Everything I said about the New Orleans Trime applies here. Old cleaning, two stages of toning, similar condition, I'd really like to say they gave this one Details for cleaning.
The luster on this one looks different from the luster of the 1851-O to me, both in hand and in the pics. I tend to agree with the TPG on this one, FWIW.
Maybe so; as you mentioned these manifest luster oddly sometimes. In my book, there isn't enough contrast between devices and fields on either to make me comfortable feeling the surfaces are original, and I fall back onto the two-stage toning. Having toned to the point where some part of the surfaces are black, the coin isn't going to be able to show that early-stage yellow/brown again unless the surfaces are stripped first. Even if the "original" surface doesn't tone that darkly, it'll acquire patina of some sort.
An apparently mint state coin which I'm guessing was penalized for substandard eye appeal . . . AU58.
This coin is 100% original in MO. It is my personal MS-62 due to the unattractive black oxidation. I'll bet it's in a 63 slab as these coins seldom come with this much original luster.
This one I'm at ms 61 as the something just looks off to me my first glance would put it at an Au. Coin over an MS.
Going 63 on this - I like it a little better than the last, but again the build up seems to hide part of it. Are these yours?
I'll concede this one on sheer technical merit, especially considering the "failure to fill" weakness I mentioned elsewhere, but I still do not believe the surfaces original and would absolutely need to hold the coin in-hand before I believe it's Mint State. It_does illustrate the extreme difficulty of making the "slider" distinction from images.
Hmmmmmmm ponder THAT for a minute. Then it becomes clear why these high grade trimes all look like sliders
This series is very hard to grade. The coins are small and often weakly struck. We are looking at images. Only a .... would look at a coin graded professionally as a 65 and say it was not original.
