Guess the grade - 1883-O Morgan

My only "slabbed" Morgan, certified by NGC.

I'll come back around the middle of the week with how it actually rated.







As an aside, I'm constantly amazed how many of these I see that while uncirculated are nevertheless insipid and listless, with almost nonexistent luster and/or an indifferent strike, that still have been graded out to, like, MS-63 or even MS-64 (evidently solely on the basis that they aren't marked up very much).

 

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My initial impression was MS63 but given the location of the marks and the distracting spotting on the reverse, I took it down to MS62.

 

Yeah, me too.

 

Here're a couple of better, more detailed looks at some of the roughest areas on this coin.

 

MS 61. Too many distractions.

 

MS-63, I really don't like those spots

 

Not the best pictures to grade by but it looks like an MS63 to me.

 

went with the 62

 

But its an O mint with good strike in the breast feathers, I'm at 63 in spite of the cheek.

 

If the strike weren't so good for an O-mint, I'd have said 62...

But even with all of the distractions (spotty toning, subdued luster, chatter, etc), just for having such a superb strike, I went with 63

 

MS 61, hate the distracting marks.

 

Went 64 but would have gone 63 had I seen these.

 

I agree 61 Ngc is hard on 1880-1885-O bag marks to.
Just my2c

 

Actually, the luster isn't deficient on this example, but in attempting to give the best possible view of the marks, I eschewed utilizing reflective lighting in my earlier photos. Here's another shot that gives a truer impression on that score, albeit the coin still looks better in person.

 

3, but hard for me to say what they did with that cheek mark. Not very confident.

 

I voted MS-62. Nice strike but some serious marks. Wish we could see the luster better.

 

I'll reiterate that luster is absolutely not an issue with this Morgan, in that aspect it's entirely satisfactory for an ordinary business strike in BU condition (save for those three tarnish spots on the reverse). Here's one more photo to try and convey that point, and it still doesn't do the coin justice in this regard. It's a nice, bright, white example. But you can see that a photo that shows off the reflectivity also makes those marks it does have practically disappear, which is deceptive from the standpoint of asking for an opinion on how it was graded, and which is why I didn't take the photos in this manner to begin with.

 

The photograph, due to the lighting does not show luster well. We are all assuming MS, but your lighting and angle of the photo does not show the coin's luster.

 

I suppose that I ought to take a photo under an incadescent lamp, it'd look sufficiently shiny then. In my defense, my photo isn't much different from the one of the 1895 on the cover of Q. David Bower's Red Book, which hardly highlights that coin's proof characteristics.

Here's an interesting ancillary question - if you saw my latest photo on the auction site that shall not be named with "BU 1883-O Morgan" as the description, how would you judge its grade?

 

Well, here's how NGC saw this one. I've seen clearly scuffier and markedly less presentable BU's graded as MS-63's, at least, by NGC, particularly recently on some of the cable coin selling shows. It's been commented upon in this thread regarding the spots on the reverse, but I've also seen higher grades assigned to coins that were extensively so tarnished, even to the point where they had almost no overall luster (although, to be fair, this seems to occur with PCGS rather than with NGC). Uncirculated they may have been, but brilliant they certainly weren't!

I've been fighting the temptation to break this example out of this holder based upon a certification that belies its eye appeal. I think it's certainly graded on the low side considering that the bagmarks such as it has are not at all prominent, One thing that has been mentioned and that I also noticed right away is the quality and fullness of the strike (for the New Orleans mint, at least), but this evidently doesn't count for much as far as NGC is concerned.

I'm responsible for the identification of the VAM (to the best of my ability). Feel free to correct me if I've gotten that wrong, or if there's an additional one I've missed.