PCGS Collectors Club slabs

In the realm of fringe coin collectibles, the PCGS Collectors Club slabs are one of those items that inspire either rolling eyes or bemusement – but rarely serious interest.

The coins contained within are commonplace. The grades assigned are nothing to write home about. But still, there is an interest in these series just below the surface of regular numismatics. Since their inception, I have followed and collected these slabs. This page is here to help those who share my interest.

If you see any mistakes, have a suggestion, or wish to contact me for any other reason, please visit my "contact me" page.

It all started with the horrific attacks of September 11th, 2001. On that same day, people on the Collectors Universe Forums started asking what they could do to help. One user (“wondercoin”, aka Mitch Spivack) offered to auction a PCGS MS67 New York state quarter and donate the proceeds to the New York Firefighters. The informal auction was an immediate success and PCGS agreed to re-holder the coin with a special label.

A dealer then donated 14 more New York quarters (these graded MS66) and the coin became a series (originally expected to be 50 coins). Immediately, the bids (actually donations) began pouring in. By the end of September 12th, Rick Montgomery at PCGS had agreed to specially number a total of 100 coins for the purpose of raising money for the Firefighters. The label on the insert would have an American flag as the background and say “NY Firefighters 9-11, PCGS Limited Edition, #X/100”.

“Wondercoin” bought a bag of New York quarters and other members donated rolls. Individual coins were hand-picked with the goal of grading coins #2-50 as MS66 and coins #51-100 as MS65. In the end, nearly $50,000 was raised for the UFA Widows & Children's Fund.

I was lucky enough to get in on the action and my donation netted me coin #29. (See the table below)

More information about the history of these coins can be found in this article: http://www.wtc911coins.com/319/the-9-11-quarter-a-tribute/

Shortly after the Firefighters coin series was completed, PCGS began offering New York quarters with the same flag background. These coins were graded MS65 and the text was modified to read: “PCGS Collectors Club, Limited Edition, #X/5000”.

Each new member of the PCGS Collectors Club (myself included) received one of these “limited edition” slabs. Into mid-2002, an unknown number of these coins were released. I say “unknown” because in over a decade of observing, I have never seen any coins numbered between 777 and 2501, or above 3454. My suspicion is that PCGS released fewer than 2,000 coins in this series. While they started with “P” mint New York quarters, later numbers in the series featured other mint marks and states other than New York. In fact, a complete ten-coin set of MS65 2001 quarters can be found if you look long enough.

My first coin was #346: A New York “P”-mint quarter that I received in January, 2002. (See the table below)

Sometime in 2002¹⁾, PCGS stopped issuing the “Limited Edition” state quarters and began sending new Collectors Club members a MS68-graded 2002 American Silver Eagle. These slabs continued to use the American flag background, but the “Limited Edition” terminology was gone (as was any number). The new slabs said simply “PCGS Collectors Club Edition”

The Silver Eagle program continued into 2003, and while the coins released were all graded MS68, the later coins were dated 2003. In fact, it appears that the bulk of the coins issued under this program were dated 2003. 2002-dated Eagles are easy to come by on eBay, but the 2003-dated Eagles seem to easily outnumber them.

In late 2003 or 2004, the PCGS Collectors Club freebie morphed again. While the coin stayed the same, the flag background on the insert was dropped and the coins were graded MS69. While I have only seen coins dated 2004, it has been reported to me that a few 2003-dated Eagles also exist with this kind of holder.

This era of the program also introduced an interesting “error”. Several (perhaps 100?) 2001-dated Silver Eagles were given out with a label that said “2004”.

PCGS often changes the features included with new Collectors Club memberships, but as far as I can tell, they have not offered special slabs since 2004.

For those who want even more variety to their collection, the Collectors Club slabs were issued with several variations to the spelling/font on the label:

• There are a few “misprints” known for the State Quarters slabs:
  • Several Rhode Island quarters were labeled with “RH” (instead of “RI”)
  • At least one slab is listed with the wrong mint mark (#2546: New York “P” coin is labeled as “D”)
• There are two varieties for the 2002 slabs:
  • Type 1) “Normal” font/spacing
  • Type 2) Slightly different font size and line spacing
• There are four varieties for the 2003 slabs:
  • Type 1) “$1 Silver Eagle” (dollar sign first)
  • Type 2) “1$ Silver Eagle” (dollar sign last)
  • Type 3) “$ 1 Silver Eagle” (space between the dollar sign and one)
  • Type 4) Slightly different font used
• There are three varieties of the “flagless” slabs:
  • Type 1) Coin is 2003 (with a matching label) (Note: I have never personally seen one of these – if you have a picture, please contact_me!)
  • Type 2) Coin is 2004 (with a matching label)
  • Type 3) Coin is 2001 (misprinted label says “2004”)