Your thoughts are as always appreciated. I'm thinking MS63. Not sure why it shows up looking polished - it's not. Right out of the mint set.
Hmm - it has a square rim but its a denver coin. Wasn't there a bunch of proof dies sent from SF to Denver and that is a variety?
In 1972, the the Type 2 high-relief design made it to the 1972-S uncirculated in addition to the 1972-S proofs. The 1972-D coins retained the Type 1 low relief reverse throughout the year. Maybe not
http://www.ikegroup.info/?page_id=198 Clad proofs were not minted until 1973 when tougher, more resilient die steel was available and all Ikes were minted in high relief.)
I can explain it - it's a crappy picture. Here's a better one of the obverse - I turned off the "proof" button on my camera and hit "highlight all scratches". Reverse looks better, but I had put the camera away and have only a bad picture of the reverse. Still looking for an educated grade guess, however I'm not getting a warm fuzzy about spending the $ to get it graded. I "need" an MS66 which this is not.
I wouldn't want to grade these from those photos but I would hazard a guess that the coin is in the 63/64 range as TC has said. All 73 Ikes come from Mint Sets so almost all are relatively pristine. For a 66 the coin will have to look like the nicest Ike you have ever seen. They aren't very common in 66 grades. Can I ask why you want a graded one? and if so why don't you just buy one that's already graded? It is unlikely that it will save you much money to find one and slab it yourself. You'll probably not get a 66 on the first try and by coin 2 or 3 you will have lost money on the project.
It still looks shiney to me but it is not a 66 with all those marks on the face. Its nota 64 either unless the shiney background bends the grade.
63. The hits on Ike's cheek are distracting and would keep it going higher, along with the marks in the fields. 64 possibly, but a strong 63.
Photos make judging luster difficult, and the biggest difference between grades on 73-d coins is luster. Could be anything from a 64 to a 66, IMO, depending on (you guessed it)....luster.
Just need a M66 graded one for the collection. Don't think I'll bother with this one even though it's the best I have of many mint sets it's not near good enough. I'll just watch TeleTrade, although they are few and far between. Thank you all for the input.