Question for the Indian Head Cent experts..

I just picked up this 1885 Indian Head Cent. It is raw and I don't have it in hand yet. Based on the seller's images and comparing them to HA photos, I think it might be a proof. What would you think?

Once I have the coin in hand, I will re image it and post them here.

If it is a proof, what would you guess could be the grade? I am not very good at grading proof coins.

These are the sellers images.

 

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Rims sure don't look like a proof. I'd say pl business strike

 

I agree with @Mainebill. Maybe someone knows some diagnostics that can definitively identify it, but I think it's a business strike, too.

 

Thanks guys. I was wondering about the rims myself. But what through me off is comparing it to these Heritage photos of a PCGS PR67 coin.

Taking a look at the alignment of the 1 in the date, the shape of the Longacre doubling around "United States Of America"


Then the reverse. The shape of the metal blob extending from the holly leaf on the lower right side of the wreath out to the denticles.


I'm pretty sure they reused proof dies to strike business strike coinage, but what would the odds be that both the obverse and reverse die marriages of a proof coin be married again for a business strike? I don't even know how many dies were used to strike the proof coins. From the few examples I have looked at, there appears to be at least 2 sets of dies used to strike the proof coins for that year.

Part of me wonders if it is just the cropping of the image in the photos or shadows. I will know more once it arrives and I can examine it in hand.

 

Since there's only 3,790 minted ( I'd say one die ) and I'm a variety collector, I look for differences in the strike .

First thing a noticed, were the lips are different on the PR compared to the BS strike .

 

It's thought that there were 4 obverse and 4 reverse dies used. The first 8 in the date has the looks of the PR3 but I can't tell if this is a proof or not.

 

As a variety collector I have some good tools in my tool box . Here's a little graph to check date placement .

Not even close to the proof placement .

 

Here's a full graph of the date comparison .

 

I not sure on how many dies were used, but there was only a small amount of proof coins made ...

 

Would this be the same on each die?

 

I would think there's only one master hub, but I don't collect these ...

 

Here's another graph with the Proof coin the OP posted, still doesn't match, but that makes 2 obverse dies so far, for the 1885 proof coin .

 

Take a look inside the lower loop of the first 8. They look the same. I don't know. Just throwing this out there.

 

Here's the 2 proof dies together .

 

I'll do a graph on a BS coin .

 

Here's 3 images from pcgs and all are different dies too .
None match OP coin, which is a good thing, I guess.

There's also 3 images of poofs, I posted one, all do a graph for the other 2 proofs from pcgs .

 

After checking the images on pcgs, these are the only 2 dies they have imaged ..

 

Thanks Rick, the graph thing would work great, assuming the coin images are rotated so they are both in the exact same alignment. Unfortunately the two images you used above are not aligned perfectly. The sellers images were not taken perpendicular to the coins surface so there is a slight distortion and the coin is not round.

I took the sellers image of the obverse and the obverse from heritage into Photoshop and aligned the images as near perfectly as I can get. I then created an animated gif with the sellers image on top fading to 0% revealing the heritage image below it. They appear to be the same obverse die to me. I will do a similar comparison of the reverse dies shortly.

The beginning of the loop shows the sellers image fading to the heritage image.

 

Here is the animation of the reverses

 

Nice program and it's good for the tool box too ...