This coin is being offered for sale (not on eBay) and I spent quite some time trying to understand the grade NGC gave this coin. Could you please look at the coin and say what in your opinion would be the appropriate grade for it? AU50? MS60? Details?
There's a nasty scratch on the Tsar's forehead and then another on the field. Probably AU details, scratched.
PS -- the holder seems to be a problem free brown label. Details labels are purple. But I still think it looks to have pretty severe scratches and based on those photos alone looks to be abrasively cleaned.
I got no doubt that this coin was cleaned, most likely improperly. Even if it doesn't deserve Details/Cleaned slab, shouldn't there be any, even remote, hint of luster on an AU58? The photos are showing 3-4 different angles, there is no luster on any of them.
Well, maybe the people at NGC know more about this particular coin than I do... Is it Copper-Nickel? Silver? Maybe the coining metal would make for a matte finish? I really don't know what's going on here with the grade, if it looks the way you say it does...
Silver .900, as far as I know no special strike. Here is another AU58 I found online, now THIS is a AU58.
interesting. If you go out to ebay they have a 58, au details hairlines, 63 and a couple of 64's. You have to all the way to the 64's before you get a coin with some luster in it and even than its not much. I wonder if it a design issue and how the dies were created, maybe they didn;t want a coin with luster, maybe it was the way the they wanted it back than no luster, drab and the same.
Those scratches are not "little". The one to the left of the bust on the obverse looks like a staple gouge. I don't care what the NGC holder says, the coin posted by the OP is not problem-free.
None of them look very flashy, certainly not even remotely as lustrous as a typical Morgan or Peace dollar. Mine is an MS62, which as might be expected doesn't have any debatable hatchet gashes, but it could have just as easily ended-up in an AU58 holder since there isn't anything really outstanding about it either, especially if the grader was ruminating about his eX mother-in-law when he graded it. Seriously, I think the difference between most 58 and 62 coins is all attributable to the mood of the grader on the day he looked at the coin.