There has been a lot of activity in this forum about Ikes lately. Which is a good thing, since I really do like them. Seeing what PCGS calls MS 65 for Ike dollars really surprises me. They generally seem to have quite a few nicks and scrapes. Are those considered bag marks? Were Ike thrown in bags? Please clue me in. It took me awhile to understand that all the makrs on my Morgan dollars were actually bag marks. So is this the same situation with Ikes? Whenever I see folks posting Ike dollars here, they all look AU to me. But after seeing the slabbed Ikes, I know I am wrong. Anyway, here are a few of some of the the Ikes I imaged. How would you grade these clad Ikes? A. B. C. d. Also, do they technically grade the 40% silver strikes with the same criteria as they do the clad ones? The silver ones always seem to be much better. Is that because the silver ones were never put in bags, but rather straight in the blue envelopes, brown boxes, or bicentennial sets?
Some marks are there before the coin is struck and the strike does not remove them. You see this on nickels as well.
I also just read that they were put in 1000 coin bags, weighing 52 pounds. Now I understand why I think every Ike is AU lol.
I'm gonna grade these... A; 65+, definite shot at 66, that's a real nice Ike. B; 64, weak strike. C; 65 D; 64 High grade circ strike ikes don't have to have super-clean fields and devices... it's more about screaming luster, good strike, and no huge bag marks, from what I've seen. I'm far from an expert though. Where's Lee???
I have really been clueless about Ikes since I first started collecting coins. Lately though, the grading of Ikes has peaked my interest. It's the coin I relate to as a kid since it was always around. The first four in this thread all came from a group of 300 I got at the bank. I'm starting to think the small hoard were in fact hand picked by someone who knew about Ikes. The first give away should have been that 1973 was for mint sets only, and this group had 1973's in them. Of course I didn't even realize that at the time. Same ole story. Teller said some old lady brought them in that morning. At another visit to the bank, the teller offered me the 900 that were in the vault. On the stipulation that I take them all. Bummer, didn't have $900 to spare then. Still don't!
Wow, 900? I remember going to banks as a teen and buying Ike's by the roll along with rolls of halves. Doubt I could do either anymore these days.
i like the ike dollars nice photos gbroke, as always. i think the silver ike dollars look nice because they were treated as collector coins at the mint. plus silver is alot softer than clad. cody
