separates them out by *year* and *denomination*)
- For sorting coins just in GENERAL! (The last time I grabbed this I had only a small pile of maybe 30-40 coins to go through, so I just plopped this puppy on my lap and easily sorted the entire thing with plenty of extra slots left over… It’s so convenient!)
And BONUS: It makes for a much easier way to store and *transport*coins too!

Because as much as we wish we had hours upon hours to dedicate to our coin babies, unfortunately life doesn’t always grant us this so whether you have 15 mins or a full hour to play, you know you can at least get started and then come back to it later with no needing of clearing tables or whipping out plastic baggies or jars/etc etc. You just take the tray back out from a safe location, and voila! Time to get the coin party started again!

It really does make sorting a lot more fun (and comfortable), so huge thanks again to my friend for a) letting me have one of these creations! and b) for giving me a tool that I’ll be able to use for many years/decades? to come.

Happy collecting!

PS: If anyone else is interested in having a board, let me know and I’ll see if he’s up for making some new ones. Just be prepared to have something to trade! ;)
11/26/2024
What to Do With Fake Coins (and Are They Still Worth Anything?)
Good morning!

So we’re a year late with this post, haha, but I still wanted to share because I found the whole process of figuring out I had fake coins on my hands, as well as WHAT TO DO WITH THEM afterwards?, super interesting. And my hope is that whenever YOU come across fake ones yourself one day this will give you some ideas on what you can do too!

A quick summary though of what led us to this point:
- I got a new collection last year to inventory and liquidate
- I found a Morgan dollar in it that looked SUPER off (1895 with no mint mark)
- I spent hours deciphering it, and then realized I actually had a total of 28 fake Morgans on my hands including the 1895!!
- I drafted a blog post about what happened next and then promptly forgot about it for a year 😂
So what did happen next?! I’ll finally tell you!

Well, first, I had to break the news to my client that she’s got a bunch of fake-os on her hands and that’s not something anyone wants to hear – especially after your trusted coin advisor hints that it’s “at least $500 of silver” when first taking a look at it! (Oops). But I bite the bullet and finally just blurt it out at our next meeting, and thankfully the rest of her collection was worth around $2,500 so it wasn’t the end of the world.

Here’s how it went down:

Me: “I have good news, and I have bad news” lol… “Which do you want first?” :)

Her: “Bad news please!”

Me: (straight up) “I found 28 fake silver dollars in your collection…. Which are basically worthless.”

**Awkward silence**

Her: (starts laughing hysterically) ” This surprises me not one bit – my dad was always getting into weird things and probably found a deal he couldn’t resist picking up!” Haha… Whew!!! (It was her dad’s collection we were liquidating)

And from there we moved right to the rest of the collection as if nothing ever happened. Best outcome possible!!

We then had a decision to make: what to do with these forgeries? Should we sell them as-so? Maybe get rid of them completely (ie trash ’em) so no one later can get duped? Get them analyzed in the off chance they’re actually made of silver so we could get the bullion value out of them at least?

I offered up the following for her to choose:
1. I can give them back to her and she can show them to another dealer or research more on her own to get a 2nd opinion
2. I could try to sell them for any *silver* value that may be in each one, but it’s doubtful (plus – would take a while longer as I’d have to drive a ways to get to the closest shop that has a machine that could do this)
3. We could just trash them so no one gets duped in the future!!
4. Or lastly, I could keep them for educational purposes and use them for show and tells at our coin club and other events. Which was my personal preference so that a) they wouldn’t get back into circulation, but also b) they’re actually pretty cool! Esp that 1895 which, if *were* real, would have been worth $40,000 lol…)
Which option did she go with?

Option #4 – making my heart happy :) And at the very next coin club we had I gave an impromptu presentation on how I came about these coins and what led me to labeling them as fake, and then I passed them around for everyone to check out. Half of the club said they could tell right away they were fake, and the other half were blown away that they were inauthentic.

Here’s a shot of some of them and you can tell for yourself:

Here’s also the original article I wrote that goes into the nitty gritty of how I put everything together, which details markings and errors and just general notes to keep in mind when you’re evaluating coins yourself:

An 1895 Fake Morgan and More!!

