Indian Head $5 Gold-Gradeflation at its Worst....

Discussion in 'US Coins Forum' started by fred13, May 24, 2015.

  1. fred13

    fred13 Junior Member Supporter

    I don't post all that often if at all in the US coin forum because I mainly tend to concentrate on World Coins. After all whose silly enough to limit themselves just to 2 centuries of coinage from one country right?

    Anyways for the past few months I've been on the lookout for an MS Indian Quarter or preferably half eagle as a type coin simply because I really admire the aesthetics of the design.

    Now these days as a World Collector I've come to realize that about 50-60% of the time if a coin is graded MS 60-64 by PCGS or NGC and isn't beat to death it has wear on it.

    But let me just say grading is an absolute joke when it comes to $2.5 and $5 Indian coins. In the past few months I've looked at about 200 au 58-ms 63 graded examples and 99% of all of those coins had wear on the coin with the 58's having enough wear for me never to justify paying more than an au 55 coin at best. The other 1% is attributable to properly graded coins that were identified as dealers as such and were thus selling at premiums I wasn't comfortable in paying.

    I did manage to find a coin that matched my requirements a while back but I passed because the scratch on the reverse bothered me
    b0c1f523-2440-451f-afc2-ca599b3dac19.jpg ca245d27-4b42-4847-8fae-db53a30222f0.jpg


    So my journey continued and remained fruitless. Now while I am quality oriented and patience both of those traits have their limit so I finally found a raw coin which I think is an honest au 58. Ironically enough it comes from a leading European Auction house. In all likelihood I won't be submitting the coin for grading because I don't want it being in an MS slab. If only the TPG's offered grade maximums instead of grade minimums only sigh.

    With that said here is my new addition which in my humble opinion represents an honest 58 coin and not the normal dreck you see being offered for sale today. Please feel free to show off your properly graded Indians if you have any as well!
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  3. brg5658

    brg5658 Well-Known Member

    It's a great design, and your example looks to be lovely.

    I'd be careful saying that the low MS-graded ones you're seeing from pictures have clear wear -- this is likely the hardest of all USA coins to grade properly. The incuse design, together with the fact that the coin has no rim, along with a few other oddities of the issue make it a very, very hard coin to grade from pictures.

    Now, assuming all 200 of them you said you looked at were in hand, ignore my comments. But, this is one of the few USA type coins (maybe the only) I would never buy from images, no matter how good they seem to be.

    Congrats on your new coin! :D
     
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  4. derkerlegand

    derkerlegand Well-Known Member

    I love the incuse design of these!
     
  5. fred13

    fred13 Junior Member Supporter

    Thanks! i do readily admit that the vast majority of the 200 were seen online so I can't as you say know for sure whether they were ms or not. With that said I'm fairly confident that the majority of them did indeed have wear simply because it was everywhere(no pun intended) And I mean covering 50+% of the fields which is really hard to miss.

    But again I do readily agree with you this series isn't easy to grade. Heck I didn't even know where to look for where had it not been for a forum member here helping me out

    On a last note thank god I don't collect these as a series. And here I thought finding choice world coins was nice :O
     
  6. messydesk

    messydesk Well-Known Member

    Like the fact that it's gold and therefore has a much more fragile surface than other metals.

    The only way to learn how to grade (or rather how these are graded) these is to look at a lot of them.
     
  7. jwitten

    jwitten Well-Known Member

    I mainly collect these series, and I disagree with your grading, plain and simple.
     
    Coinchemistry 2012 likes this.
  8. fred13

    fred13 Junior Member Supporter

    And by all means your welcome too. As a slight correction though it isn't my grading. I'm just a follower of the ANA Grading Guidelines. Talk about plain and simple right?
     
  9. rzage

    rzage What Goes Around Comes Around .

    Very nice coin you picked . But grading from ANA guidelines is a lot stricter in some ways than the tpgs , it's like grading apples and oranges .
     
  10. coloradobryan

    coloradobryan Well-Known Member

    This is one series I have no experience with, but find very interesting. I can see grading these would be difficult.
     
  11. Dancing Fire

    Dancing Fire Junior Member

    The first one I can live with (25-D), but the second one (26-P) is plain ugly. Both coins are graded MS63. My best advise is to look for a frosty surface at its high points. UNC. original coins will have a frosty creamy surface look to it.
     

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  12. coleguy

    coleguy Coin Collector

    I think they're a lot more lenient in their grading with these as basically the whole coin is field. There is no normal wear on these.
     
  13. miedbe7

    miedbe7 Wayward Collector

    I had a similar instance where one I was told was AU came back magically from PCGS as MS-61. Who knows with these Indians, especially the smallest $2.5. They are so hard to grade. Sometimes I find myself preferring honest 58s over low MS bc you're getting more meat for most times a decent amount less. Nice coin BTW.
     
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