Today's challenge deals with copper grades and color. Here are six Indian Head Cents. They are all business strike (no proofs) and have been graded by PCGS as 65RD, 65RB, 64RD, 64RB, and 63RB. The wild card here is that one has been "genuined" by PCGS for questionable color. The years are 1873, 1876, 1899, 1903, 1905, 1906. Can you associate the grades with the coins? (Note: All coins started out raw, and all ended up in PCGS holders. Some images were merely taken before grading/slabbing. FWIW.) Put them in this order, highest grade to lowest. 65RD 65RB 64RD 64RB 63RB Genuine (questionable color) Forum members did very well on the Peace dollars, 1920s Lincolns, and 1878 silver dollars. Let's see how everyone does this time. Answers in a few days. Lance.
1899- MS63 RB 1873- MS64 RB 1876- MS65 RB 1903- MS65 RD 1905- MS64 RB 1906- genuine questionable color Very hard to distinguish color from your photos. Your IHC's are terrific zeke.
1903- MS65 RD 1905- MS65 RB 1899- MS64 RD 1873- MS64 RB 1876- MS63 RB 1906- Genuine (questionable color)
1873- MS64 RB 1876- MS64 RB 1899- MS63 RB 1903- Genuine 1905- MS65 RB 1906- MS64 RB Just my swag at this - personally I picked number 3 because there are several things I do not like about it. The 76 is the nicest one in my opinion. Never liked the mostly red ones.
1873- Genuine Not an expert, but this one just seems a bit off... lightly cleaned and toned to hide the cleaning? 1876- MS63RB I'd guess this was genuine too, but it's not, so it's getting the lowest grade 1899- MS64RD Hard for me to call it RD, but looks like it has that cherry red color PCGS loves to see. 1903- MS65RD This one looks like it's just dripping with luster. 1905- MS65RB So close to RD, but falls just short... process of elimination to me. 1906- MS64RB Nice coin, shame it didn't sit in it's environment a little longer and get more of that green color... may not have graded, though, in that case. I think it's market acceptable as-is.
Thanks, Zeke. The colors are correct, FWIW. Even the stark difference between obverse and reverse on the 1905. Lance.
Merc Crazy nailed it! WTG! Everyone was very close, though. Impressive. 65RD - 1903 65RB - 1905 64RD - 1899 64RB - 1906 63RB - 1876 Genuine (questionable color) - 1873 The "genuine" '73 surprised me. And even Rick Snow, eagle-eye guy, who I bought it from. He graciously allowed me to return it for credit, which I used on a 1794 large cent. (Thank you, Rick!) Persistence might have worked but I didn't want to play the regrade game at the time. Thanks, all. I hope you liked it. I almost included this IHC as the 65RB candidate but I figured it was too easy. Lance.
I am surprise at that also - I would have liked to see it in hand. It sure looked original in the picture to me.
Wow, I'm surprised I got them all right, IHC's aren't really my part of the town, if ya know what I'm saying. It was fun, though. Thanks!
