I know this Ebay seller (centsles) has been brought up before. What I'm wondering is, can anyone who knows more about this than I do explain what it is he or she might be doing to these coins to make them look so smooth? They very often have a look to the surfaces like maybe they are puttied or something? This 1839-C Quarter Eagle is a pretty good example. I've never seen a puttied coin so I have no experience with it - what else could be done to "achieve" that look (or destroy the coin I suppose would be a better description)? Just curious, wondering if anyone knows? http://www.ebay.com/itm/1839-C-CLAS...213154?hash=item58d441f022:g:v-IAAOSwGotWlU33
Crappy pictures can hide a lot of problems. I can only assume it's a problem coin of some sort -- cleaned, tooled, ex jewelry -- or it would be in a PCGS or NGC holder.
The seller will put anything in his own slab. I contacted him a while back about a coin he had on ebay. The slab called the coin a rare variety but it was not the variety. They didn't care and sold the coin anyway.
Here's one of his coins in a pcgs ms64 slab: http://www.ebay.com/itm/FRANCE-1815...626275?hash=item2108dd10e3:g:s8EAAOSwKtlWn9a5 His photos: PCGS's photo of the same coin: Clearly he's doing this to try to make the coin look better, but the photo is so wonky it just makes you wonder what's up.
PCGS' are obviously photos while his appear to be scans, and can help explain at least some of what you're seeing.