Review by George Guerra for Lassen Special Set by Todd Lassen

Very Special, Indeed!

If any one has been following Todd’s gaffs on ebay, you may recognize this set. It definitely set a record for coin gaffs and clearly made a statement for the quality and demand of Todd’s work. Yep, it was a bidding frenzy, but no regrets. What distinguishes this special set apart is 1) the versatility of the matched gaffs in the set, 2) its uniqueness (Todd’s own words: “…one of a kinder.”, “ebaying this one too due to the special nature of the set. I won’t be taking any custom orders for sets like these.”), and 3) the use of beautiful Seated Liberty half dollars. The oldest coin gaffs I was accustomed to seeing were Barbers, but this is the first time I had publicly seen any with the even older Seated Liberty coins. I am not a numismatist, but you just have to love these old U.S. minted coins.

The gaffs are so very nice and, hopefully, some of what I experienced when I first saw them can be conveyed with the images you are seeing. The set consists of an obverse sided expanded shell with 4 ungaffed matching coins and two opposite copper/silver coins (“Ishtar” set) with two ungaffed matching copper pennies (1899 Victoria). The C/S coin with the reverse sided silver is fitted to the obverse expanded shell for a sun/moon set, if desired. Lots of coin magic here! All came nicely stored in the popular JOL leather coin purses.

All this would be plenty, BUT Todd is quite a guy and didn’t feel it was fair to see this item go so high on ebay, so, without any obligation (and didn’t have to), he added 1) a second expanded shell with the reverse side showing, and 2) a beautifully crafted gravity flipper using a nice 1860 Seated Liberty half. This "sweetened deal" can be seen in the third image. Overall, this has to be the nicest and most complete Seated Liberty coin gaff collection, you could ever imagine. I am ecstatic and anyone who has bought from Todd doesn’t need any convincing about the man himself and his work. BTW, the package I received also included another great new item that came up on his blog, which I requested to buy, so I had one fantastic coin gaff feast that day. Thanks, Todd…no one else would have been so generous and fair with his customers.

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