Recently I purchased a Seated Liberty Silver Dollar. It is graded by PCGS at XF45 with no mention of any planchet errors. It should be a trouble free coin, right? However, after receiving the coin I noticed a raised area on the obverse. Is this an Occluded Gas Bubble on my Seated Liberty Silver Dollar? Does it impact value?
Sorry, I can’t tell anything from the picture provided. Any issue affects a coin’s value, even if it was straight graded. Sometimes coins are “net graded” for minor issues, i.e. they receive a lower numerical grade instead of a details grade.
not much better but I would check with PCGS on it. Those are extremely scarce and a lot of fake holders floating around. At those prices I would return.
This is a common misconception, but it is a completely false statement. The coin is considered to be market acceptable, not problem free. Minor things like small planchet laminations, gas bubbles, or other (mint-made) problems which are not serious enough to warrant a "mint error" designation are just ignored. Market acceptable also includes things like obviously having been dipped or cleaned, like the coin you show. A gas bubble on its own really isn't a problem, its a natural part of coinmaking and happens every so often. If you don't like it, then I would suggest returning it.
The coin was not cleaned. I manipulated (brightened) the image to accentuate the “bubble”. I like the coin. But the raised area caught me by surprise; so I am trying to understand what it is, impact on value. Likely I will keep it.
As to value, if it actually is a bubble - some collectors wouldn't like it, they'd see it as a flaw, a detractor. Others, like some error collectors might be ecstatic over it because of its scarcity. Personally I can't recall ever seeing or even hearing of one on a Seated Liberty dollar. That doesn't mean there aren't any of course, just that I've never run across one. Of course to actually realize any value out of it at sale, you might have to resubmit the coin and ask that it be attributed as a gas bubble error and labeled as such. Assuming they agreed that that's what it is. And you'd have to check as I'm not even sure that PCGS even attribute that specific error - there's a lot of them they don't. But NGC might.
Still damage.. Not a mint error. Occluded bubble is inside the coin. Just below the surface. It would not raise the clad layer as your damaged coin has. The amount if pressure (tons) to strike a coin would not allow for it to look that way
The coin almost looks like it's bent in the first picture. There seems to be a valley running across it below the suspected bubble. If this is a mint error, it is often not a good thing with respect to collector value. As was mentioned before, some collectors don't like this and would avoid the coin. The rule of thumb is that mint errors can increase the value of modern coins. Quite frequently it lowers the value for classic coins, unless it's something really cool. Years ago I saw a Liberty $5 gold coin that was struck off-center. The coin graded MS-65, and was really nice. THAT was worth a premium because it was attractive AND rare. It sold for over $30,000, but that was the exception.
