Greetings everyone, Newbie needs advice! I recently got my 2009 Ultra High Relief Double Eagle from the mint and would like to get the community's opinion on it. Unfortunately my camera's are no good for taking pictures of coins, and of course right when I started to get the lighting right the batteries on the good camera died, oh well, guess i'll try and get better ones later or invest in one of those dino-lights. First off let me say that this is my first gold coin purchased and am absolutely stunned by its beauty. That being said I have really good eyes and noticed what appears to be a slight flaw on the reverse side of the coin and am wondering what if any affect it may have on the value. Since my pictures are very terrible and videos not useful for seeing the problem area, I will do my best to describe what I see... as best as possible... On the reverse of the coin, top left inner edge, there appears to be rough spots which start just before the "United" and continue just past it. It looks as though the metal just didn't quite flatten out. There is definitely no damage to the edge of the coin as the flaw is closer to the "United" then it is to the edge, and appears to have happened during pressing (Got 2 which are almost identical). My first question is, in the opinion of the community would this affect the overall grade of the coin and if so how much? My second question is somewhat of a loaded question - only because I did take it to a local shop who inspected it and offered their opinion on the flaw and grade which I will post at the bottom of the message here, but what grade do you think this coin deserves?? Again I appologize for the bad pics but hope the video may help with the overall grade. Best pic of coin with arrows - http://www.flickr.com/photos/7643884@N03/3677214760/ Lots more pics - http://www.flickr.com/photos/7643884@N03/sets/72157620791049550/ Videos! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxFyVAewk8c http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0wvl6Kmvu0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIWQvQg8-Zk So hopefully you didn't cheat and skip down without looking at the pics or vids, but oh well! So I went to my local coin shop, a very reputable place which is family owned and operated and been in business for 40 years. I gave him my story while it took me to 10 minutes to get the coin out of the box. I basically just wanted to know if they though I should take advantage of the Mints new return policy and send the coin back to get another. To make a long story short - he eyeballed the coin for 5-10 minutes with his loup and without really responding to my concerns for the problem area on the back, he pulled out one they had on display for comparison and we looked at them side by side. His coin appeared very hazy in comparison to mine, he started explaining that my coin appeared to be one of the very first strikes off of a brand new polished die and said that only the first 4-5 coins from a fresh set of dies may turn out with such a good finish. His final opinion was that the slight problem area on the back of the coin was neglegable (sp?) and the in his opinion the coin would grade an MS 70 PROOFLIKE! :bigeyes: So needless to say I was happy enough when he said he wouldn't risk sending it back cause he tough it rated a 70, but was totally floored when he said it had a prooflike finish as I just thought that was the way it was supposed to look! Thanks in advance for reading through all of this and I greatly appreciate your feedback (No feedback on picture quality though, i know it sucks!) THANKS! J
Sight-unseen, my best guess is that your coin is exhibiting mint-made die polish lines, which should not affect the grade. But, do you really expect people to be able to provide accurate grading opinions based on those photos? Even with incredible images, meaningful grading opinions for Proof and Prooflike coins, in particular, are nearly impossible. If you like the coin, and since you got a sight-seen opinion that is is of exceptional quality, I'd give far more weight to that than any opinions you will get here.
I'm not sure what you mean by 'hazy', but I think the coin dealer MAY have it perfectly backward. My impression is that when the dies are NEW they have a slight satiny appearance, and as each piece is minted they loose their satin look and become shinier, until the resulting coins are considered TOO shiny and the dies are replaced. This is similar to first-strike proofs having full cameo devices, while the later strikes become shiny all over. Hopefully someone with certainty will chime in with better information. PS - It would be far better for you to hold the coin AWAY from the camera and take a smaller, in-focus image, than what you posted. I don't know about anyone else, but to me it looks like it could be a foil-covered chocolate coin in the pics and vids.
