The scratches and marks on the reverse are largely the old, crappy holder. You can tell on the bottom and that weird thing in the upper right.
Beautiful coin,since I see no luster im maxed out at XF45 possibly MS.,and by the way GTG is more for slabbed coins a better title would be what would you grade this.....Your new not a big deal,that appears to be a corrosion spot upper right reverse.
Slab grade MS-63, Brown. EAC grade MS-61. EAC is tough on these coins. I have one that might be little nicer that I bought out of an EAC convention auction that they graded MS-61.
This piece, which is a different date, is in an NGC MS-64, Brown holder. This date and die variety (Cohen 1) comes well struck on the obverse.
I'm still working on my photography, but yes, there's not much luster. More than in the photo but not much. And thank you, I'll change the title.
I would agree with the EAC grade. No circulation wear I see, but lack of luster means tons of tiny disruptions to the fields. Classic what a 61 should be. Still very nice coin OP. You probably are right @johnmilton concerning the slab grade today, you are more expert in that than I, I just wouldn't personally agree with it.
That's a piece of something in the holder. This coin is in a 60 year old book, I've ordered a new holder for it.
If you're interested, that is the C-6 die marriage, consisting of Obverse 5 and Reverse E. It is R-1, one of the more common die marriages with an estimated survival of 4,200 per Eckberg. This coin appears to be a late die state, with the stars points drawn to the rim, central obverse devices not fully struck up and on the reverse; no dentilation, weak devices, tops of letters weak and drawn to rim. There a couple of die cracks that show up in late die states of this marriage but I cannot tell if they are there in these photos. Accounting for the late die states, the coin is still showing mid AU sharpness. I would call it about EAC AU-53/55 sharpness but if I could see it in hand and it doesn't show any remaining luster my sharpness grade would drop to 45. Unfortunately, and it may just be the photos, the surfaces particularly on the obverse might be showing some kind of disruption, possibly just circulation chatter or something worse. I would hesitate to try to EAC net grade this coin based on these photos. That said, I'm guessing it would probably slab at 58.
I inherited this in a coin book, I'm guessing it was put in there in the 1950s or 60s. It's possible it was cleaned prior to that, but I can vouch that nothing has been done to it for at least 50 years.
Before you go off the deep end talking about cleaned and other problems, you should realize that late die states can result in coins that look like they have problems when they don't. Rusty dies were not unusual in the Philadelphia heat and humidity. Even as late as the 1850s, this was a problem. Many 1854 Type II gold dollars were struck with a rusty obverse. die. If you look at the coin with a strong glass, you will see the raised spots which would lead some people to say that the coin is counterfeit, which is not the case. Remember rust pits on the die result in raised spots on the coin.
Exactly why I was hesitant to get too specific with a net grade. There just too many unknowns that the current photos don't even get close to illuminating. Sharpness is one thing, but all the other things that go into a net grade, and even a market grade, just cannot be determined at least by me from these photos.
What I gave you above is the Obverse and Reverse dies from Cohen and Demling. When I checked my Eckberg book I got a different set of die designations, Obverse 3 and Reverse D but the same dies. Confused, I emailed Mr. Eckberg and he set me straight. When he published his book with the latest die emission sequence, he re-numbered/lettered the dies to reflect the newest die emission knowledge. Same dies, different numbers/letters. So, the OP's coin is still a C-6 but if you use Cohen/Demling, it would be Obverse 5 and Reverse E. If you use Eckberg, it would be Obverse 3/Reverse D. Same dies, just different numbers/letters. Probably only of interest to a specialist few but I didn't want to publish a possibly confusing set of facts.
Breen also uses Obv 5 Rev E. That is the problem with listing obv and rev designations. You also have to list which reference you are using and possibly cross references to designations by other authors.
