Obviously a great coin. I will say though, I’m the picture the obverse looks cleaned or something. With it being only 1 picture it might be completely original but that obverse pic does make me slightly nervous from a grading standpoint. Frankly, either way it’s still a great coin.
Not to burst your bubble completely, the 1972 Doubled Die Obverse Cent is not exactly "a great coin." To date PCGS has graded 4,500 examples (I know it's weird that it's an even number) and NGC has graded 2,605 pieces. Most of them have gotten the "red" designation. That is a total of 7,105 coins. I know that some of those are re-submissions, but still, it's far from even a scarce coin. What I am saying is that you don’t have buy the first one that is offered to you, and you certainly don’t have to buy a scrubbed up cleaned one. The value on an item like that is very limited. It is a “roach motel” investment … easy to check-in, hard to check out. There are plenty of these coins around. For many 19th century coins the populations are in the hundreds. There is nothing rare about this coin. Furthermore, there are 10 known varieties of the 1972 Doubled Die Obverse Cent. This is one that is worth the premium. The others not as sharp, and not worth as much money. The story was there was old guy at the Philadelphia Mint who found a way to make cent dies faster. The trouble was, his method created a more than his share of doubled dies. When it was discovered, the claim is he died of a heart attack. I don’t know how much of that story is really true, but it makes for interesting speculation
@johnmilton - Not to burst your bubble but your opinion about my opinion was not requested and is completely worthless. I don’t need or want your help in defining what I find appealing. Neither does the market. You are one person; though that might be hard for you to believe. I was responding to the OP’s request for opinions on the grade and coin in general. And while it’s interesting that you let a PCGS population census define for you what a great coin is, I don’t. Also, read the original post - guy is asking for thoughts on grade and whether it’s possibly been cleaned. He doesn’t need you to denigrate his collection from on high.... OP, really nice coin. Thanks for sharing. How does the OBV look in hand relative to the pictures posted?
I try to come here to help people learn based a many years of research and 60+ as a collector and 15 years as a dealer. If you don't like what I have to say, you don't need to read it. Go ahead buy the scrubbled up coin in the OP. I'm trying to keep you from having to learn the hard way.
Every term is relative, but with 19th century coins, the Rarity-1 rating, “common”, starts at 1,200 pieces. In the modern market, promoters have tried to say that commemorative coins with mintages of 5,000 are “scarce.” Remember that the 7,105 includes only NGC and PCGS graded coins. There are more in ANACS, ICG and other third party grading holders in addition to the raw ones that have survived.