Robert Hughes
carl...@acsu.buffalo.edu
Is anyone familiar with a coin dealer named Robert Hughes from =
Hollywood Ca? What kind of reputation does or did he have. My father =
bought some rare coins from him in the 70=B9s which turned out to be miss =
graded, cleaned, and buffed. Were grading standards different then?
Thanks.
carl...@acsu.buffalo.edu
carl...@acsu.buffalo.edu
Mike Locke
>miss graded, cleaned, and buffed. Were grading standards different then?
I do not know Robert Hughes. Grading standards were different in the
1970's, but not as different as you describe. At that time, counterfeit
and damaged coins (particular cleaned and buffed), and miss graded coins
were enountered far more frequently than now. Now there are good texts
with pictures of reference coins available to standardize grading.
There are authentication services which attempt to cull out counterfeit
and damaged coins. This means that not only are such coins encountered
less frequently, but your average collector and dealer are much more
conscious of what is and is not a problem.
OTOH, if the opinion of these coins were rendered by only one person, be
sure to get at least 1 second opinion. People can err, and sometimes
people will try to say your coins are worthless (or worth less) in order
to be able to purchase them at a rip-off low price.
--
S'later, Mike & Karen Marie Locke kar...@rahul.net
Most things worth doing aren't easy.
Mike is EAC #4357, LSCC #1636, JRCS, ANA #R-170301
Visit our home page http://www.rahul.net/karenml for a coin book review,
coin want list, coin for sale list, 20th century US coin hub list, and
California fractional gold attribution/price guide.
JSTONE9352
I remember Robert Hughes took out big display ads in coin
publications, back in the 70's and 80's, I haven't seen any
thing from him in a long time, probably out of business and
if you have cleaned or overgraded coins I would not expect
to get any kind of a refund. Grading standards have changed
dramatically over the years.
While on the subject of missing coin dealers does anyone
remember Alan Hagar? He came up with this Accugrade
system for grading coins and was heavily promoting Ike
dollars as an investment. I could not believe that too many
people would seriously consider Ike dollars as an
investment. John S.
DONDI3
In article <3232F2...@acsu.buffalo.edu>, carl...@acsu.buffalo.edu
writes:
>Is anyone familiar with a coin dealer named Robert Hughes from =
>
>Hollywood Ca? What kind of reputation does or did he have. My father =
>
>bought some rare coins from him in the 70=B9s which turned out to be miss
=
>
>graded, cleaned, and buffed. Were grading standards different then?
>
>Thanks.
I have heard Mr. Hughes' name mentioned but am not familiar with him
personally, nor firsthand. I gathered from the tone of the reference that
the speaker more or less
thought of him as one of the "hotshot big boy" 3 pc suit type dealer/coin
brokers that proliferated in the 80s.
dondi3
Ken Barr
> Is anyone familiar with a coin dealer named Robert Hughes from
> Hollywood Ca? What kind of reputation does or did he have. My father
> bought some rare coins from him in the 70's which turned out to be miss
> graded, cleaned, and buffed. Were grading standards different then?
He's still around. Was one of the "young turks" in the 70's, now a
"middle-aged turk" in the 90's. The 1996 "Numismatic Dealer Directory"
still shows him working for Heritage Rare Coin Galleries (Dallas, TX,
214-528-3500), but if I remember correctly, he had a table under his own
company ("R. L. Hughes Coins and Investments" or somesuch) name in the
antiques section at Long Beach in June. I don't see him listed in the
program for the Sept. 19-22 show, but he'll certainly be there somewhere.
*Much* of the mail-order stuff in the 70's was worked-over junk, with
"BU" frequently seeming to mean "Buffed Up" to some mail-order dealers.
Bobby was probably no better and no worse than most of the multi-page
"coin factory" advertisers back then. (And, no, I don't think he ever
offered
a "20 year money back guarantee". Sorry.)
--
Ken Barr Numismatics k...@kenbarr.com
P. O. Box 32541, San Jose, CA 95152 408-272-3247
James R McCown
In article <ken-100996...@kenbarr.vip.best.com>,
That sounds like a match made in heaven. Heritage and Robert Hughes!
John Stone
I remember some of these dealers back in the 70's offering
a "lifetime grading guarantee". I wonder how something like
that would hold up today? Of course this was long before
slabs came on the scene and such a grading guarantee made back
then would be worthless today and they would say "well grading
standards have changed..." John S.
Karoleffs4
Alan Hager owns the second largest sportscard slabbing company next to
David Hall's. He slid to the next "investment medium" when his coin
business couldn't make enough money for him.
Brad