1882-O Dollar and a nice afternoon.

[GarryN]

I am in southern Louisiana in Lake Charles and Sulphur. I have been visiting a coin shop there and I bought a 1903 uncirculated Indian cent that has some nice red, blue and gold toning. I will put some pics on the Indian cent board soon.

Anyway, Matt Lewis, proprietor of Lewis Coins purchased a collection of silver dollars on Oct 14 from a lady who was selling her family collection. Matt said the collection was complete except for the 1893-S and 1889-CC. Unfortunately, the collection was in a binder from the 1950's , he said and almost all have some PVC damage. Yesterday, Oct 14, he showed me the best coins. These were a 1879-CC, AU; 1893-CC, AU; 1893-O, AU;
1885-CC , BU prooflike and 1894, AU. (Today, Oct 15, those coins were sold!) Only the 1885-CC showed some significant PVC damage, amazingly the others were spared. The less expensive coins fared worse. The lower the grade and smoother the surfaces, the worse the damage was. I spent an hour and a half going thru them. Two 8TF coins, almost BU, had damage only on the rims. An 1893, EF, showed significant damage. On and on it went.

I was checking the coins against the VAM Keys handbook and nothing was there until I came across an 1882-O. It has a die line that bisects the mint mark horizontally. It does not match the 3 O/S varieties, however. I purchased it for $10 and I will check it against the VAM encyclopedia. It may be an O/O. It has light green PVC damage. I managed to wipe most of it off.

http://home.comcast.net/~g.naples/wsb/html/view.cgi-photo.html--SiteID-1083563.html

All in all it was a nice afternoon looking at all the coins. Approximately 100 Morgans, 25 Peace. He also purchased from her a handful of wheat cents but nothing interesting. She apparently sold the rest of her collection (many denominations, including cents) to a dealer in Houston.

[coppercoins]

Never, ever, ever 'wipe' a coin's surface with any sort of rag, cloth, or paper. use cotton only, and soaked liberally (to the point of dripping) in acetone. This will moisten the tip enough so it will not scratch the coin.

As for PVC, 99.5% of it can easily be removed if it hasn't eaten into the surface of the coin, and that's often very difficult to determine until the problem is removed. I never scare away from buying a coin just because it is hazed over with crud - I have many nice coins that I got good deals on because they were butt ugly, however with a little care and some goo-gone or acetone they ended up being some of the more attractive coins in my collection.

[GarryN]

Thanks Chuck. The coin is VF at best, i just wiped it softly with the tissue. but I will give it some acetone later.

[GarryN]

I checked the 1882-O dollar in the VAM encyclopedia. It is a VAM 6. The coin was once known as "O/S line" but apparently better judgement has decided it is only a die line of some sort. It definitely does not have the angle of the other 3 "S" mint mark impressions. Very cool anyway.

[coop]

Garry: Good conclusion. When I saw it it looked like a die scratch to me. But I agree with your conclusion.

[GarryN]

that conclusion comes from the VAM encyclopedia actually. How would a line like that appear? It should be a scratch, shouldn't it?