They really were pretty good fakes outside of some sloppy markings and an incorrect date. Plus – you never really go into a collection *looking* for fakes either – they seem to only come up when you see something that looks “off.” Which is a good lesson for ME going forward too: to always keep in the back of my mind that fakes exist! And to maybe even come up with a checklist to go down for all future collections I help sell too, hmm….

But there you have it! A number of things you can do with forgeries if you’re stuck. It’s not all bad! You can learn from all of them and at the very least get them out of circulation!

When I passed them to a couple dealers in our club that night, they told me what they tend to do with fakes which helped validate our decision:

Dealer #1 puts all fakes into a binder for educational reasons and to take them off the street (he told me a time when he once turned a fake one down, and then years later got duped by the exact same coin when he was in a rush looking it over! He was furious!! Haha…)

And Dealer #2 uses them for window displays at his shop. Which I find incredibly genius! For one thing you don’t have to worry about anyone smashing the window and stealing them, haha, and for another they’re great advertising pieces as Morgans are so pretty and popular. Plus you don’t have to worry about any sun damage! I bet fakes don’t tone the same way anyways and may look “pretty” permanently lolol…

At any rate, hope this helps in your own endeavors! If you have any stories of stumbling across fakes in your own collection or researches I’d love to hear about it :) We can learn from all of them!

Your friend in collecting,

PS: Over the months I’ve since given out almost all the fakes to members of our club to keep and use as identifiers. But I’ve kept the 1895 for myself and made sure to label it ;) That post-it alone will save hours of frustration for my future heirs!! (And of course I’ve documented it in my trusty spreadsheet too – much more longer lasting…)
11/01/2024
1700s Mystery Coin?!

A new client of mine shot me a pic of this coin she inherited from her great grandfather (who once worked at a grist mill!), and I immediately had to stop what I was doing to research it ;)

I didn’t get a pic of the obverse, but wanna take a guess of what it is before reading on??!

My initial thought was that it was a Spanish colonial coin from back in the pirate days, made of silver and from 1757 , but after 20 mins messing around with Google I realized I was barking up the wrong tree as I couldn’t find JACK on it at all. I should have taken the time to decipher the letters around the edge, but I was too impatient so I did what any good coin sleuth would do next:

I cheated and used Google Lens 😎

And, well, within seconds we had our answer!

[It doesn’t always find *the exact* coin you submit, however it usually finds a similar enough one where you can narrow down the search from 0% certainty to around 80-90% ;)]

First, it turns out this coin isn’t silver at all – it’s copper (whoops… sometimes photos can trick you!)

Secondly, that “V” in the middle has nothing to do with the date which is where I got the 1757 from! It’s actually the *denomination* of the coin! Tricky!!

And lastly, it did not originate in Spain, but it did come close :) It’s actually Portuguese.

So what exactly is it??

A 1797 5 Reis from Portugal!

[Image from NGC – my favorite site for foreign coins!]

Now maybe it was still used by pirates – there’s really no way to prove against this, right? – but sadly despite its age and cool factor it’s surprisingly not that valuable :(

According to NGC, in VG condition it’s worth around $3.00, and in XF it’s $50.00 – even though there were only 219,000 made (!!!) making it SUPER rare. But as we all know rarity isn’t the only factor, and in this particular grade (which I would peg around AG due to its wear and roughness) it’s maybe worth $1.00 on a good day.

Still, a fascinating coin. And you could tell it’s had quite a life so far too! Just look at all those dents and scratches and holes its endured! It’s been traded through so many hands over the years, and kinda sad in a way that it’ll now lie at the bottom of someone’s collection collecting dust and no longer being of service to anyone :(

In a way this article is its last hurrah, but at least we got to show it some love for a bit!

At any rate, I’m back to blogging again here as you can see, and I’ll try to make sure my next article shows up before another 12 months have passed 😂

In fact, I see in my drafts that I never actually shared the ending of what happened to all those fake Morgan Dollars I discovered last year!! So I’ll make sure to get that story out first, and will then let you know what else I find in this new collection I’m currently inventorying… So far lots of toned Morgans and a heap of junk silver, but maybe we’ll find a few more mysteries to crack?!

