GoldStatue

I thought it was interesting that the two sets of stamps that were as equally rare and well known lost the collector money (when compared to purchase price) but the gold coin more than doubled his money.

It's a dead cert, I can't wait to see it at the end of this year! It seems unlikely we're going to get another monarch that will do a 70 year stretch, so I'd imagine it will be a true one off.

I think reputation wise they are basically on a par with each other but there seem to be a lot more NGC slabs in the UK than PCGS. I'm also a bit OCD about the labels and the slabs, I see my coins as a collection, so if I had a mixture of NGC and PCGS and different labels it would be tempting to get them re-holdered. It would certainly be something for me to consider if I were starting from afresh.

A lot of it is down to the type of coin and it's condition, it's the hard abrasive cleaning you want to avoid on any coin. I've dipped a few sovereigns in a soapy bath and never really mastered the best way to let them dry off afterwards, I was always worried it would leave water spots/lines. If you're considering grading then you can always get it conserved and let the professionals do the cleaning for you. It's a shame there isn't a service that will just do the cleaning by itself, I've sent a few coins in for grading just for the conservation and wasn't too fussed about the slabbing.

I'd sum it up as general weakening of the dollar and an anticipated gloomy economic outlook due to the pandemic. It'll be interesting to see if it reaches last years high and break the $2k again and maybe stay there for a bit longer. I doubt many people can come up with convincing reasons for it to fall at the moment!

Sold out within 5 minutes and cheap as chips in 3 years time would be my guess 😀

I've always wondered where the graders draw the line on the statement "no post-production imperfections ", maybe they classed the missing frosting as a part of the production and not miss handling after the coin has been made. I remember a few of those matte sovereigns from a few years ago getting 70's with clear missing areas of the matte finish on them.

Or even vice versa, if you buy a platinum coin and that doesn't contain what it says it should do, wow that would be a lot of money! When I saw the Spegtacular video I wondered how much metal testing goes on in the general public. Do people actually own a Sigma testers or even know/carry out the basic tests? Probably not many considering the cost of one of those machines. Do bullion dealers test metals they purchase off of mints? Or should they have to?