Some of the earlier Franklins seem to puzzle me when grading. Whats your opinion of this First issue.
Looks well struck and pristine with, what looks like, a die crack emanating from the 'A' in Half' on the reverse. Definitely a candidate for Mint state status.
Slightly off center, I too see the die crack, and possibly DDR especially in AMERICA and HALF. Nice Franklin.
I think it is a nice coin, but unfortunately there are too many marks on the bell lines for me to say FBL.
That is a minor bag mark scratch. I had to look for it on the coin. I think that some of that is just angles of light/reflection. There is some evident doubling on EPU. I am gonna just get the coin out of the album. So that I could look. I searched a little for the correct DDR but must have run out of time. It's not one of the major ones.
If I don't get distracted by the beautiful afternoon, I will pull it out. The Bell lines are very strong, and I just can't tell what's planchet and what is contact. I will see if I can get some clear photos of the bell lines.
I did look at a few auctions in 63/64 even lower that got the FBL designation, slightly baggier than this. If this was slabbedas a FBL I probably would have still bought it for the price paid.
I was thinking MS 64 ...that one patch of hits around the top bell lines makes me hesitate but I think PCGS could still give it the FBL designation
Oh, for sure, PCGS would call this FBL. Because they only look at the bottom set of lines. That's why I don't care for them at all - NGC needs both sets of lines to be complete, and that is a significantly higher standard. I follow NGC's standard when it comes to FBL. In case anyone is curious, CAC has said that they follow the PCGS standard.
Ya know that even @Lehigh96 has been denied FS designations, makes you wonder how loose one can get with grades, I completely agree that the upper bell lines are a part of the grade.
I want to say MS64 FBL with a possible DDR in the EPU, but that could be the reflection of the light.
