A couple of months ago, I walked into the Lakeland, Florida Collect-o-Rama show with a few thousand in cash burning a hole in my pocket. But I was really looking for a few relatively low-cost coins for my type set (1909 VDB Cent in MS-65, etc.). I wasn't mentally prepared to spend several thousand dollars on one coin. So, one of the coins I've been looking to add to my type set is a Liberty Seated Dollar w/Motto. I found one at West Coast Coin's table, a fabulous coin by any estimation but at about what I thought was a $1000 premium to the "going rate". Anyway, way too much money for my mental preparation for the show. So, I passed and a few tables away, I found the coin displayed herein. This is just a hole-filler and I make no pretensions to its desirability but it came at a good price. It is housed in an ICG slab and I would be appreciative of your thoughts on its grade and any thing else you would care to opine on.
EF details, cleaned. Old cleaning and retoning. If it isn’t details, you got off lucky. Still a very nice looking coin. If it is straight graded EF 40.
XF45 Nice coin. About 2% of me would want to say details because of the scratch across the obverse shield, but I don't think it's distracting or severe enough to get the details hit.
I agree completely, that's why I said what I did. The unnatural luster (toning) in the protected areas (for example, around the stars) are a dead giveaway.
Check all devices. No hint of accumulated grime. Clean denticles. The coin has had a past cleaning and re-toned.
I'm thinking that the cleaning was so long ago that it got a straight grade. Coins with this look seem to go either way.
That is why I am hedging—my initial impression was an EF details coin. However, it could have passed, and made the grade as an EF 40.
Everybody got really close on this one. I appreciate all the comments. The coin is straight-graded by ICG at EF-40. I agree that it had an old cleaning that wasn't so harsh that it couldn't recover and then get straight-graded. For those so inclined, this is the OC-2 die marriage and an R-3 coin, even though the 1871 is the most common of the With Motto dates. I have included my attribution photos below.