Hope your own coin adventures are going well! See ya back here again soon.

UPDATE: I’ve now received this mystery coin in my hands (my initial research was based on the provided photo up top), and surprisingly the coin is super small and THIN!!! It looked so thick and robust in the pic, so you never really know about some of these guys until it’s actually physically in your hands… The coloring is much darker too – and brown! – which would have immediately led me to believe it was copper and not silver – d’oh.

Here’s a pic from the side, along with the obverse which I also didn’t have to go on initially. Super fun challenge all around though 👍

09/13/2024
An 1895 Fake Morgan and More!!

So I finally wrapped up evaluating that collection I mentioned in the last post, and wow – what a doozy!

The collection itself was fine (approx. 10 hours spent which is normal for this amount of coins), but it was the last pile of “weird coins” I saved to research at the end that threw me for a loop…

It all started with this 1895 Morgan Dollar pictured above. I put it to the side because the date looked awfully strange to me, and indeed when I took the time to compare it to others I noticed just how TINY it actually was! Look at that thing – it’s wildly off!

That was red flag #1 that it was a fake. But perhaps it was also a different variation or even a pattern coin I discovered and will soon be famous for! (A guy can dream, right?) So I wasn’t about to label it just yet.

Instead, I whipped out my trusty Red Book to help decipher it and to my surprise there WAS NO 1895 MADE! Or I should say, made *for circulation*. There was an 1895-O and an 1895-S, both also pretty rare, but as far as a no-mint-mark 1895 it only came in PROOF for the year.

And look how much it’s worth!! (No wonder you’d fake it!)

As much as I wanted this to be a proof, though, it most certainly was not, leading us to Red Flag #2 of it’s genuineness. I then moved to *weighing it* since 90% of the time that makes it a dead giveaway on the spot, however to my shock it weighed just as much as the Morgan next to it! So to make DOUBLY sure, I weighed it alongside a handful of other Morgans from the same pile and low and behold they all weighed nearly the same too! Damn.

But I kept thinking about how bad that date was, so I moved to putting it under a magnifying glass and wow were there some other clues!

First off, I noticed all these raised lines on the obverse protruding from the top left of the head (similar to the Peace Dollars), as well as the chin, neck, and lower stars.

I then flipped it over and noticed a little pitting that looked off, as well as some extra metal above the surface which hadn’t been shaved all the way – classic signs of forgeries!

But the nail in the coffin was this little divet hidden between the A and the T of “States” on the reverse. Which alone wouldn’t have caused me any concern, however, after noticing a similar mark on another of the Morgans I decided to flip them ALL over and check and wouldn’t you know it – 40% of these suckers all had the EXACT SAME marking on them!!

THEY WERE ALL FAKE!!! OMG!!!!

All 28 of these Morgans were counterfeits and it took me almost 3 hours to finally piece it all together, ugh…

And to think it could have been solved in minutes if only I didn’t make the biggest mistake at the start! If you recall, when I first weighed the 1895 it weighed just the same as the others, but that was because they were ALL counterfeits and I was comparing fakers! Had I taken the 30 seconds to look up what the weight should be I would have caught the discrepancy from the start and saved a lot of frustration. (The correct weight btw is 26.73. Not 23.something which is what these were clocking in around…)

So that was lesson #1 learned here. The other things I should have picked up on earlier was the fact that they were almost ALL graded around VF/XF, none of them had any mint marks whatsoever (not a giveaway, but looking back it now makes sense since they were all used with the same or similar die) and then to top it off their tones were roughly the same as well!! Look at this!

I chalked up to coming from the same storage of them, but nope. They were all manufactured by the same rotten individual meant to deceive, and boy did they… The sad part is if that date wasn’t so dang tiny I very well could have missed it entirely, as overall they looked, and felt, fantastic with the naked eye!

But the 2nd mystery here is whether the previous owner *knew* they were fake or not?

They were all inside the same tube separating them out from the other Morgans in his collection, so for that reason mainly I’m lead to believe he knew. Perhaps he just didn’t think to label them realizing one day others will be pouring over his collection when he’s long gone, and if he DID know they were counterfeits, the second question becomes – did he get ripped off when he acquired them, or did he know from the start they weren’t authentic?

