Please guess the assigned grade of this NGC 1963-D Franklin Half Dollar and vote in the attached poll. Thank you! As always, comments welcome!
I'm going MS66..... Immaculate and I'm imagining blazing luster in hand. I feel the light hits on the cheek would prohibit a 67...
Three series I struggle with are Buffalo nickels, Washington quarters and Franklin halves. And Franklins are what made me a collector..... I love the fields on this one and I am going to call it MS65+.
I agree with you Randy. Buffalo Nickels, Franklin's and Washington quartets are my weakness as well. Henry inherited a beautiful collection of UNC Washington silver and I can't begin to grade them. This franklin is a beauty though...I can see that.
I will say, for comparison sake, the Franklin I show below is graded 65FBL. Yours has a decent strike (Pass and Stow are clearly visible, but the three lines of hair above his ear are weak). The luster appears to be the creamy type, but decent. Eye appeal is neutral (nothing significantly positive, but nothing negative either). The toning on your coin indicates that it spent many years in one of the small soap-bar style ANACS holders. Contact marks appear to be quite few, just a bit of marks on the bell. All this leads me to a 66 grade. As for bell lines..... absolutely out of the question. Marks and incompleteness abound on a date that is plentiful with fully separated lines (the date actually has a really poor strike, overall... however enough of them were struck that plenty are available with FBL.) In summary, I'd call this an MS-66, no FBL.
It could be a 66 depending on the luster (and with the relatively clean fields), but the many scattered hits on Franklin and the bell made me guess MS 65. The bottom bands lead me to say it's not FBL.
I went 66 but something higher (no FBL though) would not shock me. They're all trick coins when Lehigh96 posts a GTG...
Not a trick, and both of you nailed it. My brother and I have started an NGC Registry collection of Franklin Half Dollars. He picks the coins and based on my approval, I tell him how much to bid in the auction. This was his first addition to the set.
That is a worthy first coin for your set. Are you guys going to try to get mostly FBL's? Or are you shooting for a certain grade? What is your approach to this set?