Picked this beauty up yesterday only had a price, no grade. What's everyone think? I'm thinking it's a strong XF but I don't know a whole lot about these except most that I see are bent.
Very good to fine; star points/ridges completely worn off, see Redbook for illustration of Variety 1 coins, and grading standards.
As designed, the star points are 3-dimensional; VF = "only partial wear on star ridges," and the star points (and ridges) are absolutely smooth. Oh, well, I didn't buy it. I looked at over 100 1852 trimes on eBay, and they were a sorry-looking bunch, but that has nothing to do with this specific coin.
I'm in the XF 40-45 camp see below. As per PCGS photo grade the examples on their site from VF35 thru MS61 all seem to vary on the details. Star points (high point of the coin) inner ring around the shield. This coin has much better details then most of their examples especially the AU MS coins but lacks the luster. points may be worn but there's a nice contrast between the points and valleys Any coin that has the details of an AU coin but lacks luster = XF And it's not all banged up and bent, which most of the time these coin are. They are either found not nice or nice, this piece is in the latter IMO.
VF-XF. Nice piece. The shield outline is distinct all the way around, but not sharp. My impression is that grading these at this level is rather imprecise due to lack design elements that are easy to grade.
