Unusual gtg. 1795 h10c pcgs

These are the pictures from the slab. I’ll share the glamour shots next and no I don’t own this. However, it did catch my eye.

 

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Looks to good to be true

 

I will guess AU-58. Excellent strike and magnificent coin!

This is one of the more available and affordable early silver coins in high grades.

 

I don't know much about this series but it is a lovely early American example. Given the flatness on the eagle feathers and hair I would guess the grade as AU50.

 

It’s in an auction with a highly reputable company. I’ll post the rest of the information later but believe me, this is a real coin.

 

I'm guessing it's a fairly high MS grade; I'll go with MS 65

 

I cheated and looked at the auction. Boy was I wrong

 

I think that they are adjustment marks. The reverse looks like it has seen some circulation to me, But that means nothing. MS64

 

The photo looks more like a scan, which is the complete opposite of a glamor shot. A scan makes the most eye appealing coin you’ve ever seen look like a pocket piece

 

This is the late die state version of the LM-10 with the obverse cud. One of the "common" die marriages at R-3. According to Logan-McCloskey "...deceptive struck counterfeit examples of LM-10 with the cud at TY exist. These bogus pieces were featured in an October 17, 1994 article in Coin World." Elsewhere LM states the counterfeits were struck from dies created by the spark erosion process.

I was surprised to see the adjustment marks on this little coin, one more piece of evidence suggesting this coin is probably legitimate.

But I am somewhat disturbed by the lack of Stars 5 and 6 and only half of Star 7. Even though this is a late die state coin, there is no apparent reason why these stars did not strike up to some extent. It's not unusual to see weak strikes at odd points on these early coins but this one seems "unusually unusual".

As to grade, I will call it MS-63, down from 64 with a nod to market grading for the adjustment marks.

 

I did not yet post the glamour shots. Believe me when I tell you there’s a huge difference I will post the glamour shots tonight.

 

I think it is probably net graded to AU-53. The actual wear is better than that, but the coin does not appear to have mint luster. The adjustment marks, don't lower the grade, but the do lower the value. The planchet issues that resulted from the weight adjustment caused a weak strike.

Here's mine, which is graded AU-58. The dealer from whom I bought this piece, purchased a lot of British coins on his trips to London. This one was part of purse load of coins that one of those ubiquitous "little old ladies" brought into a London coin shop. The dealer tired to get it into a Mint State holder a couple of times, but it never worked. I think that Ms. Liberty would have needed to “powder her shiny nose” to have made that work.

 

Found the OP's posted coin. I won't spoil his reveal.

Here's my 1795. Not as nice @johnmilton's but then very few of us have any coins as nice as his.

 

I understand that wasn’t the glamor shot. My point was any coin where the image is from a scan will never do an eye appealing coin justice. They will always look flat with no definition and any color the coin has will be severely muted.

This isn't the best example since my scanner will only scan raw coins in focus. But the coin I used as an example did have a ton of luster, though no color to speak of. First picture is the scan, second photo is the coin as it lays under the lens with the monitor in the background showing the coin as the camera sees it live. The third photo is a better look at the monitor. Not a glamor shot, just a coin under the lens, but the difference between that and a scan is crazy different.

 

Grading by photo is something I have always had trouble with, and doing it from photos taken through a slab, well, forget it.

 

The second set of photos reveal that the 1795 half is a Mint State piece. The technical grade would be in the MS-64 range, going more by the obverse than the reverse.

As a collector and a dealer, for that matter, I would be reluctant to pay strong Mint State money for it. The adjustment marks in the reverse would bug me, but the missing stars on the obverse would really bother me. Since better struck pieces are available without a lot of looking I would pass.

The issue was with the thinness of the planchette in that area when the coin was struck. The weight adjustment from the adjustment marks caused the flan to be too thin, and there was not enough metal to fill the dies.

As a date, the 1795 half dime is the most common piece in the 1792 to 1805 group. There are 10 die varieties, and some of them are quite rare.

 

Didn’t know that. Wow that coin must look good in hand. Hell. I’ll give it a home. Was waiting for John to join thread