Buying PCGS Old Green Holders & NGC Fatty Holders

Buying PCGS Old Green Holders & NGC Fatty Holders
Photo Credit: Continental Coin and Jewelry

Listen closely, because I’m going to tell you a secret about the rare coin market that every numismatic investor should know.

The field of numismatics is dominated by third-party grading services these days.  Coins submitted to these firms are graded by experienced industry professionals and then sealed in hard, clear polycarbonate cases.  This simple concept revolutionized the trade, giving coin collectors and investors confidence that the coins they’re buying are both genuine and properly graded.

However, there is a certain mythology surrounding certified coins housed in PCGS Old Green holders and vintage NGC Fatty Holders.  Coins found in these early holders generally trade for slight premiums over coins of the same grade in more recent PCGS and NGC slabs.

But why is this the case?

In order to understand the reason PCGS Old Green holders and vintage NGC Fatty Holders sell for higher prices than newer slabbed coins, it is necessary to examine the early history of the grading services.

Before the advent of third-party grading, the coin market was the Wild West.  Unscrupulous dealers frequently over-graded the coins they were selling, while simultaneously under-grading any coins they were buying.  Dubious telemarketing firms and boiler room operations cold-called people trying to sell “investment grade” coins that invariably turned out to have been cleaned, damaged, over-graded or otherwise compromised.

Now this might not have mattered for the kid buying a common-date, circulated Mercury dime from his local coin shop.  But it created a major trust problem with more expensive coins that were worth hundreds or even thousands of dollars.  The lack of uniform grading standards was tearing the numismatic community apart.  It wasn’t hard to foresee a bleak future where average coin collectors – fed up with grading inconsistencies and problem coins passed off as good – would simply choose to quit collecting.

Something had to be done.

Enter a consortium of professional coin dealers led by legendary numismatist David Hall.  These innovators believed that if coins could be independently graded by a well-respected numismatic organization and then encapsulated in tamper-resistant packaging, it would create a market where these certified, or “slabbed”, coins could trade sight unseen as commodities.  The resulting company, PCGS (Professional Coin Grading Service) officially launched in February 1986.  Its primary competitor, NGC (Numismatic Guaranty Corporation), was founded just a year later in 1987.

But in order to convince the market that their new product was worthwhile, the dealers behind PCGS and NGC knew that they had to be scrupulous to a fault with their grading.  If a coin was borderline, it was better to knock it down a grade and preserve the integrity of the firm and, by extension, the entire idea of third-party certification.  As a result, early submissions to both PCGS and NGC were almost always conservatively graded by today’s standards.

It was only many years later, as the certified coin market gradually came to mature, that PCGS and NGC found they could relax their grading standards somewhat.  Therefore, collectors and investors tend to place a small premium on coins housed in earlier slabs from either major grading service.

 

PCGS Old Green Holder & NGC Fatty Holder Morgan Silver Dollars for Sale on eBay

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The very earliest PCGS holders are known in the numismatic community as “Rattlers” because the entombed coin could sometimes move slightly in its case.  These early PCGS cases featured white or green labels and smaller-sized holders compared to more modern slabs.  The company produced Rattlers (PCGS Generation 1.0 to Gen 1.2) from its inception in 1986 until September 1989, when the firm discovered that they could be counterfeited.

PCGS quickly responded to this threat by updating the Rattler with a clear plastic exterior ring, barcoded label and reverse hologram sticker.  These holders are actually old Rattler holders encased in a separate, clear plastic collar.  These more counterfeit-resistant transitional type holders (PCGS Gen 2.0 to Gen 2.2) ran from September 1989 until January 1990.

By early 1990, PCGS had completed the engineering necessary to switch over to a single-piece, stackable holder with the familiar green label and reverse hologram sticker.  These improved Old Green holders (PCGS Gen 3.0 to Gen 3.1) were used from January 1990 to September 1998.  Because of their long production run, these holders constitute the bulk of Old Green holders in existence.  It is important to note that the green label dye color was not always stable on Gen 3.0 slabs, sometimes leading to blue or yellow discoloration.

Because the earliest white label PCGS holders (Gen 1.0 and Gen 1.1) were only used during the first month of the company’s operation, they aren’t commonly encountered today.  Due to their extreme rarity, these very early white label PCGS holders have an elevated degree of collectability among some coin enthusiasts, even when they don’t hold very valuable coins.

