Owner Comments:
This was the first coin purchased for the set. It was acquired in early June 2008 from a seller on eBay. As the certification number suggests, it is in an old-style NGC holder that it has been in for a very long time. Looking up the certification number indicates that this cent was encapsulated in May 1994.
As the first coin in the series, this was a bit of a test case. The pennies are the cheapest and most common coins in this set, however, high grade reds are rarer. I had been looking high and low for a nice MS65RD when this one became available for sale. I knew the coin wouldn't come cheap, but I was able to convince my step-father that we should go for it. The maximum price he was willing to pay for it was not much higher than what I expected the coin to go for. I had to cross my fingers and hope that we'd win. It was a close call, but we obviously did win the coin for approximately $225.00, and this set was on its way.
This coin has great details and great color. It has dimmed a bit with time but it's still a strong red. There are no meaningful marks on either side. The NGC population for this coin (as of April 2019) was 196 with 19 finer.
I had written around 2009 / 2009 that “I don't think I'll be seeing any MS67RDs any time soon, but I guess stranger things have happened.” As it’s turned out, over the years I have seen both 1932 and 1932-D cents come up for sale, graded by NGC, in MS67RD. They are not cheap, and I don’t know that we’ll ever be inclined to make a purchase like that unless we one day find it necessary to do so to keep this set competitive in the category.