Too many contact marks and dings for 65. There is also the split-plating at the mint mark and luster breaks on the lapels. Many people would equate luster break = wear (circulation). AU58+ Red...jmho...Spark
They'd be wrong to equate it with wear. If they want to divine whether the coin circulated because that's important to them and they want to equate a luster break with circulation to determine that, that's fine, but it doesn't have any bearing on whether the grade is circulated or uncirculated.
It is starting to deteriorate and that is not a good sign, especially for a Zincoln. 64 is my opinion. Good luck.
I can't disagree with this at all. there's all kinds of situations that can impair the luster, only one of which is circulation wear. it can simply be the strike and age of the die, it can be roller lines, it can be small contact marks that flash when rotating the coin under a light. What we call "luster" is a product of die wear. True "first strikes" will seem almost satin-like or proof-like on it's surface, as the die is used it moves from there into what we call luster to cartwheel effect to flow lines to starburst (just using commonly used terms to describe a coins luster) until the die degrades more and is replaced with a fresh one. Anyways, just my opinion. I'm no "professional" just a hobbyist.
Mind you, it's just my opinion, but no matter what the grade, it will always be a lousy Zincoln that will disintegrate with time. I view cents produced after 1982 as "problem" coins and don't bother with them.
Actually, John, if I may clarify a little. I think you describe well the stages the dies go through as they age. I've not heard it described in this detail, before, however I can say, it makes perfect sense to me. But let's get off the dies for a minute and get on the planchets, themselves. When those were struck, the metal was flowing from in to out. That is to say, it was flowing from the center to the perimeter of the planchet. That's where these flow lines that impart luster to the coins come from. They're ever so slight, but their impact is profound. Contrast that with luster imparted by the dies, themselves--which, by the way, also wore in the same way as the distribution of the metal flow on the planchets, that is to say, from in to out, or from the center to the perimeter, creating the striations, or what you will, imparting the conditions to the planchets when they were struck by those aged dies. That's luster imparted by the dies, themselves, or the die wear. My point of clarification is, luster is imparted in two ways, first, by the distribution of the metal flow on the planchet, and later, by the wear in the dies, which, again, form the same way as on the planchets, except, over time and use. We've a lot of good threads on this, yet going back some dozen, or so, years. Just let it suffice, for anyone interested in how luster actually forms, dig those threads up, and you won't have to consult anything else, ever. We've had some pretty big brains back then, I'll add, I have to give us the credit.
