64... I think 65, but have seen them be hard on woodies before, so will go down one... and probably miss this one by 1 ; )
Sorry, but I don't get this one. There are a couple tiny nicks and some nice luster. Not great luster, but nice. Nothing wrong with the strike. The grain is much more obvious in the picture than in hand, but it is there. There is a spot behind his head. It is visible in hand, but not exactly eye catching. Yet somehow PCGS found something wrong enough to only give it a 63. IMO, the luster keeps it from a 65, but it should be a solid 64.
Any weakness in the strike is in the pictures and not on the coin. Beside, strike does not affect the grade until 65 or minorly at 64.
I've previously seen coins driven down from 64 for strike alone, but if the strike is much stronger than the obverse photo implies, I'm as mystified as you are.
Understood, but a very weak strike is the norm for a 27-S, and is expected by the grading services. The 1913 almost always comes well struck. Thinking I was looking at a lightly struck obverse, I assumed yours to be a less than average coin. Sorry, I didn't mean to turn this into a protracted discussion. Pretty nice looking 27-s for an RB coin, by the way . . . yours?
No. That is Heritage's coin/picture. But I have a weaker 62 red. And I would rate the 13 average. He has a nearly full (but not strong) beard and no planchet marks left. And I prefer to have extended discussions particularly here. One of the main purposes of these threads is for people to learn. They will learn more from such discussions than 10 GTG's.
Agreed. I just don't want to wear out my welcome, as I appeared to have done in another thread where another member & I got off track a bit too much, so the moderators deleted the thread.