hone your grading skills -- classic head half cent

The coin was graded by the seller, an EAC dealer, as Average+ surfaces, net 45+.

My subjective opinion of the coin:

The coin has great color, just the type of color I like in old copper. Looks like the color of an old AU wheatie. There is lots of luster left in the protected areas of both sides, and is typical for both the large and half cents of this era, the reverse has more luster remaining due to the design of the devices (as an aside, if you ever see an XF/AU large cent and the obverse has more luster than the reverse, you know something fishy is going on, as the obverse of these coins virtually always has the luster impared first). Both sides have a touch of high-point wear, and the wear is a slightly darker color -- just what I like to see as it is an indication (albeit not a sure thing) of originality. The reverse is slightly darker than the obverse, shown better in the second set of photos, and I suspect the coin sat somewhere for a long time with the reverse down. It also has a slightly mottled look mostly on the reverse, as shown in the photos -- quite common for large cents, and not too worrisome to me. The strike is just a bit weak on the obverse stars, but otherwise fairly well struck.

I agree with the 45+ grade, and I suspect that PCGS would grade it AU 50ish, and NGC AU 58.

Anyway, I thank you all for the comments and guesses. Take care...Mike

 

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p.s. this coin is an upgrade for a Dansco 7070. Here is the coin it replaced: