Ok, a bit too much craziness sitting here watching HA life at Long Beach - trigger pulled - GTG!

Anyone care to play a game of "Guess The Grade?"

 

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Proof 64

 

Seriously?

 

I'm in the Pr.63 the fields are clean but the devices look a little rough and a few carbon spots.

 

PR63. Whatever the grade is, NICE COIN!

 

(sigh...) I hope I didn't really screw up. The scratches at the base of her neck and the cheek are on the slab.

 

Clearly I don't know anything about grading other than "oh, that's pretty."

 

Good heavens, Brett. If that's not a career coin, it must be close.

 

Nice. I was going to say PF67 (no cameo). Great score!

 

Sticking to that solution would certainly have been cheaper today!

It may have also prevented my wife from going !#%!# crazy when I tell her tonight... or tomorrow... or maybe next year some time.

 

My wife and I have a coin agreement: I reserve the right to buy what I want. She reserves the right to kill me.

 

This is how @Brett_in_Sacto is going to be bidding on coins after his wife finds out.

 

So.......
How much was that Brett??

 

It's all good, and I slept in my own bed. She did give me a bit of the ol' "What the !@#$!@# were you doing" routine, and then I reminded her that she got a brand new car for Christmas - and I got shoes.

It's all good for now, unless you don't see a post from me in the next week - and then worry!

 

Uhm, it's a nickel - so it's worth 5 cents. I may have overpaid? Auction history is available on HA.

 

I had a feeling you werent too proud of the purchase price

 

OK, settle down. Let's analyze this one. It's every bit that high a PR, BTW.

Let's start with the tiny black spots. Those spots are there because it's 120 years old and that's the way that surface ages. Let's move onto the toning and the breaks in the toning. They're there for the same reason. Is there any wear on the high points? If so, if there is, I don't see it. Let's factor in the all-important eye-movement, which is the single-most important determinant in how we feel about the coin. Is there anything distracting it? Where is your eye going? It's going to the detail, then off and around the coin, then back to the detail, then back to the field, then back to the detail, around and around it goes, and how it does that, only the engraver knows. In fact, that's why the engraver put the detail where he did, and let it go where he did--to control your eye-movement through the coin. You didn't know that, did you? But we're seeing this coin, 120 years later, exactly how he intended for us to see it, using every artistic skill he had to do it. And why? It's an expression, that's why. All art is an expression of the artist, and he wants us to "get it," and admire his artistic skill in getting it across.

This thing is almost perfect for its age. But just as a person can drink a $1000 bottle of wine just to get drunk and not appreciate it any beyond than that, in much the same way, collectors can look at this coin. Then, again, one can "know" what one really has, here. End of rant...

 

The true "tell" will be when CAC gets it.

 

It's funny how a couple of photos can make it difficult to grade. I could tell it was a proof but from the first set of photos I would never see it as a 68, let alone cameo. I guess a coin in hand is better than one in photos.

 

Huge images of a coin can be brutal. It looks deserving of the grade in the full slab images.