Hello, I have had this 1928 D SLQ for a number of years and I realized that it has just sat in an airtite mostly forgotten for all of that time. Given the current skyrocketing price of coins in general , I've decided to try to look further at what I already have in "the box." I have a very hard time grading these beauties, so I thought I might seek some assistance here. As usual, the photos probably aren't perfect to give a definitive judgement, but I tried to include more close-ups as well. To start, the coin does have nice cartwheel luster on both sides, which made it more difficult for me to photograph. Some of the glare shaded the detail on the shield, which has all of its outer perimeter points except for a small batch between 7:00 and 9:00. The toes look only so-so. To show some of the washed out areas on the larger photograph, I dragged out "the scope" to hopefully show more detail on the chest, on the feet and the eagle's body. Those are below the main photos. Would any other pictures help? I'm also not sure how to determine wear vs strike quality. I would love this to grade somewhere at the AU level, but I'm guessing some of its flaws may drag it down to XF or lower territory. I don't think it's been cleaned, but I'd like to know what others think. I certainly know it's not a full head, at least. Thank you for any thoughts or opinions in advance.
I’d say AU obverse but Extra Fine reverse because of the feather detail on the rear wing. I’d be curious to see if it would grade AU50, but my guess would be 45. Only 1,627,600 minted. I love SLQs and that’s a beauty.
Idk, tough call. There's definitely wear on the shield, toes are indistinguishable, but there's a lot of detail elsewhere and luster. I'm stuck between 45 a d 50. Great looking coin!
Just guesses, but based on your photographs, I'd say any of the TPG would have a difficult time giving it AU. More like EF40-45. Just my guess.
Thanks for everyone's input. The consensus seems to linger in the EF-40 to EF-45 range with a few outliers in low AU. Given the coin's overall condition, that seems reasonable. Maybe a TPG would grade it higher (or maybe lower) due to other factors (I recently learned about market grading vs technical grading, which I'm sure is controversial), but somewhere in the EF range works for my purposes. Overall, I think it's a decent coin, though I would prefer a solid AU, of course. Lastly, I don't think it's worth getting graded at that level.
To help you out on the learning curve, technical grading is condition grading, without regard to market factors. It's simply the shape or state of preservation of the coin as compared to when the coin was minted. There's no controversy between technical and market grading. Market grading is simply the more arbitrary, as it accounts for market preferences.
Yes, thanks. I understand the differences. The source I learned this from presented it as "controversial" and gave some examples of disputes they were a part of around the topic. I only approached that subject with caution because of that, but perhaps it's not as controversial as the source suggested?
