MS65 CAC!!!

ksparrow · Sep 20, 2014

I'm with those who say that the photos probably don't do the coin justice. I have a very colorful 75-p in AU that always looks drab in my images, but rotated under a bright light has beautiful color. I believe that the colors and luster are concealed from the camera lens by that thin skin of ash gray.
(Maybe we should tag it "Lady Liberty visits Pompeii")

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

Tom B · Sep 20, 2014

I've looked at the images of this coin a few times now and I have to admit that I think the coin would be what I would term quite attractive and original in-hand. Of course, that is a guesstimate on my part, but I do think it has lots of potential.

GDJMSP · Sep 21, 2014

The question was asked - why do coins like this make it through ? And then it was discussed as to whether or not the pictures do the coin justice, that perhaps the coin actually looks much better in hand.

Well, with pictures, that's always an option. But it is also an option that the coin really does look like that in hand, in my mind anyway - ugly, and I would never buy it. But that still leaves the question, is it worthy of the grade assigned ?

The CAC sticker doesn't really matter because what CAC judges is if the coin is good for the grade or not. As said, CAC doesn't judge eye appeal per se, they don't judge the aspects of the +grade or a *grade, they just judge the basic grade. And if they think that the coin is good for the grade or high end for the grade they are going to put their sticker on it. The only time they will not put their sticker on it is if they think the coin is low end for the grade, or over-graded.

So, we are still left with the question, is the coin the OP posted worthy of the grade, or not ? To answer that question we have to ask ourselves - what do we base grades on, how do we determine grades ?

I think just about everybody here knows the answer, it's been discussed endlessly and no doubt will continue to be. But the OP's question is really kind of asking, how can this ugly be graded so high, and given a CAC sticker to boot ? That's a fair question. And the answer is - chocolate and vanilla, beauty lies in the eye of the beholder.

Now some may think this doesn't happen very often, that coins that look like this just don't get those high grades. But the truth is, they do, they even get higher grades. Like these -

Finding coins like this, that in some people's minds are ugly and thus totally undeserving of the assigned grade, is not in the least difficult. There are lots and lots of them out there. But grades are not assigned on just whether or not the coin is "pretty". There are other aspects to grading and all of them come into play when grading a coin.

Now would I grade any of these coins this high ? No, personally I would not. I may grade them 65, but 67, 68 ? No, not gonna happen. But the TPGs do as you can see. And to me it's not a question of if the picture doesn't do the coin justice. I've seen thousands of coins like these, in hand, slabbed and raw, and I know that the pictures are giving fairly accurate portrayals of the coins - they really do look like that.

Eye appeal is really the question here, and eye appeal is one of the primary criteria for grading coins. But eye appeal is chocolate and vanilla, there just isn't any way around it. So everybody is going to have a different opinion when it comes to eye appeal. To me the coins, the ones I posted and the OP's, may well be worthy of a 65 grade on purely technical merits alone, or not, that I would have to decide in hand. But I could never grade them higher than that because in my opinion eye appeal is sadly lacking. But that's my taste, yours may differ.