By David Lange – Number 25 – Winter 2013 …..
Special Lincoln & Oberwise List
The newest list of Coin Boards for Sale #125 is a special edition highlighting my inventory of boards published by Lincoln Printing Company and J. Oberwise & Company. These two board lines have seldom received much respect from collectors, since the boards are fairly plain and rarely come in high grades. I’m offering an extensive run from both publishers and, while most are in the F-VF range, there are a few choice examples and scarce varieties. All are at the old 2012 prices, so this is a rare opportunity to fill some of those gaps. I recently acquired a couple of small coin checklists published by Oberwise that are quite similar to the ones put out by Whitman. The dime list is intact for both series, but the cent list is missing the Lincoln page. Images of these are attached to the email edition of this newsletter.
MARKET ACTIVITY
The last quarter offered a few truly scarce and/or choice boards, but most collectors were not even aware of them. The reason is that they either sold in private transactions or were picked off by eBay buyers who were so fast on the draw that the items disappeared before one’s usual weekly or bi-weekly search of that source could identify them. This is especially true of Buy-It-Now (BIN) offerings, as the better ones sell immediately to the first knowledgeable collector. There were a number of such sales, one of which went to me, and several others that were reported to me by my lucky customers. This certainly has had an impact on market values, a fact which will be reflected on the enclosed Check List & Value Guide 2013.
BOOK UPDATES
There are only a few changes to report for this past quarter. Coincidentally, all affect either Lincoln or Oberwise boards, which fits in with the theme of the enclosed price list. Buffalo Nickel board L5¢Bb has been split into two minor varieties. The existing book entry is now L5¢Bb.2 having correct mintages for 1937-D and 1937-S, while L5¢Bb.1 has the two figures transposed. Buffalo Nickel board O5¢Bv is now split into the newly discovered O5¢Bv.1 lacking the 3-legged variety, and O5¢Bv.2 is the existing entry which has an opening for it. Another new entry is O25¢Bi, that backing not previously known for this title.
SPEAKING OF BOOKS
For the past three years I’ve been working on a new book about coin albums that is far more extensive and complex than my last one on coin boards. Its rather grand title is Coin Collecting Albums, A Complete History & Catalog, Volume One — The National Coin Album and Related Products Published by Beistle, Raymond & Meghrig. What was once conceived as a single volume covering all coin albums and folders almost immediately outgrew the limits of practicality, and I anticipate that this will be the first of many volumes covering the entire spectrum of albums and folders published in the USA since 1927. It’s currently in the layout process, and I expect it to be in print by the time of this summer’s ANA Convention in Chicagomont.
ANNUAL UPDATES
Enclosed with this issue are my usual annual publications: Market Analysis 2013, Check List and Value Guide 2013 and the updated list of revisions to my book. (Email David for a copy of these at [email protected]) The latter has been simplified by combining errors and additions within single page entries, and the language for several revisions has been made easier to interpret. Though this has been a relatively quiet year for price advances, due to the limited appearances of rare and high grade boards, there are notable changes and many variety additions over the past year. Special thanks go out to Chris Buck and Mark Mally for their ongoing reporting of new varieties and recent transactions.
ON THE ROAD AGAIN
I’ll be at the FUN show January 9-12, followed by the Long Beach Coin Expo February 7-9 and the Whitman Baltimore Expo March 14-16. With any luck at all, these shows will provide me an opportunity to pick up some more coin boards for sale.
