Kevin Michaels' Type Set

About This Set: I started putting this set together in the early 1980's, making many mistakes along the way. Cleaned, damaged, and recolored ones all made their way into the collection, and nearly all were from a variety of dealers. The market was HOT, and the grading services as they exist today were not yet in place.

When certification came into use, I discovered that many could not be encapsulated due to problems of which I was not aware.

I decided to buy only PCGS and NGC certified coins, and took a beating on many of the raw ones I had purchased. Many of the dealers I had purchased the raw coins from were either out of business or stated that they weren't buying at the time. It turned out to be quite a learning experience and an expensive lesson.

In the last two years, I have converted the NGC examples to PCGS certified coins. Most of the NGC certified coins which I bought in the late 1980s through about 1994 have crossed into PCGS holders. I replaced the ones which didn't.

In recent years I have filled in the holes by buying from Jack Beymer, Harry Laibstain, Jim McGuigan, Northeast Numismatics, Heritage, Larry Whitlow, and more recently, from Ira Stein. I know I left out many others in this list of dealers, and for that I must apologize.

Now the set has coins of a very high quality for the grade, and I think I can tell an altered coin or doctored one from an original one.