This will be the first of five guess the grades from my recent submission to NGC. Please view the photos below and vote in the attached poll. For uniformity, I will provide the same available grades for all 5 coins. For the record, I was not fortunate enough to get a full step coin with a star designation. As always, comments welcome.
I will also guess MS-66, no FS designation though (blending under 2nd column). I'm sure the * coin will pop off the page.
Why? NGC does not assign split grades. The coin may be split, but I guarantee the assigned grade has is not a split grade.
I meant in the course of the discussion, obviously NGC isn't going to assign a split grade, but they could net grade the coin.
I'll give it a split grade - Strong 67 obverse, medium 66 reverse. Nets to a low end 67. No Star. I see bridging and marks on the steps, so I vote no FS.
66 no full steps. Not to be critical but I see quite a few readers who don't seem to understand full steps. I got a great understanding of full steps from this very coin talk. I'd like to find it and re-post it. Scratches gauges across the steps takes away from them being full steps. This coin has such a mark. Also the bottom step does not go across as in full.
Full Steps explained in Coin Talk back in November. Lehigh96 made a post that day also. https://www.cointalk.com/threads/th...erson-nickels-defined-photographically.49827/
It is rare that you can give your opinion in your own guess the grade thread, but since I sent these in raw, I will now provide my opinion of the grade before submission. This coin was the toughest of the group to grade despite the fact that it had no chance for a star designation. The obverse is clear MS67 but the reverse simply has too many marks to achieve an MS67 grade. The reverse is MS66, but not low end. The overall great strike should also help the grade. My personal opinion was that the coin was going to be graded MS66+ but I was hopeful for an MS67. With regards to the steps, my thought was that the small mark on the 3rd & 4th steps under the 2nd pillar would preclude a 5FS designation by NGC but this is a coin that would probably get FS under PCGS standards. For the sake of this thread, my guess will be MS67.