checking out some E Bay action and came accross this auction. the date looks too good to me based on the rest of the coin. it also looks like maybe some flux resudue around the date as well. http://cgi.ebay.com/1915-S-Barber-H...42?pt=Coins_US_Individual&hash=item20bb4b7772 What do you think?
The guy has sold a lot of stuff and has 100% positive feedback. He does have 3 negs in the last 12 months. Two (from the same person) for cleaned coins and one for a wrong item sent which the purchaser got their money back.
The coin has been cleaned and it's just residue, not flux residue. Hardly worth the effort to modify the date for a '15-S, so I believe it to be legit.
Gotta say though, the seller did provide a nice picture with lots of pixies so that photo can be blown up for real nice closeup views.....
Well, it doesn't seem to have the wear that it should for this grade. Here's a grade XF-45 (what the seller claims this one to be) for comparison: http://cgi.ebay.com/1915-S-NGC-XF45...21?pt=Coins_US_Individual&hash=item5644c3536d
The date looks consistent for a 1915-S Barber dime. It's had a terrible owner. Edit: I'm looking at the shapes of the numbers, but I agree with the above it seems the date is not consistent with the wear on Liberty.
I've heard of people using acid to bring out the date on buffalo nickels, could that be the reason the date looks odd? It appears as though the bottom of the neck and top of the little beads around the rim near the date are eaten away. Just a thought...
I think that it probably looked very similar to the second coin linked to, and after it was cleaned, the dirt removed some of the coin's surface making the date stand out more than it would normally.