Holy crap, I bought a coin! Guess the grade too....

A few things have conspired against adding to my collection in the past year or so... I've had some medical challenges, my job has been exceedingly time-consuming, my large cent and type sets have fewer and fewer holes left in them, and I think I'm becoming too picky for my own good.

But all that changed when I saw this coin come up in one of my favorite dealer's inventories. The coin is pictured below.

The seller's photos:



FWIW, the coin is a bit darker in hand. More like this:



Please guess what PCGS graded the coin....

...and feel free to comment on the coin itself -- good and bad. You're not going to hurt my (or the coin's) feelings, I promise.

Have fun...Mike

 

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Just a wild guess.... XF40.
Great looking coin, BTW.

 

i actually think its a very weak strike, i would say AU range.
but what i dont understand, even with a weak strike where is the R in liberty and the E in cent

 

I like the piece a lot! It's got great eye appeal, and how many of us can say we own coins from the earliest days of the mint? Bravo!

 

Great coin, how about XF-45?

 

Very nice, I would guess XF 40

 

I can barely make out the E in cent, but the R seems to have exited the coin completely......guess the poor letter didnt feel like he belonged or something

As for my grade, im going to go with XF 42.6735

 

First off, regardless of its grade (or nongrade), that coin has to have been cleaned at least once. I am having a hard time figuring out what is strike and what is wear, but there is not much wear so I will try AU.

 

very cool coin XF-45

 

:thumb:

 

I grade it:

I like it.




Or XF-45

 

XF-40..........Lovely piece.

 

A beautiful coin, well struck and nicely detailed, if slightly light in colour.

Methinks S-137, with berries 6 and 5. I think one can see remnants of the repunched S under S in STATES, R-2+.

I grade it VF30, but PCGS probably graded it higher.

 

I am not sure what to do with this coin. When I look at heritage the first 1797 I looked at was a F-15 and your coin looks nicer than it. Then I blow up the pictures and think it looks close, but still better than the f-15. When I look at some of the vf-25-35 coins they have more details - but is it weak strike? I just can't tell - the bust on your coin looks very nice, but seems to have a lot of wear on the should and hair. I am going with vf-25 as my swag. As for the coin itself - very nice. Very nice indeed - love the color on it.

 

I'll have to pass for reasons we both know.

Chris

 

After all these years, it was good to finally meet you, Chris.

This coin was the subject of a little discussion today at FUN between Chris (cpm9ball), Doug (GDJMSP), Larry (ldhair), and SaltySam.

PCGS graded the coin F-15. I was shocked when Shawn Yancey posted it to his website, and it took me all of about 3 seconds to send him an email. IMO, that's a solid VF coin. After examining it in-hand, I was so sure it was a VF coin, I had intended to crack it and resubmit it today at FUN, but alas, I had to leave before even getting over to the PCGS table to do it.

As for the coin itself... The one feature nobody mentioned, and I believe that Doug was the first to notice, is that the coin has some very light porosity on the left obverse field. It is not shown well in the photos, is not really visible in-hand, but it is under a loupe. Hard to tell if the porosity was as-struck or post-mint. My guess is the former, but I often struggle to feel sure on this determination.

There is also a very slight nick on obverse the rim at 11 o'clock and a hit in the hair that doesn't show in the photo well. Both are minor, IMO, and not problematic on a well-circulated example.

I think an argument can be made that it is a solid 25-details coin (i.e. mid-VF). Maybe net the coin down a grade for the issues mentioned above, but I'm still scratching my head on how that coin graded F-15. I just couldn't get there from here, and I wonder if there's something else I'm missing (cleaning?) -- which I always presume when a coin appears this under-graded -- but having stared at the coin for a few hours now, I really can't figure it out. I think it simply is under-graded. Time will tell if that's right or not...as I do intend on having it regraded.

And, for what it's worth, this is a coin that even GDJMSP thought was under-graded!!! As if such a thing existed... lol

Have fun...Mike

p.s. I'd EAC grade the coin VF20 details, avg+, net F15.

 

thats insane how low it graded

 

Careful. These guys know their old coppers. You and I obviously don't........

 

Insane sounds good to me.

 

I find it an extremely nice coin. I can see why you bought it leadfoot.

Yes most likely it was cleaned but cleaned well and most well cleaned coppers like this get a pass. I was going to vote high end vf from the tpg, maybe low end from eac guys, (they grade like i do, i like those guys ).