I recently got my hands on a 1926-S Buffalo in half decent shape. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I'm awful at estimating grades on Buffalo nickels. I thought to get your opinions here, but I am thinking somewhere in the VF range maybe? I also got a bunch of other better date buffalos ('13-D T2, '15-S, etc) in the same book, but figured I'd bring this one up first. Also, if you are in for taking a stab at the $1 gold grade, that would be great. It's only my 3rd gold coin and easily the oldest of the three, so I would assume it would be marked up a fair bit more than something from the 1920's. Thanks for any thoughts, and Merry Christmas / Happy Holidays to everyone!
Also, I'm pretty sure the gold has been cleaned. Not really a big deal to me, honestly. Not for that coin, at least. I don't typically prefer to buy cleaned coins, but it still looks good enough to be in my collection!
F15 on the nickel . . . I might be more generous if LiBERTY was better struck, but that area of the coin draws a lot of attention when assigning the VF grade. XF 45 on the gold dollar.
Fine-15 sharpness for the Buffalo with a lamination on the reverse. EF-45 for gold dollar. The missing “8” in the date is a mint caused issue. It’s the reason why the design was dropped so quickly.
Thank you! I'm trying to collect one of each type of US gold coins (very slowly) as i see some cheaper options show themselves with me having extra "fun money." I've got two cleaned coins (this and a half eagle) and one 63-64 quarter eagle posted a little while back. These little buggers are expensive!
Buffalo is F-12 or F-15. Gold one is XF-45. If the gold coin has been cleaned it was a long time ago and market acceptable. Both coins have mint errors which have been mentioned.
That's good to hear! When I see those directional swipe marks and dirt in the devices with none in the fields I immediately assume "cleaned" until I get it under a scope.
You might see many odd things on Type II Gold Dollars. Many of the 1854 dated pieces show rust pits on the obverse die. The medal flow was wrong, and there were striking issues in addition to the effects of the humid Philadelphia weather.
