Super-nice fields, but quite a few hits on the devices, and that reverse rim took a beating around 3:00. It's been a while since I've volunteered to humiliate myself by guessing a grade on gold; I'll go 64.
Wow!! I was way off. I knew is started with a 6 though. LOL Seriously, I don't have much experience with gold. I know it's softer and much more prone to hits post strike, so there is a lot more leeway in grading. I just always added a point to the grade that I would have assigned it. That knee is what really made me keep it down to a 64. My guess is that part of the knee is actually an un-struck part of the planchet and not a scrape as I had assumed it to be. This is a great example for me to learn from. Thank you for posting this.
I'm trying to understand what you are saying here because I see variations of this coming up in other posts, forums, books, etc. I think it's critical to understand....I'm sure they go over this in the grading courses, but let's see if we can make some progress here. My understanding is that a "weak strike" can be where the die does not completely fill up with metal in those crevices which, when struck properly, represent the HIGH POINTS on the coin. Some well-respected veteran dealers and/or graders insist this is the case and that DISCOLORATION is not wear/friction/rub but instead high point striking difficulty. What say some of the experts HERE ?
Sorry, but I view this as an example of “grade-flation.” I was debating between MS-63+ and 64 and decided on 64. I have read that the grading on $20 St Gaudens pieces encouraged the start of CAC. A great many of these coins have been graded for sale to bullion investors. The grading can be all over the place. I will post an MS-65, CAC example later.
"I disagree. This piece has the typical „creamy“ soughtafter Skin-appearance. Never touched for decades and with small nicks from maybe beeing shipped from US to Europe and back later." Nicks determine the grade no matter where they happened. This piece has too many of them to be graded MS-66 in my opinion. In that grade, nicks should not be be very obvious at all.
Wow, 2 full grades lower than the TPG ? Why 64, JM ? JA can answer that for sure, but I do know that the loosey-goosey grading of Saints was the one popular coin series where the A/B/C trifecta was most apparent. And since the coins cost $500-$2,000 (at the time), alot of $$$ were involved. Check out the article from 2022 with JA talking about the 1985 Type Coin Bubble and how it affected even strict graders...very instructive. Ditto the 2009 interview with Maurice Rosen.
Not only that, but I can CLEARLY see luster in JM's photo but the 1928 pics -- I'm sure they must have some luster at least -- look sterile with no reflectivity showing. I don't like pics like that but alot of the professionally-taken shots have that feature where you can't see any luster or cartwheeling or reflections. The old TrueViews, for instance.
I likened the old True View pictures to photos they published in my high school yearbook. An unfortunate girl who had acne scars was airbrushed to look like a super model. In other words they often made the coin look better than it is.
It has too many nicks. Do you think that it's as good as the 1927 double eagle I posted? That one is an MS-65. Here is a 1907 low relief in PCGS MS-65, no CAC. The 1907 pieces were not as well made as the later dates. This one is an NGC MS-63. It was graded over 20 years ago, which shows how the standards have changed.
