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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;vavet, post: 325711, member: 11630&quot;]I came to the conclusion that this coin &quot;looks&quot; like it was wiped or thumbed because the contrast between the protected areas and the unprotected areas is typical of a coin that has been monkeyed with. Hey, maybe it was mishandled or just plain circulated, but it&#039;s not original by any means and not any better grade wise than a slider. One can&#039;t always tell if a coin is original, but there are certain &quot;tells&quot; that show a coin to NOT be original and this coin fits.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Trying to grade accurately in the MS range from a photo is nearly impossible, and the vast majority of collectors can&#039;t accurately function in the MS range of the 70 point grading system with the coin in hand. In fact, neither can the alleged professionals. A few years back a collector reported his results of multiple submissions the the top two TPG&#039;s in one of the Numismatic publications. 11 coins, all dated 1861, and not a one got the same grade every time. One in particular was a Proof gold coin that was slabbed by NGC, resubmitted to NGC and got body bagged, resubmitted again to NGC and was slabbed at a different grade than originally graded. That&#039;s just one of many examples I can produce if needed.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>The TPG&#039;s generally do not use any more than 7X magnification to &quot;GRADE&quot; coins. It&#039;s impossible to detect the microscopic reaction to a coin from a quick dip with that little magnification. And the TPG&#039;s don&#039;t spend very much effort on coins that don&#039;t require serious examination to authenticate or attribute. Even if they examine a dipped coin under a stereomicroscope, I doubt that most would even know what to look for.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>For those and many other reasons, plus the fact that third party grading is nothing more that a marketing ploy, I believe it prudent to make assumptions about everything that is not clearly defined by the TPG&#039;s, which amounts to just about everything.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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