I used to hate the look of the woodgrained early 20th century cents, but they are definitely growing on me
Looks like there's at least an AU coin hidden under the wood grain pattern. I tend to like woodies but don't actively collect then. Nice example!
I think that if I had not paid attention to some of the previous woody posts I would, if I found one of these out in circulation, tossed it into the low grade pile. Even knowing how these grade so much higher than I suppose, I still tend to lowball the grade extremely. What would that 1921-s grade at?
Nice one! 21-S's are one of the more common woodies, but that one is of the most defined I have seen. The 21-S is also not exactly noted for being well struck which this one is. I cannot tell for sure. Is it AU or MS?
RLM, how do you differentiate between a well struck coin and just plain wear. Sometimes I just don't see the "well struck" designation. What are things you look for in well struck?
An answer you won't like, but mostly experience. But there are lots of little clues. If you can find it, GDJMSP had a picture of an AU(?) dime where he circled the wear and weak strike characteristics. Pretty much it is a natural coin luster, a different color for the worn parts, and a third color for the weak strike sections. Anyway, some clues I see; On woodies, wear usually obscures the grain. Wear is always uniform. Commonly, a weak strike will have areas where the strike was better than the rest of that face. A worn coin will still have details in the depressions while a weak strike typically will not have as much detail.
I grade this coin VF-30. Yes, it looks fantastic now....but there was some conservation work involved. This is one of the test coins used in developing my newest coin conservation fluid: VERDI-CARE™. You can read more about it here: http://www.coincommunity.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=62434&whichpage=1 Here's the before and after pictures:
One of my answers was; Here is an example to the extreme. http://www.cointalk.com/t101277/#post853383. Look particularly at the reverse. The "ONE" looks almost normal and reasonably sharp, but the wheats are non-existent. That cannot be completely from wear.
That was interesting. I will look at coins a little differently. I never would have thought (in the link example) that the strike had anything to do with that. There was a big difference between the wheats and the the word, "one". I would have that was just based on wear points. Previously my thinking was how the coins detail stood out on the planchet. This is probably true to some extent, but there are other considerations as well.
