Grade the draped bust half cent!

I think it's just a weak strike, so will probably go AU. I think for the common date I would have waited to find a fully struck example. You could have picked up a nice XF with three times as much detail and better color, I think.
Guy~

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

thanks for the comments all:

Interesting GD. Besides that the coin obviously has a weak strike, would you say that the wear is uneven too? It seems like there are 3 different "levels" if you will that I gather from your description. There is the weakly stuck(left reverse/obverse sections), the well struck/heavily worn(central obverse, lettering on reverse) then the well struck/lightly worn(reverse right leaves, obverse bust/eye detail). If this is truly the case, and some of the weak areas are due to uneven wear, then I will agree that ANACS got it right. I just know as an amateur myself it would be incredibly hard for me to grade a coin that has both uneven wear AND an unevenly weak strike, and be able to distinguish between the two on the same coin. This is quite the complicated coin so it seems...:kewl:

 

very true, but lets not forget, an XF will also cost three times as much...

 

A fair perspective, and the bottom line is that I also agree with the grade (I think I guessed VF 25 in another thread, close enough).

That said, I think this coin has XF wear at worst on it, and the rest is weak strike. I base this determination by the amount of wear (or lack thereof) on the folds of Liberty's dress along her bustline/neckline. Typically, XF and VF coins this area, one of the high points of the design, exhibits significant wear in this area, yet this coin has an amazing amount of detail in this area which says to me that the coin has a severely weak strike and little wear.

 

There is much discussion of weak strike on this thread. I'm certainly agreed it's a weak strike. But in addition, one should not ignore the detail which is missing from the coin because it was missing from the die - because the dies were reground. A mint-state coin with the best strike in the world would still be missing that detail.

I'm less convinced of the "uneven wear" theory.

 

I agree that the coin is likely based off of an LD. I often mistakenly factor that into the description of "weak strike", though technically it is completely different. Good point 900fine.

Here is a question for the "uneven wear" theory. How does this occur? How could some "high points" have XF/AU wear, while other similarly "high points" have VF-20 wear? This doesn't seem like a logical occurence to me. If you flip a coin a thousand times, it is eventually going to approach 50% heads, and 50% tails, with maybe a minor deviation. Though there is a chance that after a thousand flips, you will get 80% heads and 20% tails; it is extremely unlikely. The more times you flip the coin, the more unlikely you will have a large split due to the larger amount of data points. A coin with VF wear has seen significant circulation, representative of many data points. Though this isn't a perfect analogy as I'm sure some high points are more prone to wear than others, but aren't a coins wear patterns essentially similar from one coin to another?

anyways, sorry i got off track a bit. Just thinking out loud...

 

While I don't think it happened to the coin that is the subject of this thread, coins get uneven wear when they are bent -- even slightly.

The OP's coin doesn't have uneven wear per-se, it has a weak strike which looks like uneven wear to some.

All IMO & respectfully submitted....Mike

 

that would make sense. At that point, the high points are somewhat altered. I would think the concave portion would be much more protected from wear.

 

Correct, but even the concave portions show uneven wear along the "high" edges. Also, coins can sometimes be bent in odd ways (i.e. not a normal "fold") which result in odd wear patterns.

But again, there's nothing to suggest that this is the case for the OP's coin -- just something to file away in your memory banks for later use.

 

I don't think you're off-topic at all; I think it's well-centered strike !

Educate me more about this whole "uneven wear" thing.

I tend to think like Johnny; that most coins of a type will show typical wear patterns. In fact, that seems to be an underlying assumption in the very existence of an ANA Grading Standard ! Most coins of a given grade will look similar in their wear pattern; differences are not due to differing amounts of wear, but other differences (mostly mint-made).

I also like Johnny's statistical analogy. I coin might wear one way for a while, but over time it all evens out (particularly for well-worn coins, which have more opportunity to "even out").

The key seems to be understanding the many reasons a coin is lacking detail - dies which are worn, reground / lapped, poorly made, unevenly aligned; poor strike; and yes, wear. Wear is only one of many reasons.

I would think uneven detail is almost never caused by uneven wear, but one of the many other reasons.

Uneven wear seems implausible in most cases. I would think it is very unusual, particularly in well-worn coins.

Thoughts ? I'm inquiring, not lecturing.

This better be good... I spent my 3,000th post on this one !

 

900fine:
Congrats on #3,000.

As far as the coin, I see little, if any, actual wear. Sure, a weak strike, but wear?

So, I'd probably go for an AU.
Why? Just because.

Wow, I just saw the original posting of the lot.

Wow, again.

VF?

No way, Jose.

Break it out and re-submit it!

 

No grade due to color. PCGS will but it in a "Genuine" holder, NGC will slab in an NCS holder (if those were your choices).

