This is my latest acquisition. It is extremely difficult to find rainbow toned clad coins for my rainbow toned 20th Century registry set. This coin is a real sweetheart and I could not have asked for a more attractive representative for my set. I thought I would give you guys a chance to guess NGC's grade of my new clad baby.
Beautiful coin , this is just a shot in the dark , AU-55 . The fields look MS , so it could be the picture , but looks like slight wear in the hair , of course knowing what quality coins you usualy buy it's probably MS . rzage
I think the Washington Quarter is among the most difficult to grade. But, I will say MS65*. I say it earned the star because of the wonderful toning which...as has been stated, is rare for clad coins.
Beautiful toning. They got excited and over graded it. MS66 Darn pretty coin there and I don't even collect clads. You done good!
Richie, I like your grade better than that of NGC because I think it is more accurate. The actual grade was there for everyone to see as I kept in the name of the photo file. A couple people found it. Funny, I think the coin looks better in this photo with the entire holder showing. Can't figure out why though, it is the same photo, just cropped.
I appreciate your kind words. I seem to have trouble grading Washington's for some reason...they are among the more challenging coins for me. One thing I noticed on this coin was how wonderfully clean the fields are...I felt they warranted a high MS grade. However, it seems that many of these late 60s clad coins tend to have a somewhat mushy strike. Maybe it's the pic, but the eagle on the reverse doesn't seem to have much detail. I have noticed this a lot on these coins and have wondered if it is because the clad is so much harder than silver. I have always assumed it took the mint a while to get the quality straightened out following the metal change. But, with the beautiful toning, I feel that a "*" is warranted on coin's like this...and I'm surprised it didn't.
Reason I went 64 and no star for my grade, as like Richie said, it appears this coin has a weak strike, but that could always be the pics. Also, why I said no star is because the luster (atleast to me, and it could also be the pics) doesn't "pop" at you really, where it is there, the luster needs to be a little stronger in my opinion to recieve a star. (And I could be wrong on this also, this is just my opinion. This a nice example, one should be real happy to own. Congrats! :thumb Phoenix
I wouldn't worry about your difficulty grading Washington's. It is definitely one of the hardest series to grade. As for the star, I am really not sure what it would take to get a star on a Washington clad since this one didn't get it, but I am not too upset about it. The star on this grade would only have given me 21 more points in my NGC registry set.
