Just got this yesterday for $400. I've been looking one of these for a while and finally saw one so I bought it for my type set. Since this is my first seated dollar and I'm not accustomed to estimating the grades on them, what grade do you think this would be deserving of? The nicer pictures (first two) of the seated dollar are while at the shop, which leads me to believe that I don't have optimal lighting for my coin photography here at home. From what I've read and seen, it appears that incandescent or halogen lamps are ideal, which stinks as nearly every single light source in my house is LED. Any thoughts on specific types of lighting and what works best? Anyways, I added in my other pickup from yesterday... a 1903-O Morgan for my albums. If I had to guess, I'd say a pretty solid 63 (maybe 64 if the graders were overly happy that day) so that's going to be in my album for a long time! Have yourselves a great weekend!!
Your seated dollar looks about xf40 details to me, and doesn't have the major dings and rim hits that plague these. It has been cleaned, but the secondary toning is pretty nice. $400 seems fair to me. I use 2 spiral compact flourescent lamps for photos currently. (if you can still get them!). I have also used daylight incandescent bulbs. Other people use LEDs often I think with diffusers to minimize the hot spots. here is my 1846 with the CFL bulbs.
Yes, large numbers of Seated Dollars have been cleaned, and this one is no exception. I had one with decent eye appeal, with AU sharpness, that flunked at one of third party grading services. When I was a dealer, I sold it another dealer for over $500. This was 20 years ago. These coins have been expensive, especially when they get straight grades, for a long time
Oh, I'm very happy with it! I doubt I'll see a better looking one for cheaper anytime soon, so she's got a home in my 7070!
I'd pay 400 for that seated dollar all day long (those are the last 2 coins I need for my 7070 motto/no motto) I haven't seen anything even that nice for under 600 and beleave me I've been hunting em best posibilities i've found is a nice vf25 for 575... and an AU details/cleaned for aboutt he same... but I'm still holding out to get something a bit nicer for that price range at auction .
Cheap and Seated coinage doesn’t really match. I’d rather buy a nice F or VF Seated Dollar with original surfaces than a cleaned coin.
I don't think the cleaning is an issue if it hasn't been "harshly" cleaned. Collectors routinely cleaned their coins for over 100 years as they were on display and they wanted them to look nice. Ones that haven't been cleaned are usually heavily circulated. If you have one that has been lightly cleaned, it has been sitting in someone's collection safe from more nicks and scratches.
I should post this. This is the 1872 Seated Dollar, which flunked at the grading services, that I sold to a dealer for $550, 20 years ago.
