hi everyone, this is my first post on this forum and i have a few coins that im trying to get an idea of how they would grade before i decide to send them in. these aren't the best pictures but i tried the best i could with my phone. thanks 1881-S Morgan 1880-S Morgan 1902 Barber Half 1853-P 3 cent silver
Welcome to the neighborhood! The photos of the Morgans are too small to be able to determine their condition. Both the 80-S & 81-S are known for very strong strikes which are readily available in the marketplace. For this reason, if your specimens don't grade at least MS65 (preferably MS66) it wouldn't be worth it to submit them for grading. Some collectors set a minimum value of $100 or so when trying to decide if it would be worth it to submit a coin. Personally, I feel it should be higher, say, $150-$200 because once you factor in the cost of the submission (inlcuding shipping & insurance) to the acquisition costs, you'd probably just break even. Chris
Both Morgans are common and as Chris said, not hard to find in the market. Neither of them, IMO, are worth the cost of submitting. If they wouldn't grade 66+, and I don't think they would, save your money on submitting them. I'm not so sure that Barber half hasn't been cleaned as it looks like it has, as does the three cent piece.
Cartwheel luster does not in any way suggest that the OP's coins haven't been cleaned. Infact, if a coin has developed toned surfaces from decades of album storage and is subsequently cleaned, there would actually be more luster present than if the coin were to have remained original. You can never judge a coin's originality by "retained" luster. -Brian
True that even "dipping" a coin no matter how light, or heavy the dip or how well it was done or how improperly it was done it's still cleaning it. Making it a cleaned coin. Especially to a purist coin collector. Also most dips won't mess with luster but will take an ugly toned, or even a tarnished black coin and make it blast white. The question you should ask yourself is was the cleaning done properly enough to slip past the TPG's without it coming back black bagged or details.
thanks for all of the input so far, im fairly new to numismatics and have been collecting for about a year since i graduated from college and these were passed down to me. i wouldn't mind having the morgans graded because they are my favorite coin even though they are a common year. i took the photos on my samsung galaxy s2 which has a better camera than my canon.
