As it turns out, although I have no personal interest in the outcome, I AM, as it happens, selling something these days. Selling Magic Find Coins is just a way of getting them where they need to go. I use the money to get more coins, but don’t need a lot of money to buy pennies, dig it? So … Coins. Buy ’em here, get ’em now, while supplies last! Here’s a typical “gorby” eBay listing:
Let’s talk coinology for a moment. This is not a “trophy” coin to enhance a personal collection; it’s a teaching tool that conveys a hands-on experience to the student of coinology. In this instance, you’ll note something worthy of classroom discussion. That’s what the coins I offer are all about. Each contains a hidden story beyond grade and details, far beyond rows of statistics, right down to the nitty-gritty. Some are very hard to come by, because these are not the coins that “everybody” wants and collects — they’re generally thrown away, unwanted and unappreciated.
They are all excellent examples of events in a coin’s life. I’m not looking for those “perfect” GEM RED or GEM BU uncirculated coins.
What I’m looking for is a coin that’s Been Around The Block a few times, something that’s seen some serious life and then, when the cards are dealt and the counting’s done, it’s still bright, clean and shiny, yet used and abused; an obvious oxymoron like “Virgin Birth” or “Army Intelligence” or “Public Wisdom”. I specialize in finding “perfect” coins that have been long in circulation and seen a lot of action, yet remain unscathed.
You should only be so lucky.
If a coin is labeled “CPT”, it means that it has been expertly Cleaned, Polished & Toned, including actual 24k gold leaf in many cases, especially in the work of Frank Thomas and Walter G. Grayson during the 1940s and early 1950s. It was once considered very elegant to have your coin collection gold-plated and toned to enhance the appearance and make all the coins seem to match.
Now, of course, it’s the very opposite; the dirtier and grittier a coin is, the more collectors and dealers like it left as it is. The “Independent” grading companies basically run the industry at the moment, but that will soon change, with the advent of certain procedures on eBay and google. It won’t be the same game.
There was a time when it was considered idiotic at the least and perhaps even over-the-top crazy to collect mint errors. They were thrown away in the garbage back in the day. Now they’re precious cargo, and the most mangled coin wins the day!
The original concept of building a collection was to find and plug into an album the very best coins you could find of each type, date and mint mark. Now, an album is merely a way of wholesaling out a bunch of barely-passable coins that couldn’t possibly stand alone in a single-coin eBay sale.
My coins are different. They stand up real well under the spotlight. In fact, one reason I insist on listing all our study coins on eBay is to give them a chance to falter under the glare of public scrutiny, you should pardon the expression.
Watch ALL the TV coin shows — it’s not about the coin; it’s never about the coin. It’s always about how much it’s gonna be worth next year.
Sigh. When will they ever learn? When will they ever learn?
But seriously: Would you sell an incredibly rare and valuable coin that you had found in your Pocket Change?
By the way, that’s how all my coins come to me; they are the product of my own personal “Pocket Change” nightly searches, conducted since I was 9 years old, Christmas Day, 1950, when my Dad Horace gave me a number of Whitman folders, my Uncle Cliff gave me a jeweler’s loupe (he was a jeweler, the inventor of the expansion wedding ring), my Far Rockaway cousins gave me a roll of pennies for Chanukah, and an author friend, Alfie Bester, gave me a new desk (his old one, but new to me) and a wondrous, then quite rare, green-glass genuine Tiffany library table lamp. Alfie, in the height of the Great Depression (that’s 4 Major Depressions, 2 Recessions and 11 Banking Catastrophes back from here) bought a small townhouse on 5th Avenue in midtown Manhattan. He held on to it steadfastly all his life, refusing millions of dollars of cold cash in favor of living where he liked.
I have used coin search as a Zen Practice for many years now, and heartily recommend the Practice, and am happy to be able to teach it to others.
The only difference between childhood coin searches and searches these days, is that now I don’t have to go to school in the morning, so I can spend eight hours in the Dark Hours in Magic-Find Coin Search Mode if I feel like it. What with a life-long habit of working from midnight ’til dawn and a 71-year-young body that never did appreciate sleep and surely doesn’t now that it’s getting down to the wire, I generally get up for coin-search sometime in the middle of the night. Except, come to think of it, I DO have to go to school in the morning, at least this particular morning, because it’s the day I teach my usual 2-hour beginner-to-advanced watercolor class.
Insomnia — no sense fighting it. Go with it, and while you’re at it, make it pay.
So, pardon me for redirecting to the actual point of this whole dissertation:
What would you do with this fabulously valuable, incredible coin you found?
Sell it on eBay? Probably not, unless you were desperate, because you’d lose the FUN FACTOR, the most important item in your life, whether you know it or not.
Fun is when you find a Magic Coin. You might keep it; you might give it away, but sell it, never. It’s special.
I have the specific goal of Magic-Finding Coinology Treasures just for you! Don’t get tense, I’m speaking to the multitudes, here.
Magic Find Coins come to you in a variety of ways:
You might find it in a box, bag or roll of coins, trade someone for it, or you might buy it on eBay, right now.
It’s part of my purpose here in Urthgame (Galactic Federation’s name for your little rocky moon, a cycloid-orbiting satellite of Jupiter, in the Western Rim Sector, dontcha know…) to Magic Find these coins and get them to their rightful owners. When you purchase a coin from me, you are supporting a Sangha Community’s work efforts on behalf of All Beings Everywhere.
That includes my home planet, I hope. As promised, I do not mention any names. I wouldn’t want the MIBs to revoke my Urth visa.
I’m very subject to local physics, even though I’m an Urthgame Level Designer from Across the 8th Dimension.
But enough Inter-Dimensional Chit-Chat; let’s talk coins:
If you’re a student of coinology, you’ll appreciate the time taken and the scarcity issues involved in finding special case coins and unusual errors and variants.
Don’t do me any favors by buying one of my coins. I don’t need your money, and I’m not trying to get rid of these coins. Fact is, they’re teaching tools, and when I sell one of them, it’s only because I’ve found a better example. If I sold my last example, I’d have to search fast to find another one, because they’re always in use in my classroom.
Thanks to my students for stopping by to see this listing. There will be a spot quiz on Monday, but isn’t there always? Stay Vigilant Always.
Sorta chatty for an eBay listing, ain’t it? Well, The Cookies Tend To Crumble As They Do.
See You At The Top!!!
gorby