1853 Large Cent Grade?

Nope, not at all. Wear is the only factor in the grade of circulated coins.

I'm getting a lot more push-back on this than I thought... Very well. Here are some quotes from the Official ANA Grading Standards (I have the 5th edition):

"The presence or absence of bag [contact] marks is an important guide to the various grades of Mint State from MS-60" (page 13)

"AU-50: With traces of wear on nearly all of the highest areas. At least half of the original mint luster is present"

"EF-40: With only slight wear but more extensive than the preceding, still with excellent overall sharpness. Traces of mint luster may still show." (page 23)

No mention of contact marks affecting the circulated grades.....

 

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I sent in 3 1840's to NGC several months ago and this coin doesn't look much different than the 58 coin that came back.

 

I think I’m going to adjust my position a little, thinking about it more contact marks can and does impact high au eg 58 becomes a 55. With that exception I certainly agree from xf down

 

coinsareus10, posted: "Joke right?"

I was going to reply to this but it has been done.

Jason is basically correct. Originally, once a coin drops from MS the only thing that was supposed to affect its grade was further loss of detail (wear).

Unfortunately, the great minds at the ANA screwed the pooch! When they wrote the grading guide, they included contact marks into the equation! So, Baseball is also correct to a point. An unmarked AU-58 coin is graded higher than a beat up AU-58 (AU-50). From XF down it does not matter as much although the ANA geniuses continued the "typical" and "choice" BS further down the scale. The problem is we can find beat-up AU-58 coins (should be downgraded to AU-50) straight graded in major TPGS AU-58 slabs all day long!

Wait, there's more. The Large cent collectors use "net" grading to screw the pooch further (poor dog) as it has little relation to reality! For example, in that system, a coin with MS details can be "Net Graded" as an XF! Since this coin has few "problems" IMO the net graders would agree with most here and say AU.

Therefore, anyone grading the OP's coin from XF to AU is 100% correct.