Hi all, this I just got this week from Ebay for a princely 18.00 USD plus shipping. I think this a rather nice piece - the lustre is much better than my sorry pictures. The copper nickle pennies of this series are very poorly struck in general and many appear not too pleasant as you may know. It is not graded, but GTG if you like:
I'd say you did very good price wise. KM#17, mintage-24,000, copper-nickel. 2004 World coin catalog Krause grade/values... F-$5.00 VF-$15.00 XF-$60.00 UNC.-$185.00 not sure what your coins grade is...XF+ ? wait for more value opinions.
In hand it is very, very nice with no wear and only a very minimal planchet defect in the obverse field in front of chin.
Nice looking coin. Without a read on the luster, it's a little hard to say what it grades, but I say minimum AU. According to Krause, you scored! At first I thought the color was funny, then I looked it up and realized it's a copper-nickel coin. I was expecting it to be copper or bronze.
Figured this source would be relevant considering the portrait's similarities to the Canadian coinage of the period. Overall, I'd guess it would grade anywhere from an XF 45 to AU 50. http://www.coinsandcanada.com/coins-grading.php?grade=25-cents-1870-to-1901-Victoria&id=15
I have an NGC graded 63 - 1882 penny and this is quite similar. I think not a lot strikes up in Vickie's hair; pineapples relatively well struck on this one. An important bit to look at is the edge strike up and if there is any wear or contact to it, and this has very nice edges and denticles.