More than 50 years ago, I decided to put together complete date/mint-mark sets of Barber dimes, quarters and half dollars. At the time, I wasn’t fussy about grades. Goods were just as welcome as XFs. After several months of going to coin shows and scouring ads in numismatic periodicals, I had reduced my want list to the three key-date Barber quarters: 1896-S, 1901-S and 1913-S.
I bought a nice Good 1913-S for $50, which would probably grade G-6 by today’s standards. This was well before Professional Coin Grading Service (PCGS) and Numismatic Guaranty Company (NGC) came online, so I sent it to the only authentication service available at the time, ANACS. This was when it was associated with the American Numismatic Association. I had no reason to suspect that the coin had an added mintmark; I had just decided that if I paid $50 or more for a coin, I would have it authenticated.
I got a letter from ANACS telling me that there was too much crud around the mintmark for them
