1865 two cent piece

Looking for opinions on a grade of this coin. It's an 1865 repunched date, used the scanner on it so the color is a little off (looks way more flat brown in this picture than it does in person). I have a hard time distinguishing grades AU-50 to MS-70, hence the request. Any help would be appreciated.

 

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Here's the reverse. Please excuse the lint, evidently I need to clean my scanner, lol.

 

Just a guess...AU50?

 

If I could ask for specifics, what makes you say AU50 over like MS60 for this coin (i.e. what are you focusing on)? When I look at the pcgs photo guide, au50 shows shield wear which there is none above. However, the coin they used for their photo grade was a better struck coin than mine, as you can see mine lacking details in the leaves on the right side and the 'WE' is weaker than it should be. My thought was either an AU-58 or MS-62, but obviously not being much of a grading expert I was looking for input.

 

Although the difference between the numbers '58' and '62' is slight the difference between a coin graded AU-58 and a coin graded MS-62 is huge.

AU-58 is the highest grade for a circulated coin. It will show only the slightest bit of circulation wear; it will have very, very few contact marks; and it will have almost full mint luster. An AU-58 coin will have great eye appeal. If the coin had not circulated it would have probably graded MS-65 or higher.

MS-62 is near the lower end of mint state grades. While it is strictly an uncirculated coin it will have terrible eye appeal. It will have very little or greatly diminished luster and it will have tons of contact marks. MS-60 is the lowest grade for an uncirculated coin. An MS-60 coin will be ugly and will probably look like it spent a week in a parking lot. An MS-62 won't look much better - but it is still uncirculated.

Your coin has circulation wear so MS grades are out. It is not AU-58. It has very, very little luster (based on your images) and has much too much circulation wear to grade that high. (Yes, I do see strike weakness but I also see wear.) I think the grade is closer to XF-45 or AU-50.

 

After your comments, I went and looked at the coin and looked at the scanned images, the scanner is screwing up the right leaves...there actually is full detail there. I'm working on taking some photos with a camera, that should work better as the scanner images are just so 'flat' and unappealing, lol. Thanks for the reply.

 

Here's a much better image, at least of the top half of the observe (bottom part is a little blurry). At least you can see that the coin does have 'luster' and that the stuff that looked like 'wear' in the scan looks a lot different now. I need to get a macro lens for my wife's camera, it doesn't work very good for close shots right now.

 

If you can get part of the coin in focus you can get ALL of the coin in focus IF you shoot straight on rather than at an angle.

 

That's what I was trying to do, I must have been a little off because the top of the observe is clear and the bottom of the reverse is clear, lol. On the camera though it looked ok, wasn't till I got upstairs that I noticed the blurriness unfortunately. Do the pictures help or do I need to get more focus on the bottom part of the observe?

 

Sorry but there is too much glare off the surface of the coin and/or too much of the coin is out of focus for me to be able to see very much.

 

It's a nice coin, but I would say it's in the AU range.
Keep up the hunt!

 

I would never give your coin a grade of MS-60. An MS-60 coin might not show wear, but the damage it would have to sustain to earn that grade would be awful!

I thought I detected some wear on the "WE' and Reverse high points. You're right, the shield looks solid and my perceptions of wear could easily be due to strike. I don't have much practice grading these issues...which is why I said it was a "guess".

If you feel there's no wear, I would say MS-63. Your coin is way too nice to ever be confused with MS-60.

 

Exactly.

 

That scan is not really a bad image. I'll go AU-50.

 

From the pictures, I would call it an AU-50 that has possibly been dipped/cleaned.
I have one that is in virtually the same state of wear as yours except that mine had been cleaned revealing fine porosity.
If you like, I have photos which I can post to compare to.
Neat coin - there are less of these in existance than 1909 S-VDB's.

 

Those are some of the same concerns I have (dipped). The reason for this whole thread is because I bought this:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1865-Two-Ce...a2r%2FQNLGTrZ1FJMgu50%3D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc

I though that I would try buying a nice coin off ebay, feedback of the vendor was stellar, etc. First nice coin that I'd bought in 25 years (I used to collect from 1984 to around 1991, but just recently started getting back into it). Grading is the hardest part for me, 25 years ago ms-60 wasn't a bad coin, now it appears it kind of is, lol. I liked the coin in the pictures, and I also liked the fact that it was a re-punch that wasn't mentioned as my research on it found that it basically 2x the value in most cases.

However, after I won I stumbled upon some threads calling into question the seller in this case, basically questioning the photographs and kinds of coins they sell...that has made me kind of uneasy about the thing. I like the coin honestly, but what I don't want is to go submit it for grading a year from now and have it come back 'AU-50 details, cleaned' which would make it worth like 1/3 of what I paid. After seeing the auction pictures and descriptions, any suggestions or thoughts? Part of the reason I bought it honestly was to learn and educate myself on ebay purchases, I figured that with the return policy I didn't have anything to lose if it turned out not so good. I appreciate all the insight and comments above. One thing I can say is that the coin does look like their pictures, there was no retouching or enhancing as they have been known for according to the other threads. Thanks!

 

That's all I needed to read to know who the seller was. And, when I clicked on your link, I was right.

 

Would you recommend a return then, haha? I'm kind of thinking that may be the way to go, as I think my uneasiness with the coin is going to persist until whenever I go get it graded. Had I not seen the other threads, I never would have thought twice about it, so I guess I'm glad that I did see them. Kind of a bummer, but at the same time I think I learned quite a bit (which was half the reason I bought it). I do like 2 cent pieces though, just didn't buy the right one evidently. Seems like there's like a 50/50 chance that it either comes back AU-50 details (cleaned) vs MS-62/63.

 

PM sent

 

Typical of that seller, their photo does not enlarge. It does display at 9 o'clock on the obverse a couple of short spikes next to the rim coming from the denticles going in a NE direction into the field. They are not mentioned as a diagnostic in any reference material that I am aware of. They are also present on my coin which displays about the same circulation wear. Do you see any depressions on your coin which match position on mine as indicated (or elsewhere) on my photo? Thanks