Sometimes if the price is low, I'll take a flyer on bad picture auctions. What I look for is a reputable seller (good feedback) with, hopefully, some other variables - maybe they sell coins secondarily and get good feedback. Anyway, this auction for a 1919 Standing Liberty Quarter featured bad pictures and the claim of a "Full Head" which in SLQ talk means a really strong strike - because on most SLQs you can't differentiate the hair on the coin, hence the formal TPG designation of "FH" for those strong strikes where you can. Now these are the sellers pics, and they are actually worse than my typical photos, but I do note the unusually strong rivets on the shield closest to the body which typically indicates a stronger strike as well as the sharply defined feathers on the reverse. Of course, key to this process was I paid an VF/XF price for the coin, that may be MS and have a Full Head. We'll see, kind of fun to see what happens. Anyone else play this game? If so, what are your "rules", if any?
Way to go! Looks you made a smart move. I have done the same a few times. Bought a Walking liberty last month that had big dirt spots so was marked down. Looked like a decent coin on a high rated Etsy store so risked it. Dirt came off easily except for a couple tiny deposits.
I suspect it might be cleaned, but it's worth taking a chance on for VF money, I reckon. I can't tell from the obverse pic whether it's been lightly polished or if it just looks that way because the picture isn't properly focused. You can tell that there is some real luster there, though- the reverse shows some cartwheel effect.
Last year I bought a raw 1914-S Lincoln cent from an online auction. The pictures were't very good but from what I could gather, the coin wasn't cleaned (brown) and looked at least AU. So I ended up getting the coin for $60 and sent it to PCGS where it got an MS63 grade; a huge win for me.