In contrast, the beloved Old Green holders span all the way from PCGS Gen 1.2 (first released in February 1986; this first generation were also Rattlers) all the way to PCGS Gen 3.1 holders, which were discontinued in September 1998.  Today’s coin collectors and dealers often refer to Older Green holders by the abbreviation “OGH”, which you will frequently find used in online auction titles.

Thankfully, NGC’s holder history is somewhat less convoluted than PCGS’s.  NGC’s first slabbed coins came in slick-looking, all-black holders.  But this only lasted from August 1987 until December 1987, when the color was changed to white.  This aesthetic change was made because while the original black background made bright gold and silver coins look stunning, it diminished the visual appeal of bronze and heavily toned silver coins.  The early, all-black NGC holders are considered the most desirable early slab to many collectors, sporting prices that can reach into the thousands of dollars each, regardless of the coin they contain!

All-white NGC holders were produced from December 1987 until 1997 with only minor updates along the way, like the addition of barcoded labels in 1993.  These are the vintage NGC Fatty holders (also known as “Fattie” holders) that many coin buffs treasure today.  These slabs acquired their name because of their distinctively thick, “soap dish” shape, which was replaced in later generations by a slimmer, more streamlined form.

Now that we’ve got the history out of the way, we can talk more about why you might want to buy PCGS Old Green holders or vintage NGC Fatty holders.

 

PCGS Old Green Holder & NGC Fatty Holder Pre-1933 U.S. Gold Coins for Sale on eBay

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First, some collectors simply enjoy the history that these older slabs carry with them.  Many of these coins were traded back and forth during the late 1980s certified coin bubble, when Wall Street briefly burst into the numismatic realm.  Investors bid up some coin series, like classic U.S. commemorative coins, to such absurd heights that even now – some 30 years later – prices are still off their all-time highs by as much as 90%!

As an aside, I believe this means it is a great time to buy many series of older, numismatically-oriented coins.  After all, do you know anything else that still costs the same amount of money it did in the 1980s?

But for most collectors and investors, the primary reason to buy PCGS Old Green holders and vintage NGC Fatty holders is because you’ll have a better chance of getting a solidly-graded coin for the stated numerical grade.

Even though third-party grading companies strive for consistency, coin grading is an inherently subjective endeavor.  Sometimes graders – even professionals – come to work tired or have an off day.  When the difference between a single numerical grade – like an MS-64 and MS-65 – can be anywhere from hundreds to thousands of dollars, making certain that you’re getting what you’re paying for can be priceless.

Of course, our discussion of vintage NGC Fatty holders and PCGS Old Green holders wouldn’t be complete if we didn’t broach the topic of crack-outs and re-submittals.  Older PCGS and NGC slabs were often so conservatively graded that a cottage industry arose in the early 2000s centered on removing (or cracking-out) under-graded coins from their holders and then resubmitting them to the grading services in hopes of acquiring a higher grade.

Cracking coins out of older holders was so lucrative that it kicked off a veritable decade long gold rush from the late 1990s to the late 2000s.  By that time, the third-party grading services had discontinued the strict grading of the PCGS Old Green holder/NGC Fatty holder era.  So a conservatively graded coin in an older holder might very well come back from one of the companies with a one or (very rarely) two grade increase!

Unfortunately, the crack-out gold rush days are long gone.  Most of the coins that could reasonably have been expected to upgrade have already been resubmitted by now.  But that doesn’t mean that older PCGS and NGC holder coins aren’t still quite desirable.  There are plenty of vintage NGC Fatty holders and PCGS Old Green holders that house really, really nice coins for their grade.  In addition, many collectors feel that vintage holder coins have a better chance of getting CAC approval.

As a final bonus, resubmission upgrades remain a possibility in some niche numismatic markets that have languished since the turn of the millennium.  So common-date Morgan silver dollars, Walking Liberty halves and classic U.S. commemorative halves might provide those with a keen eye the (admittedly slim) possibility of buying a legitimately under-graded coin, as long as you stick to lower priced examples.  This is due to the fact that with these coin series, the value increase from moving, for instance, from MS-62 to MS-63 might not cover the third-party grading service’s resubmission fee.