 

I don't think I'm contradicting myself. I graded the coin on what I thought the TPG would grade the coin, not what I would grade it. Here's what I said in the PCGS thread (and correction, I (correctly) guessed VF 20, not 25):

"From a TPG perspective, that coin probably has XF wear, but VF or F details, so I suspect NGC graded it closer to the details than the wear and guess VF 20. "

I think we are going to have to agree to disagree on this one. While I agree the hair and ear are the high points in the design, you will note these details are missing from this coin -- and not by wear but weak strike, so we have to look outside the ANA grading guidelines for signs of wear as the high points weren't ever struck up. Looking at examples of these coins you will notice that the drapery starts to show wear on even AU draped bust half cents, and this wear is significant and visible on XF and VF coins. Don't believe me? Take a look at these examples:

AU (slight wear on drapery):
http://coins.ha.com/common/view_item.php?Sale_No=20051&Lot_No=1001#Photo

XF (more wear on drapery):
http://coins.ha.com/common/view_item.php?Sale_No=20122&Lot_No=2001
http://coins.ha.com/common/view_item.php?Sale_No=68101&Lot_No=61022

VF (significant wear on drapery):
http://coins.ha.com/common/view_item.php?Sale_No=390&Lot_No=19050
http://coins.ha.com/common/view_item.php?Sale_No=390&Lot_No=19041

See how the drapery is worn down significantly more on each example? That's what I'm talking about.

Are you sure that's not just a weak strike, which is common for this date/die state, rather than uneven wear?

Respectfully...Mike

 

What is your rationale for this grade? Just wondering....Mike

 

This thread demonstrates why I much, much, much prefer EAC grading and thinking. The basic idea is start with sharpness grade and deduct points for problems and imperfections.

My key point, for this thread's purposes, is sharpness i.e. amount of detail. What counts is the amount of detail. There is less emphasis on why the detail is missing.

And that's what I like. If others want to get excited and debate ad infinitum about missing detail due to whatever - uneven wear, uneven strike, crummy dies, blah blah blah - let 'em debate.

This coin is a perfect example. It's missing large amounts of detail, is cleaned, and has artificial color - yet some call it AU !

You want to pay AU50 money for this one, go ahead. It sold for VF20 money, and that's a fair price.

Overall, according to ANA guidelines, the coin has VF30 sharpness, problems, net 20. It's that easy.

Granted, "VF30 sharpness" requires a judgement call, since there is such dramatic difference between the left and right halves of the wreath. It is of academic interest why there is such a difference, but little market interest. As proven by the sale price - 20 money. The market cares more about condition and less about how we got there. We're not "path-dependent", we're state-dependent.

All of which answers the question "If the coin has very little wear why would you grade it VF25 ?". It's missing sharpness due to reasons other than wear.

Missing sharpness is missing sharpness is missing sharpness. It doesn't matter why.

 

A fair perspective, but then how do you grade a mint state weakly struck example with full luster?

For example, grade this coin, graded MS 66 by PCGS:

http://coins.ha.com/common/view_item.php?Sale_No=1127&Lot_No=74

Using your grading method -- missing sharpness is missing sharpness is missing sharpness -- this coul would likely grade in the VF/XF range. Yet the coin has absolutely no high-point wear and is clearly mint state.

So how would you grade this coin?

 

This was along the same lines as my thinking. If the op coin has truly been cleaned/recolored(i personally can't really tell), then I would agree that VF-20 would be the correct, "market grade". However, it was my understanding that TPGs generally assign their grades based on wear, and not so much on strike/die state...and for ANACS, they would give a details grade if cleaned/recolored; then potentially netting it depending on the year. I could much more easily see this coin in an XF-details cleaned, net VF-20 slab; or just "XF details" assuming it's been cleaned.

Going off of leadfoot's point, the 1922 plain weak reverse has significant weakness pretty much throughout the coin. One of these graded AU-50 would probably only have the sharpness of a typical VF-25 1922-D. However, it still gets the technical grade of AU-50, and then the market decides on how much the coin is worth in light of the detail weakness.

Obviously the market grade would be lower, but I think the technical grade should be higher, unless GD is correct with his uneven wear theory. Although I don't really agree with his theory, it's the only reason I can see ANACS giving it a technical grade of VF-20...unless they otherwise just goofed.

Lots of interesting discussion...keep it coming! I should be receiving the coin any day, so I will most certainly take better photos and point out whatever is better/worse on the coin in hand.

 

I don't understand how/why you would state as fact that the coin has been cleaned and has artificial color. I sure can't tell that with any high degree of certainty from the images, and don't even know how accurate or inaccurate they are.

It does indeed matter why, at least to many of us. Missing sharpness due to weakness in strike is looked upon/graded differently than missing sharpness based on wear. An obviously uncirculated coin with a weak strike doesn't become circulated, simply because it is softly struck.