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#1
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Who were they? What were they like?
What is the "process" by which BU coins, over
a hundred years old, stay in mint condition for all these years? What type of person decides that he's going to sit on a roll of coins for decades? I know that the answer for silver dollars staying so nice is because "they" spent 70+ years locked up in their original mint bag, but what is the story for the rest of the coins out there that survive untouched? |
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#2
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Who were they? What were they like?
On Sep 3, 2:53*pm, george pearl wrote:
What is the "process" by which BU coins, over a hundred years old, stay in mint condition for all these years? What type of person decides that he's going to sit on a roll of coins for decades? I know that the answer for silver dollars staying so nice is because "they" spent 70+ years locked up in their original mint bag, but what is the story for the rest of the coins out there that survive untouched? How about a couple of speculative answers? Say someone living in a large, plantation-style or Victorian house after the Civil War got a new two-cent piece and put it in a dresser drawer. It slides under the base of the drawer and ends up under the drawer. Since great- great grandma never removed the drawer, the two-cent piece stayed where it was. The house passes on to great-grandma, grandma, mom, and eventually you. Since the dresser is solid and still in great shape, you decide to clean it up, maybe even refinish it. Now you remove the drawers and, Lo! A BU two-cent piece! My own house was originally built in the 1840s. Some additions and upgrades, but not much in the way of decent remodeling. Now that I live here I decide to tear out the old beaver-board that was used on the original walls. I tear it out and inside the wall I find a BU Young Head Large Cent that was lost shortly after the house was completed. Finally, when grandma passed away in the 1940s, her daughter got her couch. Grandma had the couch for over 50 years, and it was still in decent shape. Daughter used it for about 20 years, then moved it to the attic where it stayed until recently. I get a phone call to clean out the attic and throw everything away. Knowing couches and chairs are a repository for coins, I take the couch to my own house and break it up. Sure enough, there are coins, including a BU "V" nickel. This story is true, except the "V" nickel was a 1901 that graded VF-20. So it is possible, even with coins as old as 100 years. Jerry |
#3
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Who were they? What were they like?
On Sep 3, 1:53*pm, george pearl wrote:
What is the "process" by which BU coins, over a hundred years old, stay in mint condition for all these years? What type of person decides that he's going to sit on a roll of coins for decades? I know that the answer for silver dollars staying so nice is because "they" spent 70+ years locked up in their original mint bag, but what is the story for the rest of the coins out there that survive untouched? It's simply an example of "the law of large numbers" in action. Coin collectors tend to forget that coins are massed produced objects. If four million one dollar gold pieces in 1853 (that sounds about right), it's not really surprising that 3,000 to 5,000 really nice examples exists today. Nobody had to do anything special. A very small percentage of the really huge original mintage skirted by the ravages of time - no special effort required. You can come up with any specific explaination that you want for any single coin. The really amazing things are the 1882-CC, 1883-CC and the 1884-CC Morgan dollars - 30% or more of the original mintages surviving in pretty decent shape to high end BU. oly |
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