Consequently, PCGS Old Green holders and NGC Fatty holders often command 5% to 15% premiums over newer holder coins of the same type, date, grade and mint.  The next logical step up the value ladder is getting a “green bean” CAC-stickered coin.  But a CAC stickered specimen can set you back an additional 20% to 100% (!) over an identically graded non-CAC coin, depending on a multitude of different variables.  Given the massive price differentials, a lot of value-conscious collectors and investors opt for coins in vintage holders instead.

 

PCGS Old Green Holder & NGC Fatty Holder Classic U.S. Commemorative Coins for Sale on eBay

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Now for the caveats.

It is vitally important that you buy the coin, not the holder.  An old holder is merely an indicator that a coin might be interesting.  There are, without a doubt, over-graded, thoroughly ugly coins that reside in PCGS Old Green holders and vintage NGC Fatty holders.  It is up to you to avoid these over-graded dogs yourself.

An unethical seller may try to distract you from a lower quality coin by emphasizing the fact that it is housed in a vintage holder.  But that doesn’t mean the coin is automatically good.  The old holders simply give you a potential edge in the very competitive world of investment grade numismatics.

I would also like to warn you that PCGS has started to issue coins in “throwback” holders.  These PCGS throwback or retro holders are new issues with “tribute” labels that are similar to those found in older holders.  Happily, they all have a tell which allows for easy identification.  Every PCGS throwback holder has “PCGS GEN X.X” in a shield printed on the rear label.  If you see this, you know it is a new holder.

To the best of my knowledge, NGC has not issued any Fatty/Fattie holders since 1997.

Although they aren’t a magic silver bullet, early PCGS Old Green holders and vintage NGC Fatty holders can be a great way for savvy coin investors to pick up solidly graded rare coins at a reasonable price.

 

Read more thought-provoking Antique Sage coin articles here.

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Japanese Woodblock Print by Tsuchiya Koitsu – Evening at Ushigome

Japanese Woodblock Print by Tsuchiya Koitsu - Evening at Ushigome
Photo Credit: Craigkc

Japanese Woodblock Print by Tsuchiya Koitsu – Evening at Ushigome

Buy It Now Price: $299.99 (price as of 2019; item no longer available)

Pros:

-This Japanese woodblock print is a vintage reprint of a 1939 work titled “Evening at Ushigome” by the well-regarded Shin Hanga artist Tsuchiya Koitsu.  The work features a rainy urban night scene set in a Tokyo neighborhood populated by haunting, ethereal women in traditional Japanese dress.

-This Japanese woodblock print measures 15.375 inches (39.1 cm) tall by 10.125 inches (25.7 cm) wide, making it one of the larger, “Oban” sizes.

-Tsuchiya Koitsu was a Japanese artist known for his atmospheric landscapes in the Shin Hanga style.  He apprenticed under the Ukiyo-e master Kiyochika Kobayashi before eventually adopting the Shin Hanga style around 1931.

-This Japanese woodblock print was published by Doi Hangaten, a well known mid-20th century publisher of Shin Hanga works.  It also displays an offset “Harada-Yokoi” carver-printer seal, which is fairly common on vintage Tsuchiya Koitsu prints.  This combination of seals (reference K34) allows us to pinpoint the date of this particular print between 1950 and 1963.

-The back of the print features an old art gallery tag that reads “A Genuine Wood-Block Print | Ace Art Shop | 115 Nakasato-Cho, Kita-Ku, Tokyo, Japan | #27”.  The Ace Art Shop is a now defunct Tokyo gallery that was active back in the 1960s (and possibly earlier).  It’s really great to have this little extra piece of provenance attached to the print.

-Although it isn’t a first edition, this Tsuchiya Koitsu Japanese woodblock print is undoubtedly an earlier, circa 1950s version.  This makes it much more desirable (and valuable) than later 1990s to 2010s Heisei era reprints.

-Given that this is a genuine vintage Japanese woodblock print from the mid-20th century by a famous Shin Hanga artist, the asking price of $300 is a bargain.  It is far more common to find later reprinted versions for hardly any cheaper, so why not pay an extra $100 and get a vintage version with greater appreciation potential?

 

Cons:

-This example of Evening at Ushigome has the remnants of yellowed tape residue around the margins.  This means the work isn’t in pristine condition, a fact that decreased its desirability somewhat.  Even so, I feel it is still in fairly good condition and certainly worth the asking price.

