purchasing collector coins


what are collector coins? personally they are coins that cost me fifty to several hundred dollars apiece. ninety-nine per cent of the time i buy these coins on line and a few inperson. what i want to relate to anyone who reads this is to be wary of what they buy.

to be politically correct, i will not name any web sites, coin stores, or grading services. what i want to convey to you is a safe strategy
when you purchase higher priced coins.

recently, for the first time i submitted 12 of my best silver dollars (morgans) to a well known (one of the top four) grading services to rate my prized possessions. when the coinswere returned i coudn’t believe the results.

these results were on the coin slabs:

5 au 50 cleaned
1 au 50 cleaned - scratched
1 au 55 cleaned
2 au 58 altered surfaces
1 au 58 morgan
1 ms 62 morgan
1 ms 63 morgan

there were only 3 coins with a high rating. not because they were my coins, but i thought there were at least 2 coins that might grade at ms-64 or greater. of course, in the futurewhen the coins are sold, the cleaned and altered coins will be devalued due to their slab description.

so my recommendation is this. regardless of the source, if possible, buy a professionally graded coin if you are spending a higher sum of money. a lot of coins being sold on lineare not what they appear to be. the immediate seller may not be responsible or know about subtle changes to the coin but apparently alterations and cleaning are increasing.

ATTACHMENT - 1884-O ALTERED MORGAN