hone your grading skills -- indian quarter eagle

I see what you mean. Thanks.

How about on MS/AU coins? I would guess that the devices, for the most part, would be "hidden" and the fields would show evidence of circulation first, no?

Have a nice evening...Mike

 

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Now you see why these Indians are so hard to grade. Unless the wear is obvious it can be difficult to distinguish between AU & MS.

Yes, the fields, being the highest points on the coin, will see the first wear but since they are smooth it will be hard to see. The highest points of the devices, even though they are incuse, will also be the first to wear in those areas. But sometimes it is hard to distinguish a weak strike from light wear. So you will be looking for broken luster (something that is very hard to do if you don't have the coin in front of you).

 

Nice to know I got something right. After the beating I took on DJ's contest, my 1st thought was to lurk and not to guess, gold Indians are tough so a near miss would have been ok too.

Supernice coin by the way !!

 

Indian $2 1/2 & $5 are also highly counterfeited. Some are VERY deceptive. That's another reason to only buy slabbed Indian gold if you don't know how to grade and authenticate them.

 

More than one dealer and advanced collector I know have essentially said,
I rather have an AU-55 or -58 than an MS-60 or -61 or -62.

An uncirculated coin has to have some serious detractions to grade lower than MS-63.
To many people your AU-58 is more collectable
AND
You get a price break.

Also you have to be careful imaging coins at too high a resolution.
Over 300 dpi and you start seeing things that can't be seen with the coin in hand, even using a 3x magnifier.

 

In that case... May I offer you a job at PCGS ?

 

Makes sense.

In addition, I suppose that folks tend to handle coins by their centers when making change and making purchases, so the centers tend to wear first.

On these coins, that means the Indian's cheekbones and the eagle's shoulder / breast.

Hobo's point is right on - broken luster is very hard to detect without coin in hand . It's a little tricky even then; in addition to the eagle's shoulder, the eagle's feathers along his back will be the first to show broken luster. I just rotate it at every angle until I'm happy.

Oddly enough, almost ALL MS61s* show luster breaks ! At least a little, particularly on the reverse. One would think that would disqualify them from MS.

Perhaps this is a classic case of "market grading" standards at TPGs. Maybe they take all the sliders and liners and evaluate them on surface preservation and eye appeal - give the best MS61 and the rest AU58.




* graded to top TPGs

 

Yes, you do.

Yes, they will.

Sure does look cleaned to me.

 

Leadfoot, Would this coin be in an old PCGS holder ?
Just curious.

 

I've taken on this series as my "specialty" series. I'm certainly not an expert, but I've gazed upon more Indian $2.5s than any other series.

AU58s and MS61s are almost identical, so shopping for a good AU58 and getting the price break is smart. I rarely see an MS60 Indian $2.5 for some reason.

AU55s are consistently inferior. MS62s are consistently better; as a rule, they don't have serious distractions.

With larger coins (i.e. $10 Libbies), I can understand the point about "good AU55s being more desirable than MS62s", but not these Indian $2.5s.

In this series, I've not seen an AU55 that would compare with an MS62.

 

With the exception of a few of the dates that come weakly struck, the best way of determing circulation wear is to look at the cheek bone of the indian for rub and the feathers of the shoulder of the eagle. In my opinion these are the two areas where it is easiest to detect rub. Keep in mind that TPG's will allow slight friction in these areas and still call them mint state.

Marks on the coin are factored into the grade, but you can have a relatively heavily marked coin find it's way into a 64 or 65 holder if the luster is blazing. I find that very often the only difference between a 62 or a 63 is the amount of luster.

 

Yep. Important point.

And it seems different from most other series - usually any rub or wear precludes MS grade.

Maybe not. What do you think ? Is it typical in other series to allow MS designation in spite of small amounts of rub if a coin is nice in other respects ?

 

Yep, a lightly circulated coin that has excellent eye appeal may be graded MS-61 or 62 - higher than a strictly uncirculated coin with lots of bag marks. That's called 'market grading'. I have a hard time wrapping my head around that concept. To me circulated is circulated. But with market grading they assign a grade based on what the value of the coin will be; i.e., a lightly circulated coin with few blemishes and good luster will sell for more than an uncirculated coin with tons of bag marks, hence the higher MS grade.

 

Thanks for the great discussion guys!!! I learned a lot from your insights.

To rotobeast, no, the coin wasn't in an old holder, it was in a blue insert holder and graded sometime prior to January 2005, when I purchased the coin.