It is always a good idea to ask you relatives if they have any old coins while you are visiting over the holidays! A while ago I traveled to Wisconsin to visit family (for my great grandma's centennial). My parents and I were staying at my grand uncle's house, and I thought why don't I ask and see if they have any old coins laying around. Luckily it turns out they did. My great uncle had a picture frame full of coins that his mother had made and passed down to him. While he was pulling it down from the attic he told me not to get my hopes up since he didn't think the coins were valuable. My eyes popped  when he presented it. I immediately recognized a 1912 Saint-Gaudens twenty dollar gold piece which has a price range of over two thousand dollars. I also immediately noticed another two gold coins and two silver half dollars. I told my uncle that the picture frame was worth over three thousand dollars, and offered to help identify and inventory all the coins. Really, that was just the tip of the iceberg. There were many other interesting coins that I'll list below, like the 1863 Civil War Token, but going over the coins reminded him there was a tin box of coins from his mother's desk as well. I'll start with the coins in the frame and if I have time I'll add the coins that were in the box as well. Other than the Saint-Gaudens there was: a 1897 Liberty ten dollar coin (worth around one thousand three hundred dollars), a 1912 two and a half dollar Indian (worth around five hundred dollars), a 1920 fifty cent Pilgrim commemorative (worth about sixty dollars), a 1897 Haitian fifty Centimes (worth around forty dollars), a 1863 'If anybody attempts...' Civil War token (worth around forty as well), a 1864 two cent Shield cent large logo (worth about twenty dollars), a 1893 fifty cent Columbian Expo commemorative (worth around sixteen dollars), two Indian Heads from 1891 and 1903 respectively (worth around eight and two dollars).I found the Dixie 1863 Civil War most interesting, since there is also a variety with a misspelling.  The text reads "The Flag of our Union" on one side and "If anybody attempts to take this down, Shoot him on the Spot". The variety recommends to "Shoot him on the Spoot". It was a great discussion with the whole family about the variety and everyone found it funny. So my uncle agreed we needed to open the picture frame to check for this variety and find the date on the twenty dollar coin. Unfortunately his coin is the standard version. I couldn't get very good photos of the individual coins, so the picture is from an internet auction.More about the contents of the tin can in part two.

PART 2

I was trying to decide if I should grade my 2021 Reverse Proof Silver Eagle set which is coming in the mail soon. Since I'm also learning statistics I decided to do some research. I looked up all the NGC and PCGS graded Reverse Proof Silver Eagles to see how often they get a PR70 instead of PR69 or below. I added up all the submissions and divided the number of PR 70 grades (see spreadsheet link below).I also assumed that an ungraded coin was worth about the same as a PR69, so the only grade that could be worth more than just selling the coins is a PR70. I then multiplied the percentage of PR70 with the additional value or a PR70 above a PR69 to get what is called the expected value of a submission. Basically this says that a 90% chance to win $1 is worth $0.90 while a 1% chance to win $100 is worth more ($1).The results are that PCGS has a 54.35% chance of grading PR70 and NGC has a 59.13% chance. Looking at sold recently (pre-sales of PR70 sets) vs the sales of raw sets on Ebay, PCGS PR70 adds about $350 while NGC adds about $300.This means that the expected value for PCGS is $190.36 and NGC is $177.40. Both are above the submission prices. So unless you get a set with obviously defects (you don't need to submit sealed packages), then you should submit your coins.Link to data used in this blog to determine expected value below.\/                     \/                     \/Data used to do find expected value of grading the 2021 ASE Reverse Proof.