This is meant to be a quick and dirty method for evaluating raw Standing Liberty Quarters. It's worked well for me, and I find that it pretty well corresponds with roughly what a TPG would put on a coin, aside from the odd market graded piece although you're only likely to see that in these dates on a 1927-S, particularly in higher circulated grades. These coins are outrageously overgraded out there, this should give you a basic fighting chance. The 1925-1930 is the most common date range out there, mainly because the dates on them were recessed, so they stuck around with legible dates for much longer and people held on to them, as opposed to the 1917-1924 Type 2 coins which are prone to severe date wear. I used, with the exception of the AG coin, all 1928s here as the dies are largely the same, most are 1928-Ss. Remember that these coins have the odd issue with strike quality too About Good: Obverse: Date is still largely clear and readable, rim is worn away and top edges of "LIBERTY" are worn away. Motto may be worn to where it's tough to read, same for the stars. Reverse: Rim is long gone, letting and stars wearing into what was the rim, only the outline of Eagle's feathers to be identified. Good: Obverse: The rim is still worn away, but the tops of "LIBERTY" aren't eaten away. Drapery is still visible at the top of Liberty's left leg. Areas of her torso above hips still rounded. Reverse: Well worn, however some feather detail remains on leading edge of Eagle's wing, Eagle's right inner wing shows numerous detailed feathers. Very Good: Obverse: Rim is defined but some letters in "LIBERTY" are just a hair from touching or barely touching the rim. Liberty's eye on her head should just show, drapery on her left leg should be defined. Reverse: You should see a full defined rim even if weak. Eagle's right wing should show inner feathers from very nearly the top of the rim down to the breast. Fine: Obverse: The line at the top of Liberty's right leg is clearly defined and the left leg has no flat spot breaking the drapery at the knee. No part of the date touches the rim, you can just make out the nose on Liberty's face. The quickest visual check for me is to look for a small triangle of cleavage on liberty's chest. Reverse: No part of the lettering touched the rim which is sharp and well defined, feathers on Eagle's right wing are virtually all there except for the leading edge. Very Fine: Obverse: Shield is outlined fully and not worn into Liberty. Also, Liberty's sash is clearly defined and not worn into her. Liberty's chest is, well the right one is defined while her right leg is still flat. Reverse: Feathers on right inner wing show detail all the way to the breast of the Eagle, rim is clearly higher than edge lettering. Extremely Fine: Obverse: Liberty's right leg shows most knee definition, the lower part is rounded still. The chain mail of her top is clearly defined above her chest and below the neck. Shield is fully outlined, most of inner ring of shield is outlined. Design on inner edge of rim virtually all there. Reverse: Easiest check is that the Eagle's LEFT wing shows most feather detail, wear on the leading edge of the left wing only. Right wing is sharp. I hope this helps, comments, criticism, corrections, etc are all welcome
Nice thread , it took some effort , people like you make the site what it is , a learning center . rzage
Thanks guys! You know I has talked about this before, and got positive response, then I wrote it up and nobody noticed it, I was, well, a bit taken aback! I thought that there was some talk about making a sticky area for these, didnt Lehigh do a great one on Mercury Dimes? Glad you guys liked it!
Well done, rld14! I would have missed this completely. Thanks for taking the time to assemble this thread(with images!). It's a big help to many collectors. I like the idea of 'sticking' these threads somewhere for easy reference. I missed Lehigh's dime thread, didn't know it existed.
Wish I had seen this yesterday! Anyway, took the gift card that Santa gave me down to the local coin shop and picked up this SLQ (all mine are low grade... I just wanted one that looked a little better). He had graded it EF (I know it's an earlier date, but I assume your grading pics apply to all years). Now I'm not sure if I made a mistake... the coin looks cleaned, there's a minor rim ding, and I have a hard time judging wear. At $85, I probably paid too much. So a belated thanks!
Sticky threads don't work well. If we had a sticky thread for every thread thought worthy - you'd have dozens of pages of sticky threads at the top of each forum section. And if we made a special section for what were considered to be worthy threads - there would be so many of them there that it would be useless. You would have thousands of threads to search through to find what you were looking for. In essence, it would be no different than it is now with the threads left in the section where they are posted. If you want to find specific information all you have to do is look for it. Just use the search function and you can find pretty much anything you want. As I said, it would be the same anyway even if these threads were moved to one section.
$85 seems pricey for it, so unfortunately I agree with you. I'm not seeing it in my hand, but it looks like XF details to me and a relatively strong strike. The basic detail grading that I posted does work for the 17-24 T2s, but there's one caveat, the date. As we know the dates on the pre-25s wear savagely, You really need to be into VF and better to guarantee a full date on a pre-25. Heck, look at the ANA book, the coin they show for the grade of Fine is nearly dateless.
Doug forgot to mention one thing - bookmark this thread and add it to your favorites if you find it really helpful. Then you can name it SLQ Grading. I think that 1919 looks pretty good and probably better in hand. Not sure about the price since I really do not collect these.
It looks like it was cleaned long ago , but has retoned nicely IMO , $85 is ok pricewise but on the high side , still a very nice SLQ . rzage:whistle:
Normally I'd point out that this thread is nearly two and a half years old and the person bumping it should be shot......but not in this case. This thread is definitely worth the bump. And might I add a hearty welcome to Spartan. Thanks for digging this one out of the archives.
