I know, I know an unslabbed Gold Coin... Bad rad1964 bad! With that aside... Please, experts, give me your opinion on if this coin is authentic. Then, if its real, I have every reason to believe it is and none that tell me its a fake.. so then please grade this coin. Supposedly its close to AU. This coin weighs in at: 8.4 grams.
Please post an obverse photo that is in focus. It is hard enough to try to authenticate Indian Gold from photos that are in focus.
If you have a loupe of some kind, check for raised 'spikes' around the devices of the coin (letters, numbers, etc.) if you see any, it is a pretty good indication that it is counterfeit. Make sure you look VERY carefully; counterfeit gold is everywhere.
I checked with my small loupe and found no indication of spikes near or around letters or the main design. How's this photo? The second photo I took I took through my loupe.
It's very hard to authenticate these from photos, as you have to look for specific patterns of depressions and toolmarks from the counterfeit dies, that are constants for the coins struck from them. Available references only document a few of them, so unless the coin has a glaring abnormality (and I don't see any here) you would need to rely on one of the top tier tpg's with their large fake databases to authenticate it definitively. The 09-D would be the most likely to be faked, but I am sure all the other dates have been at one time or another.
http://coins.ha.com/common/view_item.php?Sale_No=29063&Lot_No=24634 Shows a MS61, but the first thing I noticed comparing it to mine is the center of the strike. Mine is well centered. It is not. Bringing me to my question: Does the centeredness of the coin come into play when grading?
