Sept. 4, 2024—We have sufficiently recovered (and sobered up) to be able to reprise the first partial sale of our Toned Wheat Cents Registry Sets (1909–1958) at Great Collections. We did quite a bit of marketing for the sale in advance, and made sure to let several longtime collector-dealer aficionados of toned Lincolns know of the upcoming event. Great Collections did their usual competent job of handling the auction, although I must say I liked the older (Phil Arnold) Trueviews of many of the coins better than the GreatPhotos.
The Big Wiener in the first sale was, unsurprisingly, a monster 1911-S Lincoln cent MS66BN PCGS with CAC sticker, which went for $6,250 plus the GC Buyer’s Premium (which can vary from 10%-12.5% depending on payment method). So say, around $7,000 all in. This was strong money in anyone’s playbook, but competition is fierce for the Finest of the Fine. It was disappointing that Great Collections neglected to include the Abe’s Coloring Book pedigree on those coins after saying they would, so we made sure to let the collecting community know about it through our own marketing efforts.
At any rate, sure, some coins did better than others, but there were only a few that left me scratching my head and wondering “what I saw in that coin that no one else did.” One of those was a stunning 1933 cent MS65BN PCGS which I called “Burnt Orange,” that only returned about one-third of what I paid for it (but nonetheless still realized twice PCGS Price Guide). But there were many more pleasant surprises, including a nice, evenly colored 1922-D MS65BN PCGS CAC cent that brought $1,950 plus the juice (3x PCGS Price Guide), and a 1935-D cent MS66BN PCGS Ex: Abe’s Coloring Book, a Pop 3/0 coin that brought $925 plus juice amid fierce bidding. We’re also extremely glad that one of our namesake coins, a 1909 VDB cent MS66BN PCGS CAC Ex: Abe’s Coloring Book with exceptional color, went to a dear friend of ours who bid strong money for it. And another recently acquired collector friend nabbed one of the toughest S-mint dates in the series, a 1928-S in MS64RB PCGS, with a strong bid of $858 plus juice.
Folks, you just can’t go by the PCGS Price Guide for coins like these. PCGS compiles their prices from auction data primarily at Stack’s Bowers and Heritage (and does not account for coins with exceptional color or surfaces or CAC), yet most of these kinds of coins trade privately from one collector/dealer to another at prices that never get published. Even Great Collections declines to participate in sending their prices realized to PCGS, although their own public auction archives are a treasure trove of information.
Stay tuned on Sept. 8 and Sept. 15 for Parts 2 and 3 of the VDB Collection auctions at Great Collections.