https://www.ebay.com/itm/1746753935...yBp8kcPieDaPiQ%3D%3D|ampid:PL_CLK|clp:2334524 How about this one. This coin is proving more diifcult to find in grade than I initially thought. Is this damage?
Not really either, I'd say. Sure, there's that little blip there. I dunno what caused that, but I do not find it particularly objectionable. Otherwise, the coin is no Gem. I reserve that adjective for MS65 and higher, and this is an AU coin. That being said, there's nothing wrong with it as an AU, if the little divot- whatever that is- doesn't bother you. I find it to be an attractive enough example overall. Not a bad looking piece.
From my experience, I'd get Insider to weigh in a bit more if you get the chance, but I have no idea if you will. Hahahaha. I'm not good at assessing these things - I'm improving, in the mean time I send them to ICG on the Cointalk special bus and continue my education. Insider may actually be willing to discuss grades at ICG (and he has years experience in the industry at the top level), so that's pretty amazing (depending I'm sure on his workload and interest), but, of course, the high resale slabs are PCGS. Depends what you're looking for. I'm still trying to figure this whole thing out.
I'm seeing some tiny hits and a couple of light scratches. Strike is pretty good. I would call it AU something. The reverse looks really nice.
I see the damage also but it is still a very nice coin. It's a keeper, in my opinion. Thanks for posting it.
It has a couple of small hits and one deeper one. It also has a little wear, so the hits don’t mean as much as they would on an Unc. Coin. With the bigger pit mark, I would say AU-50.
In my old edition of British Commonwealth Coins, (1971), the section on New Zealand notes that there are at least 200 die varieties, caused by “cracks, dots or blobs” . There are four publications discussing such varieties, but I imagine that it would extremely difficult to track down a copy of any of these. Moreover, in the general introduction to this book, the editors state “die cracks or blobs of metal due to a damaged die are not listed as they are not of major importance” These are also several major die varieties involving minor official changes in the NZ designs, such as wider numeral spacing, the addition of a shoulder strap, and so on. These however are noted. There are a number of post-war counterfeit coins, but only two pre-war counterfeit coins are known, the 1933 half-crown and the 1935 shilling. There is no specific reference to the 1933 .500 silver 6d, other than its mintage – 3,000,000 – and that an uncirculated specimen would sell in 1971 for US$ 8,25, or $3,25 in EF
I may be wrong, I am not an expert on NZ coinage or die varieties, and while it is difficult to be certain from a photo, I would nevertheless say, yes, my impression is that this is not post-strike damage but that your coin left the mint in its current condition.
I would not be surprised to find that the little depression- the “divot”, or “pit” in King George’s neck- is some kind of die anomaly rather than a hit. But I don’t know. So from the technical standpoint, it’s a decent coin. But is it worth 40 bucks? Given the catalog value, I don’t think so. That’s on the threshold of UNC money. This is an About Uncirculated coin, but not a high-end AU. It’s more AU50-53-ish. AU50 catalog price is $11.50 and AU53 lists for $13.50. Unless you just have to have it, and don’t feel like continuing the search for one- or you could get it for half as much- I’d pass, personally. Now, there have been times when I’ve “thrown the book out the window” and paid well over catalog- sometimes even multiples of catalog- for a coin I needed. This happened a lot with the later-date Irish predecimal stuff when I was collecting those. Some of the later date pieces had really low catalog values despite also having relatively low mintages and being hard to find. You’ll have to ask yourself how much you want it, and how long you’ll need to wait before another might be available. I will say that with 3 million minted, this is not an especially scarce coin.
In this case, i really love the strike, but I want to stay within market value. I am bidding on a different coin of the same type as well so there is less pressure. That strike though, is the best I've seen for that type, although I haven't seen thousands of them.