...was this "1873" IHC: 1873 Indian Head Cent-Key Date $12 shipped. The first two photos are the seller's, and more accurately reflect the coin's in-hand appearance; it will win no beauty contests, but definitely shows quite a lot of detail. This photo is about the best my phone can do, but more clearly shows the date that I was pretty sure I could make out in the original shots: I found this in the "other items" from the guy who listed that suspicious 1909-S IHC I posted last week. I'm not sure how I'd even start to authenticate something this beat-up, but I'm not sure I see any reason to suspect it's fake, other than possible guilt by association...?
Yeah, I've definitely got a critical mass of coins needing Verdi-Care at this point. Got a group of high-grade Liberty nickels that apparently spent many years in PVC -- afraid they're high-details at this point. But I did the acetone ritual to get rid of the active organics, and Verdi-Care should address the green bits.
It's clearly an 1872 in hand -- it was clear enough even in the seller's photo for me to jump. He'd apparently updated the listing to change the Buy It Now price -- I'm guessing that he initially listed it at a higher price, it slipped past the "newly listed BIN" lurkers, and then nobody noticed it before I stumbled across it. I figured an 1872 with that much detail, even this badly damaged, had to have good flip potential. We'll see whether I can overcome my fear of eBay selling and actually do it.
I was thinking this because a closed 3 and open 3 type rings a bell and this doesn't look like either.
Well, geeze, these photos looked pretty good until I uploaded them. I have a feeling I'm goofing on the color profile or something. I'll leave these up for now, and see if I can do better tomorrow.
I was kinda making fun of the listing; it's obviously an 1872 in-hand. As I get older, though, I'm gaining an appreciation for the "old eyes can't quite make things out as well as they used to" bit. If I can get better shots up, I'm hoping for a call on whether this hits VF details. It looks dug, corroded and scrubbed all to heck, but still, 1872!
Well, after some more time with the camera and what lighting I have, I've reached the conclusion that this is one UGLY coin. But, again, 1872! This shot captures the bright specular highlights that the coin gets in direct light. Those bright (scrubbed) high points look more red than this shot indicates, but this is a pretty close approximation of what it looks like in-hand. Here's a shot in diffused light. It doesn't match the in-hand view, but it gives a clearer impression of the (ugh) surface texture, and also the remaining corrosion. Definitely a task for Verdi-Care, I think. This coin isn't much of a prize, and I'm not sure I'll be hanging on to it, but I still think I'll do better than the $12 I paid.
