Owner Comments:
In April 1986, IBM released the PC Convertible, model 5140, their first laptop-style computer. They priced it at $2,000 ($4,720 in 2020 dollars). It used an intel 8088 CPU, which clocked at a mind-blowing 4.77 MHz, and had 256 KB of RAM. It had dual 720 KB 3.5-inch floppy drives. Who all remembers this super-advanced hardware? It weighed 13 pounds - and people treat me like my 17” laptop is excessive and heavy because it weighs 7 pounds, which admittedly is a bit more than the 2.8 pounds of my wife’s MacBook Air.
For context, this was 5 years after the release of the Osborne - the first mass-produced portable computer - in 1981. Growing up we had an old Osborne in a closet in the house for years that had been my uncle’s. It was the most horrible, awful, heavy thing I’d ever seen in my life.
And now, we have flip-able / convertible tablet / laptop combination units with big, HD, full color touch screens. But who among us has never owned and used a laptop at this point?
75% Copper, 25% Nickel (Cupronickel) over a pure copper center / core
Mintage: 551,199,333
5.67 grams
24.3 mm diameter
Designer: John Flanagan
Eagle Reverse (1932-1998)
I no longer have access to information on exactly when this coin was purchased or how. But it wasn’t one of the coins we sent in to get graded ourselves. Choya might have the information - he has long kept the records of such things in spreadsheets on his computer that may or may not have been destroyed or lost through the years. It was probably bought through eBay though and it was added before the set won the Best in Category award in 2008 - so we replaced the coin we had graded with a better one pretty much immediately.
We actually upgraded / replaced 5 of the 9 coins submitted to NGC in that submission with better coins before we won the Best in Category in 2008, within months of sending them in, because the coins we sent in just graded out so poorly and we were able to go get better grades for cheap so easily. And then we didn’t upgrade or change the set again for 10 years, when we bought 2 upgrades for the set in November 2018.
That submission of those coins for these mint sets was all the proof I needed at the time that I didn’t need to be submitting coins myself until I learned more, and I didn’t submit coins to NGC again for about 10 or 12 years after that disaster.