-The work comes unframed.  With acid-free matting and UV-resistant glass, framing costs will typically run another $100 to $300 (in addition to the $300 asking price).

 

Read more fascinating Antique Sage print & wall art spotlight posts here.

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Is 2020 Finally the Year to Buy Antique Furniture?

Is 2020 Finally the Year to Buy Antique Furniture?

Antique furniture has had a tough couple of decades.  After reaching dizzying heights in the late 1990s, the market for high end antique furniture peaked out around the year 2002 according to the ACC Antique Furniture Index.  Since then, the old furniture market has gone nowhere but down, down and then down some more.

At this point, prices for many high end pieces are off by as much as 50% to 80%.  Low-end and mid-range furniture is doing even worse, if that’s possible.  It can be difficult to give away some Victorian and Edwardian pieces these days.

I’m not going to delve into the many reasons why antique furniture has trended down for the past 15 plus years.  Instead, I’m going to posit a simple, but radical idea: maybe 2020 is finally the year to buy antique furniture.

Now I’m going to restrict my analysis to the lower-to-mid range of the market here.  I’m not talking about gilt-walnut French Louis XVI chairs or English George III mahogany breakfronts that (still) get auctioned at Christie’s and Sotheby’s for tens of thousands of dollars.  Yes, those pieces might be good (or even great) buys at today’s depressed prices, but they are outside the scope of this article.

Instead I want to discuss the other end of the vintage furniture market – the old dressers and slightly banged up end tables that you might find at a thrift shop or antiques mall.  These pieces have almost universally been neglected in today’s uncompromising trend towards ultra-modern interior decorating.

What has happened is that young people have largely been buying what is cheap and on-point, stylistically speaking.  And nothing epitomizes this trend better than IKEA flat-pack furniture.

I feel compelled to use quotation marks around the word “furniture” in this context.  In reality, these self-assembled, wood-like constructions hardly qualify as furniture.  In order to keep price points low, IKEA furniture is made from the very cheapest materials – usually wood-chip pressboard or MDF with a thin wood (or plastic!) veneer applied overtop.

The result is a piece of furniture that looks alright as long as you don’t inspect it from any closer than the other side of the room.  And, after a year or two of regular use, you can expect the veneer to start peeling off and the pressboard to sag.  In short, the entire thing will begin to gradually melt back into the pile of wood dust and glue that it came from.

And then it will invariably end up sitting out at the street corner waiting for the trash collectors.

This is a problem.  Many people, particularly younger people, are increasingly environmentally conscious.  But flat-pack furniture flies in the face of this ethical obligation.  It is everything that is wrong with our modern, consumption-oriented lifestyle.  Do you really want to be the person that buys a piece of flat-pack “furniture”, only to throw it out after a few years when it ceases to be structurally sound or good looking?

Enter low-end antique furniture.

Vintage furniture has some major advantages over your average IKEA flat-pack furniture.  First, it has green credentials.  The stuff is generally at least 50 years old, and often 100 or even 150 years old.  This is the ultimate reuse opportunity.  Nobody is cutting down any virgin forests to put these pieces in your local thrift shop.  No noxious industrial chemicals are being used to bind plantation-harvested wood-chips together here.  Old furniture made a century ago from good, solid wood represents the pinnacle of sustainability.

And that leads to antique furniture’s next advantage.  It lasts forever and looks good doing it.  You don’t have to worry about your circa 1900 oak dining table falling apart because your drunk friend thought it would be funny to dance on top of it.  Your 1930s Art Deco dresser is going to be just fine even if you slam the drawers shut every morning in a pre-coffee rage.  Old furniture will survive serious amounts of abuse and last for centuries (provided you don’t try to kill it with fire).

You can also pick whatever look or style strikes your fancy.  Anything from Victorian excess to Mid-Century minimalism is available in the marketplace.  In fact, there is no reason why you can’t mix and match styles.  A growing trend in interior decorating is eclecticism, combining pieces of wildly varying appearances in the same space.  Even if most of your apartment, loft or townhouse is decorated in purely modern themes, there is no reason you can’t incorporate an antique statement piece for a truly stunning contrast.

But perhaps the best reason to choose antique furniture over pre-fab, flat-pack junk is the price.  The antique furniture market has been hit so hard by the Great Recession that prices for some pieces are hardly any more expensive than their IKEA flat-pack equivalents.  In other words, for the same price as a dumpy, self-assembled glue and particleboard nightmare, you might be able to afford a real piece of vintage furniture constructed from oak, cherry, walnut or even mahogany.

