54 Gold correct Mantle becomes "Capo de tutti cappo"

In blog 28 , in 2016, we anointed Silver mantle correct "cappo de tutti cappo". For those of you who don't know what that means check out some old Sopranos episodes. 

While most casual collectors were in awe of this coin, savy collectors spotted some further information in the pics supplied by Armour George. The presence of a gold streak in the coin meant there absolutely was a gold equivalent ...we just hadn't seen it yet.  

Well that ended last week when "Luke" contacted me about what he thought was a correct gold Mantle. It seems his father picked it up at a flea market in NC back in he 1990's and his son searched the internet to identify it and came across my armour coin blogs. He was especially interested in blog #19 "Hi Ho Silver" where I called out a fake silver Gilliam that had been obviously spray painted. 

Luke asked whether I would check out the current Mantle coin for him. How could any Armour collector turn down a chance to hold a correct Mantle gold in his hands. 

The coin arrived a few days later and I put it through my series of non destructive tests. It passed with flying colors. It is shown below. As you can see from the bottom row of pics it reveals the required transparency

The next step was to acquire it. I made Luke a very fair offer. Last thing I wanted was for it to come to EBay and set up a bidding war with the half dozen of you who would want to bid against me for it. Mission accomplished. So the gold Mantle correct (L or R) is now in the collection of ArmourPhil and since gold trumps silver it becomes the new "cappo de tutti cappo"

It will eventually be graded and put into the 1955 armour  set "Priceless" but not until PSA pricing comes down. Armour Phil don't grade coins for $150 !

53. 1955 Armour set in black, with all variations, finally completed

Sometimes Armour coin collecting is like a roller coaster ride ...you can go for months adding nothing to your set and then all of a sudden things heat up. 

That has happened recently to me. First lets discuss one of my 1955 sets. There are 24 different coins in the set and with variations PSA recognizes 38 coins when we include variations. By now we all know about the Spahn "comma" variation which is officially not recognized by PSA yet.  So for someone seeking a

complete set in black I think you would need 39 coins. 

I recently just finished the set with the acquisition on a Mantle correct L or R . I have seen probably a half dozen of these over the past 20 years but was never willing to pay the auction price that these went for. This time I finally paid the price to finish the set. 

I will eventually get it graded once PSA drops its prices back to reality. 

This coin actually wasn't the hardest of the (39) 1955s to get in black, it was just  the most expensive.  

So what was the most difficult to get ? Was it a Kuenn Bats/Throws ?? or maybe  Jensen "RED" Sox ? or maybe a Trucks "White Sox" 2 words ?? 

Nope, actually is was the Kuenn condensed. Only seen one of them in the past 20 years and it is  tucked away in my "midnight black" set known as 42nd st.  

If you have one of these please let me know.

As it says in my PSA set description "Where the underworld can meet the elite, Forty-Second Street" ....times square....the core of the big apple. This was our local subway stop in Hells Kitchen when I was growing up. The goal of this set is to complete the variation rich 1955 set in MIDNIGHT black ! Has the complete 1955 armour set with variations ever been completely assembled in the rare black color before ?? I don't know, but we do know never as a PSA registered set. Right now the Mantle correct L or R variation is keeping me from the full set. "

Well the The Mantle correct L or R variation no longer keeps me from the full PSA graded set...Now it is held up by the $150 PSA wants me to pay to grade it........