I honestly would say it's borderlined cleaned, so if i had to give it a numerical grade i'd say around vf20 too.
Too much of the date is worn off, I'd have to knock it down to F12 grade. Also, the eagle wings don't have enough details for a VF in my opinion.
I have my doubts that it's been cleaned. I have several of these old SLQs that I got out of circulation when I was a kid, and most look about like this one. I can't believe all the coins in circulation had been cleaned by someone before I got them.
F15 Also, I'm never 100% sure about any grade, and I've been doing it for a lot longer than you have. Be careful being over-confident with something as subjective as coin grading.
Yeah, I'm the same way, I'm hard on my own grading, don't want to set my own expectations too high thinking my coins are better than they really are. But for SLQ, the date is important, with most of it gone, it really knocks down the grade in my opinion. This might be a F15 but it couldn't go higher than that for me.
"How goods my grading?" And the snippy cynic in me would answer.... ...about as good as your spelling. lol
I have to agree that twenty-five years ago, it would have probably been a grade lower, but today I'm going with a F-12. I do like the old ANA standards for the record though, it's what my favorite coin dealer still uses.
If I were to buy this coin, I wouldn't pay any more than the value of a VG-10. Years ago, I might have thought it was a F-12 to 15 but, back then, I tended to be over optimistic about grading. A little at a time I go through another portion of my collection and assess grades as though they were new additions to my collection. I have found that some of my coins now grade lower than they used to.
