Just wanted to share this since it's pretty rare. Toned copper-nickel, especially circulated (which is debatable in this case since it looks UNC to me) is extremely hard to find. It's not spectacular when compared to silver coins or bronze Indian Cent toners, by any means; but these "white cents" as they were known just hardly ever take tone. Thanks for looking/commenting.
I agree with AU-58. Your close-up pictures make the coin look "wrong" in some way, but the in-slab pictures look a lot nicer. I like it. I agree that toned CNs are hard to find.
In digital imaging, the slightly lesser "luster" imparted to the more weakly-struck areas is easy to interpret/misinterpret as wear. They reflect less light. So, the breast, tailfeathers and top of the wreath are easily construed as slight circulation wear. Digital sensors are binary things which depict precisely what the see. The full-slab images, having less magnification, are less subject to this phenomenon - you can see the breast feathers reflecting light equally to the other feathers. All the same, I can understand PCGS defaulting to AU58 because the evidence is inconclusive to them (which IMO is the cause of a majority of AU58's). In this particular case, I suspect the excess of small marks in the fields were the basis for the grade, and I don't disagree. Won't be relevant to your buyer on this one; that person will be able to choose for themself and the grade would be less important than the color. I would *so* be that buyer, if it were in the budget. Awesome coin.
Yeah, I still don't think anyone would bat an eye if it were an MS61. I had a MS62 once that had the same field marks.
Dave, what do small marks have to do with wear? They could be damage, but they're not evidence of wear. I think you may be interpreting them as evidence of circulation, in which case I'll hasten to remind us, that's not the standard, but wear.
Great looking coin with beautiful colors. I agree with the grade but at least you got the green bean.
We agree. I wrote that wall of text to explain why what *could* look like wear in C-B-D's original images might not be - knowing that, I have no opinion from these images whether it's actually wear or not - and just figured PCGS based the 58 on the marks and not necessarily what they saw as "wear." 58's - to me - don't necessarily have to show "wear." Marks which an experienced evaluator would reasonably conclude could have only come from circulation are enough. Kinda the point of an AU58.
This is important because it goes to our value systems which in turn go to how we grade. So, this being my big opportunity to get it off my chest, I'll take it. Let me just call this guy, "Anonymous," so as to not give him away, as he's a very highly-respected member of the numismatic community. And, BTW, I know you're not following this, just yet, but you will. You see, I once had the utter nerve to ask this big brain, Anonymous, "If you graded a coin MS64, then found out it was gathered in circulation, say, in change through a McDonald's drive-up window, would that make a difference in your grade?" He said it would. That blew me away, as circulation doesn't mean jack to me. Likewise, you're looking at imperfections on the surface, inferring they're the type that signals circulation. Ask yourself, why is determining that even important to you? If the devices are mint state, who cares whether the coin was in circulation? Making circulation your value, standard, I'm saying, leads to all kinds of crazy, arbitrary things. Let me give you just one, the one you just mentioned. PCGS and CAC are the "experienced evaluators," and that's how we now grade coins, on "experienced evaluations" of circulation? They just pulled a fast one on us, taking our eyes off wear on the devices and putting them on the question of circulation, and their "experienced evaluations." If that's where our value, standard is, evaluating imperfections for evidence of circulation, I give up. From here on in, it's whatever they say. But at least they didn't say it's "AT."
Looking for a flying eagle that looks exactly like this more or less for my toner album. Some guys they have a dime a dozen with nice toning and some are harder to find then a 1913 nickel in circulation