 

20th Century Vintage & Antique Furniture for Sale on eBay

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Don’t believe me?

Cruise on over to IKEA’s website and take a look.  One of their dining tables will run you somewhere between $150 and $400.  A living room entertainment stand goes for between $100 and $400.  Even a simple end table will cost you $40 to $150.  Of course, IKEA does sell even cheaper furniture, but it is the nastiest of the nasty – the kind of stuff more befitting dumpster divers than young bohemians.

In contrast, a quick perusal of eBay reveals a set of 4 matching solid walnut Mid-Century end tables for only $299.  An antique  quarter-sawn oak storage chest is available for $290.  A sleek 1960s oak dresser is a measly $80.  Any of these pieces would fit beautifully in a modern living space.

And if the thought of buying old furniture on eBay puts you off, there is every probability that similar treasures reside at your nearest flea market, yard sale or local antique shop.  Craigslist is another possibility if you’re looking to source vintage furniture locally.

The quality of old furniture is far nicer than anything you can get in a flat-pack.  Better yet, the prices are right where you’d hope they’d be: rock bottom.  If antique furniture gets any cheaper, people will resort to turning it into firewood rather than selling it.

So is 2020 finally the year to buy antique furniture?  I think the answer to that is a resounding “Yes”!  The future is trending towards good quality, environmentally-friendly vintage furniture at affordable prices – something flat-pack IKEA junk can’t hope to match.

 

Read more thought-provoking Antique Sage trend articles here.

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Art Deco Pearl & Sapphire Swedish Ring

Art Deco Pearl & Sapphire Swedish Ring
Photo Credit: coins-jewelry-collectibles

Art Deco Pearl & Sapphire Swedish Ring

Buy It Now Price: $284.99 (price as of 2019; item no longer available)

Pros:

-Art Deco opulence simply radiates from this 18 karat yellow gold Swedish ring from 1925 that is set with a central pearl flanked by accent sapphires.

-This antique ring is a size 6.5 on the U.S. sizing scale, meaning its opening measures about 16.9 mm (0.6654 inches) across.  It also weighs in at a healthy 2.25 grams (0.0723 troy ounces), which is fairly typical for a petite high karat gold ring.

-This Swedish ring is hallmarked “18K”, indicating it was made from solid 18 karat (.750 fine) gold.  The ring also has a separate, three-crown hallmark, which is the Swedish state guarantee that the stated fineness is correct.

-This 18 karat gold ring was crafted by the firm of Guldvaruaktiebolaget Dahlgren & Co., a well-regarded Swedish jeweler that operated in Mamlö from the mid 19th century to at least circa 1970.

-We can precisely date this Swedish ring to the year 1925 because of the “Y7” hallmark on the inside of the shank.  The Swedish hallmarking system employed a unique, two-digit alpha numeric date code that was applied to both silverware and gold and silver jewelry.

-18 karat gold is superior to the more well known 14 karat gold is pretty much every way.  The 18 karat alloy is purer, less prone to oxidation and has a richer yellow color compared to its more common 14 karat counterpart.

-This Art Deco era ring is set with a good quality, single 4.8 mm pearl.  By the mid 1920s, round cultured pearls had been available in the marketplace for about 5-10 years.  So there is a chance that this Swedish ring is set with a more desirable and valuable natural pearl, although we can’t know for sure without conducting an X-ray test to view the internal structure of the pearl.

-The ring’s accompanying accent sapphires are almost certainly natural, which is always welcome in a piece of Art Deco jewelry.  1920s era jewelry is often set with synthetics instead of natural stones.

-The quality of the goldwork in this Sweden ring is absolutely top-notch – a very desirable trait in jewelry settings.  There is no pitting or burring on the shank and the prongs holding the central pearl are delicate and unobtrusive while still being completely secure.

-It is becoming increasingly tough to find investment grade antique gold jewelry for less than about $400 these days.  So I can unequivocally recommend this Swedish Art Deco masterpiece for only $285.

 

Cons:

-I suppose the only possible con is that the current sale will end and the price will go back up to $300.  Even then, this antique Swedish ring is well worth the price.

 

Read more fascinating Antique Sage estate jewelry spotlight posts here.

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