Again I’m leaning towards him knowing from the start as I learned he worked at a coin shop for a number years as an assistant, so I have to believe he got pretty good at grading and seeing all kinds of counterfeits over the years. And perhaps one day some unlucky owner of them brought them in to be appraised, only to discover they were fakes so our friend here took them off his hands as a souvenir!

The other possible option is that he grabbed them for his binders since they were all in a row (from 1878 to 1904 and then a 1921), with the idea of one day replacing them with real ones… But in this case wouldn’t he had taken them out of the tube and plopped then into them vs keep ’em hidden for so long?!

Unfortunately we’ll never know the true answer to our mystery here as our friend has since deceased (thus why I’m reviewing them now as the daughter wants to liquidate them) but at least we can put to bed the question of whether they’re authentic or not.

Now I just have to break it to her that the collection is worth a lot less than we first guestimated :( It’ll be the last time I say – “there’s at least $500 in silver here!” from just glancing at them, that’s for sure, ughhh… It never crosses my mind that people can be holding fakes, but I need to be better about that or else I could be the next unsuspecting victim while buying up collections!

But a mystery solved, and I’ll soon be posting a review of the whole collection here for you.. Just gotta make sure I update the spreadsheet now with this new information – d’oh!

*Link to Red Book above is an Amazon affiliate link

09/18/2023
The “Z” Collection
As promised, here’s that collection I was working on!

I call it the “Z” Collection here, but in my documentation I actually have the client’s name swapped in the quotations which I like cuz it makes it feel more *personal*. And, of course, that’s how all the professionals in the space do it ;) You’ll always see the prominent collections labeled by their provenance which only adds to the coolness and history of each coin!

Nothing too rare or valuable in this lot (about $485 retail / $320 liquidated), but still never gets old looking at 100+ year old coins… Which you can see below, along with a couple of my favorites I’ve plucked out to highlight!

******

[The entire lot…]

[Close up of the silver dollars… That first one (1878) would have been great had it not been so worn! It’s the first year of production for Morgans and goes up into the hundreds if uncirculated.)

[Close up of the nickels and cents… Similar to that Morgan above, that last large cent here that’s cleaned up and ugly (such a sin!!) would have been worth $200+ if not tampered with!]

[Close up of the wheaties and the four foreign coins… Always makes you wonder where they all came from, doesn’t it? Here you have 50+ US coins and then randomly a few foreign ones find themselves into the mix, haha… They were my favorite ones of the whole collection though, and the only ones I kept for myself :)]

[That French 10 cent piece close up!! So beautiful, isn’t it?!! Also amazing how much *lighting* can play a part in photographing these… I mean, it IS toned and colorful like that, but compare it to the pic above and it looks drastically different!]

[Canadian one cent from 1876… That purple is stunning!]

[And then lastly, I’d be remissed to not showcase another pic of that magnificant(ly ugly) coin holder, Hahaha… it really is quite the looker!]

******

My client originally wanted me to help evaluate them all (which I did), and then to liquidate them, but apparently his son got wind of this and was not too happy he wasn’t inheriting them so the plans changed fast 😂

I still printed him a copy of the spreadsheet I created detailing them all, but back the coins went, minus the two foreign ones above* and that epic coin holder which I took as “payment” for my services, lol…

You can see the full spreadsheet here if you want to download it and/or tweak and use with your own collecting:
- “Z” Collection (Google Doc)
- “Z” Collection (Excel Doc)
It actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise as I was just tasked with liquidating *another* collection and it’s quite a biggie!! 20+ folders filled up of Morgans, and Silver Eagles and nickels and pennies and foreign coins and all kinds of other goodies just waiting to be ogled, haha…

Excited to dig in and see what we can find :) And will of course then share pics here too! Thanks for reading! Hope your own collections are going well and that you don’t need someone like me to sell them off for you! (but if you do, you know where to find me)

XOXO,

*As beautiful as those coins are, they’re only worth about $1.00 and $6.00 respectfully…
08/15/2023