Quite a bit of gunk in the crevices of the reverse. For a coin made for photographic purposes, too bad it wasn't taken better care of over the years.
That is the blasting material left. PCGS was requested to remove - the only problem as has been pointed out is - what does the metal look like underneath it?
Okay. So this one is the failed attempt then? I don't see how they would have used this specimen to photograph with the media on the reverse. I am truly not hating on the coin, just wondering out loud.
Poor show regarding the Hat It's kind of hard to take a man seriously after that statement & subsequent back down I agree with @Razz on this one, unfortunately. A quick look at the PCGS pictures with zoom in available helps a lot. It is an interesting piece but, i can understand why it didn't get a higher grade. Thx for sharing A quick thought, have you looked for any data or images that may have been published from back in the day ? Surely there will be evidence of which coin was chosen for photography purposes. Just a thought.
Ah, thanks then for your opinion. However, I will go ahead and challenge you to find me a coin with such few marks and NO hairlines that only goes 61. In fact I will say if you run across such at that grade I will buy it on the instant. BTW, we have not been able to confirm despite what has been written and then regurgitated many times that these mattes were used for photographic purposes other than internally at the RM.
I still found it by googling; here is a link: https://www.pcgs.com/valueview/half...-2-cr-s-4106-matte-proof/3994?sn=432498&h=pop What you mentioned is the PCGS number for all coins of that series (1 in the example below). The cert number is on the right (2 in the example) and can be 7 or 8 digits.
I don't collect many foreign coins, mostly from English speaking countries, i.e. Canada, Australia, etc. And I have only been collection since 2008 (I think, at 74, my memory isn't as keen as it use to be. Anyway, about the above coin, there are two "diamonds"? at 2 and 10 (about) that appear to have shadows. Do any of you have any clarifications of what I am seeing. Thanks.