How to Increase the Coin Value of Your Modern Silver Dollars
[Editor’s note: Breaking slabbed coins has risks and may seriously damage coins and/or cause injury. Do so entirely at your own risk]
Have you noticed how much more money modern MS 70 graded coins bring than their MS 69 counterparts? Have you ever tried to see the difference between a 69 and 70? Is it worth the premium price for an MS 70 graded coin?
Follow the lead of major coin dealers to increase the perceived value of modern silver dollars.
I’ve mentioned in other articles that I suspect the coin graders simply flip the coin in question, in order to determine their grade. Relatively speaking, half come up 69 and half come up 70.
I recently realized that you could take advantage of this situation and make money from it. Scott Travers advocates taking slabbed MS coins that look under-graded and resubmitting them for a higher grade, in order to quickly make money on the spread to the next higher grade.
Doing this successfully with business strike rare American coins takes a lot of skill and experience. You basically need to be a coin grader in order to pull this one off. I don’t have that much confidence in my grading skills to try it.
On rare occasions, I’ll find a flaw in a mint proof uncirculated type coin, where I can actually see why it would grade an MS 69. However, in the majority of the cases, I can’t distinguish any difference between an MS 69 and an MS 70.
This is where the opportunity lies. Check your potential MS 69 purchase closely for any sort of flaw. If you can’t see anything at all wrong with it, buy it.
When you get it home, break it out of its slab for resubmission. This is practically as easily done as said. Place the slab horizontally in a mechanics vice, with the top half of the slab just above the top line of the vice jaws. Tighten the jaws just enough to hold it.
Then take a 3/4″ to 1″ wood chisel, find the part line along the edge of the slab and carefully tap the chisel with a light hammer. Move around the edge of the slab until it splits.
Before I learned about this method, I used to have shards of plastic flying all over the room. It was kind of exciting. I never damaged any coins doing it, but the above method is so much more refined.
Next, get out the 2X2 coin flip and carefully place the coin in the flip. Only handle the coin by the rim over a padded surface. I will use nitrile gloves for this process. I have more tactile feeling with these gloves than the cotton gloves. Nitrile gloves will never lint either.
Send a dozen or more coins off to be graded at the same time, to keep costs down. Don’t place a very high value on the package. The insurance will eat you up. Off to NGC or PCGS.
To make even more money on graded coins, do what the catalogs do and submit every raw, modern uncirculated silver dollar you can for grading. Why pay for previous grading, if you don’t have to?
Be sure to inspect the coins closely enough, so you aren’t submitting something with an obvious flaw. The most apparent down-side to submitting raw coins, over resubmitting the graded coins is you won’t have the fun of breaking the coins out of their slabs.
So, what will you do when half your coin submissions come back MS 69 instead of MS 70? Break the MS 69’s out of their slabs and resubmit…
Notice this article isn’t about resubmitting proof coins. You truly break them out of their slabs at your own risk.
Article Source: How to Increase the Coin Value of Your Modern Silver Dollars
Image Source: M J Hughes Coins
 | 2009 KEW GARDEN 50p Coins250th ANNIVERSARY ROYAL BOTANICAL GARDENS NGC MS 69 DPL £ 389.22 |
 | "1986-2020" NGC MS-69 Silver Eagle Set 35 Coin Graded Set £ 2,175.42 |
 | 2014 Silver Eagle PCGS MS69 First Strike San Francisco mint £ 57.92 |
 | 2014 PCGS MS69 YEAR OF HORSE £2 £ 57.92 |
 | 2013 PCGS MS69 1 OZ SILVER BRITANNIA £2 COIN £ 57.92 |
 | American 2021 $1 Graded First Strike Type-2 Silver Eagle Dollar PCGS MS69 £ 69.50 |
 | MS69 1988 American Silver Eagle Graded by NGC - No Spots Bright White!! £ 71.24 |
 | 2006 American Silver Dollar Eagle Coin MS69 20th Anniversary - West Point Mint £ 102.64 |