Which Washington Quarter deserves a higher grade?

Feel free to post a grade guesstimate, if you find the scans to be sufficient in detail. The rims are fine, neither of the coins deserve a details grade, we just want to focus on the coin surface.

1954-S






1957-D

 

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54-S

Both look to have some haze, but I think the 54-S has more underlying luster. Both seem to be fairly free of contact marks. I don't collect or study this series.

 

The 1954-S WQ is, on average, likely the worst struck WQ in the 1932-1964 silver series, but they often come with fantastic luster. The 1957-D WQ can come hammered, but they don't have the same frost as the luster-bomb 1954-S examples. I imagine both coins grade MS66 if they are in holders, but I would like the luster of the 1954-S on the strike of the 1957-D without the axe mark in the forehead of Washington.

By the way, it might be easier for folks to make the determination if the obverse images were paired together and the reverse images paired together.

 

Great, I'm glad the weak claw on the 1954-S is not discouraging anyone, as mentioned on this high-end auction, as well as a couple of others...

http://coins.ha.com/itm/washington-quarters/1954-s-25c-ms67-pcgs-cac/a/1167-4071.s

Here you go...

 

Please tell me you're not implying that Anacs is a better grading company than NGC from this one example!

 

I'm not implying anything. I just looked at both coins and thought they are both close in grade and acceptable to me. I can't tell which one deserves a better grade.

 

Judging by what was recently cracked out of an NGC slab in MS 64, I really can't complain about the eyesight at ANACS, in this particular case.

 

Thanks for the clarification. I was curious. From your original pics, I picked the Anacs graded coin. I think there are some nice coins in their holders so I don't overlook them. I just have a harder time pulling the trigger on coins in their holders.

 

as with many ANACS slabs, they have been pretty accurate

 

Never mind, I was surprised, that's also an older slab, isn't it?

 

I don't really understand it, when people say that the coin is nicer than the picture, when a coin is cleaned or dinged-up upon magnification. What does that mean? Either the photo is accurate and the coin is all dinged-up, or cleaned, or whatever, or the photo is doctored. Seeing less flaws with the human eye does not actually make any coin nicer. Cleaned still remains cleaned and dinged-up still remains dinged up.

 

Now that I think about it, they probably confused the grade by typing in the year for a second time 64.

 

In my case it generally means that I take really crummy pictures