evilwoman13's Bio
My husband has collected coins since he was young. As a young man back in the 60's, it was still possible to find good coins in circulation, and build a nice collection. By the time he was 21, with a new Electrical Engineering Degree, a family and a ton of college loans; that childhood collection went by the wayside as a work career and family took precedence. The Collection went a long way to paying off those College Loans! 40 years later, with the all the kids out of college, married, and us now close to retirement, the Love of Coin Collecting is back in our life.
Peace Dollars are our number one Love. With a little expendable cash that we never had before (No kids at home really helps!), and trading some coins we still had, we started on our Mint State set of Peace Dollars with a target grade of MS64. After a year into putting our set together, countless coin shows, all nighters on the Internet, and many submissions to NGC, we finally completed that MS64 set, and created our first NGC Registry Set of Circulation Issue Peace Dollars. To our surprise, our set ranked 64 out of over 800! Then the “Grade” bug really caught us. Our first major purchase was to upgrade the 1923-P to MS67, and WOW, we were hooked! The beauty of a pristine Peace Dollar overwhelmed us, and the race was on with a new goal, to build the best Peace Dollar Set we could afford.
After reaching our MS64 goal, our new ultimate goal was for all the coins to grade a minimum of MS-65, not only based on what it says on the label, but also based on the coins overall eye appeal. To qualify for inclusion in this very personal set, the first thing the coin must possess is outstanding luster. Most of the coins assembled to this point are what dealers call "Blast White" with absolutely minimal coloring or toning. The coins must also have the strongest strike possible for that date and mintmark, and absolutely have NO carbon spots.
Roger Burdette's Guide Book of Peace Dollars has been an excellent asset in understanding which dates and mintmarks are strike issues. We have observed many very high grade Peace Dollars slabbed by both PCGS and NGC that grade MS-65 or higher that are terrible strikes, or have very unattractive color or toning. In our opinion, to make the MS-65 grade the strike must be as full as possible, and the luster the same as the day the coin came off the press.
The task of finding the "S" mint coins in true MS-65 still remains the challenge, as these coins are by far usually weak strikes, and covered in excessive bag marks.
The ultimate goal for this set is for every coin to have full "Blast White" original mint luster, be full strikes, demonstrate outstanding eye appeal, and have no carbon spotting and grade at least a full MS-65. As we have acquired higher grade coins, many of them are “Top-Pops” and are Finest known examples with a unique population of ONE with none higher. Given the rarity of these specifically unique specimens, we have come to appreciate the importance of natural toning and the originality inherent from that toning process. So the all Blast White requirements has faded with experience as we were fortunate enough to acquire some of the most remarkable Peace Dollars ever encapsulated by either grading service.
Needless to say, the endeavor is ongoing and be on the pricey side, especially with the "S" mints, but a historically significant showcase set has always been the ultimate goal, and I think we are finally there.
NGC Pedigreed this Set in January of 2018 as the “Pamela Henard Collection” of Peace Dollars, and this Set now lays claim to being one of the finest sets of Peace Dollars ever assembled, having won Six Major NGC Award Ribbons, and leading the Peace Dollar Registry pack by over 46,000 points. As of this writing, only 13 NGC coins exist in a higher numerical mint state than assembled in this set. This set is obviously our Pride and Joy, and we hope the Pictures and Narrative we have provided will give all of you some insight into the effort that went into assembling this beautiful set of Peace Dollars.