There is simply no way this thing is genuine. The raised bumps are everywhere, on the reverse there is a casting void below the last A in America; dentils at 4:00 are malformed and fused. Fake as the day is long. And if those "die cracks" on the obverse were legit, this would be a collectible variety. And it is not in Kirchgessner's extensive listing of 75CC obverse die varieties in his book
You can read the third point of their policies: Authenticity: We stand behind all of our items 100%. We’ve been delivering authentic, quality products on eBay since 1999. I have no doubt that this is the case for many—at least most—of their items, but this coin clearly slipped through «quality control».
That settles it then. I was trying to give mbarr the benefit of the doubt, but a crack like that wouldn't go undocumented by a specialist. Lots of coins on Heritage are described as having die rust which is why I mentioned the possibility.
I understand. And I think this one slipped through the cracks and made it onto the active listings. What bugs me is that raw CC Trade Dollars are one of the, if not THE most forged coins out there, of which fact MBarr is no doubt aware, so this item was not subjected to the most basic scrutiny prior to listing?
Even the TPGs are guilty of this. Recently there was a 1901-S quarter, the key coin in the entire Barber series, published in BCCS journal, authenticated and graded F - Details by PCGS. BCCS did a deep dive and demonstrated that the date and MM didn't match the two known die pairs. What hit me immediately though is that the coin clearly had both the wrong obverse type and the wrong reverse type. It had to be a 1900-S with an altered date. Haste makes waste, I guess? I wonder if mbarr will pull the listing. I think we can all agree that they're charging AU55 price for a problem coin, kinda ridiculous, regardless of the fact that it's not genuine.
MBarr Coins is a mixed bag from what I've seen. They have nice stuff and they have melt grade as well. They sell a TON of coins. Even the best sellers have some sketchy stuff that ends up in their listings. I've purchased a lot of raw coins through NYRcoins. They sell a lot of tough coins in the raw that are hard to find. They are reputable, and will admit a coin has problems if they notice it. However, I've gotten a couple that were cleaned and couldn't tell until I received them. No one is perfect, and the more volume that runs through any seller, the more problem coins will pop up. That's the politics of the raw coins market, it's the details blues. (Smugglers Blues by the Eagles playing in the background)
