Hi all Picked this up at a fair price for the assigned grade (will share later). When showing to a coin dealer friend he said he thinks the grade is a few points higher because the coin appears to be a weak strike, and not as worn as the purchased grade indicated. That said, what do you all think? Worn? Weak? Both? And what would you grade it? Thank you!!
It’s a cool looking coin, the reverse image is blurry so it’s hard to tell but that side looks XF, the obverse looks cleaned which adds to the loss of detail on top of whatever natural wear that was already present. From a dealer selling it raw at a straight grade, I would expect to see it in a VF+ flip. I would grade it VF Details cleaned if I had to guess, that said it is still a nice looking coin. The strike looks about average, not bad and not fully struck.
OK , been lurking a bit . I'll go first again. Hey Tyler . Finally someone using gloves other than me . . Anyways, nice coin. I don't think it's a weak strike. More worn but the Reverse is somewhat better . I'm assuming the Pic is out of focus a tad bit ? I grade a VF-30 .
Old cleaning but mostly acceptable. Not a bad looking coin at all. The strike looks average to me, and not particularly weak. It has some light circulation wear. I would concur with the VF+ camp here.
It's wear. Telling wear and weak strike apart is fairly easy once you know how. Areas with wear will always have a flat, smooth surface, and no luster of course because the luster has been broken, worn away. Areas that have been weakly struck will always have a textured, slightly rough looking and or kinda bumpy surface, (but ya gotta look close to see it). This is because in areas that are weakly struck the metal has not touched the die. Nor will weakly struck areas have any luster - and for the same reason, because the metal has not touched the die.
I should have also mentioned that when wear and weakly struck areas are present on the same coin there will be slight color differences between the wear and the weak strike areas. Wear is pretty much always just a bit darker in color than the weakly struck areas are. And both are of course different in color than the rest of the coin.
