Can anyone help me grade this coin? It's a scan and the picture does not do it justice. The coin has a very mellow gold tone to it. There is a slight rainbow effect in some of the flat areas on the obverse and a stronger effect surrounding the "V" on the reverse. Anyway, any idea on the grade?
Liberty nickels are not my forte when it comes to grading but I'll give it a shot. At first glance I want to say this coin is UNC - but - there is either wear on the top of the crown and a couple of the stars at 7 o'clock - or these areas were very weakly struck. But since the strike appears rather good to me on the rest of the coin - I'm gonna go with wear. Thus I would grade the coin AU58. Now - if I had the coin in hand and could judge the luster - I may change my mind about that being wear. If it were not wear - then I would grade the coin as MS63. It is virtually mark free - at least in the pics - but these weakly struck areas would prevent me from grading it much higher. Someone else might say MS64 - I would not.
Are there any problems with the rim? Looks like I can see some rough places. Hard to say about the grade. Many times nickels didn't strike-up very well. The corn is one of the places that is usually weak because it is opposite the highest point on the obverse.
I just looked at it with a loupe, there is a couple of tiny "dents" on the rim, right where liberty is staring, ironically. The other areas are slight imperfections, but not rim dings per se. Man you guys got good eyes! I looked on ebay and found a coin alot like mine. The tone is pretty much the same except mine has the "rainbow" thing going on. Granted you can't tell the guy's credentials for grading but it looks like he has sold a TON of stuff and has pretty good feedback. I noticed that no one has bid on it yet, though. Just a few observations. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=3924150547&ssPageName=STRK:MEWA:IT
Howdy lincoln - First of all - my eyes are just about shot. I have to study a coin to see things that I used to be able to see in an instant. But that's where experience comes in handy. After a while - you just see things. Now for a couple more observations about these two coins re: grading. I've already told you - I'm not up on Liberty nickels when it comes to grading. But the principles are the same. For the sake of argument - we'll assume your coin has the same luster as the one in the ebay auction. Remember what I said about the luster ? If your coin has the same luster then I would say it is likely UNC. Look at your coin at the L in Liberty. Then look at the other coin. See the difference ? On the other coin the L is sharp & clear. Now look at the hair details on your coin - and the same on the other. In this case the details are more sharp & clear on your coin. There is a bit of flatness in the hair at the top of the forehead on the ebay coin. Now look at the stars. On your coin the stars appear quite sharp for the most part. You can see the detail and raised lines running down each point except for two at 7 o'clock. But on the other coin the stars at 3 o'clock are nearly flat. The one at 12 o'clock is not sharp at all and the ones at 7 could be improved as well. For the most part - the reverse of the two cins are about equal. The detail on the corn of your coin may be just a tad sharper though. The net result when to comes to grading - I would grade both coins the same - assuming the luster - at MS63. These two coins are good examples for a collector to see how two examples of the same coin can be so different but yet grade the same. Of course that by basing your grade on pics which is not always accurate.
I agree with you GD. I can see nothing that would indicate wear or rubbing. Also agree that the grade could not be higher than MS-63. I have bought coins from eBay seller scardinal. He represents his coins fairly, and usually has nice material, but you can pretty much forget about getting a bargain on one of his auctions. His opening bids and shipping charges usually remove that possibility.
Thanks for the detailed description. I can see where it really takes a trained eye to size up a coin. I went back to the ebay page that had the picture of the coin I bought. You can really tell the difference between a photo and a scan. The scan is really harsh and removes any hint of "eye appeal". On the other hand I guess it makes defects really pop out better. Anyway thought you might like to see the difference. My scans: Attachment: 1883 ob.jpg (17580 bytes, 25 views) Attachment: 1883 re.jpg (19549 bytes, 19 views) (Just realized that these attachments won't link, you'll have to go to the beginning of this thread to see the scans.) ebay photos:
