I bought this coin many years ago raw at a Stack's auction, and finally had it graded a few years ago. So I took a couple of pictures and then looked at them and the coin again as it was puzzling as you may see: I took one picture: Looks like a couple of very unfortunate scratches, so took another: Still there! But just didn't seem right from either PCGS pictures or from mine, so here is the obverse from them and then a couple from me: The PCGS photo is pretty much as it looks in hand, so maybe scratches in the plastic as when I turned the coin around in different light and angles I could not make out any scratches at all. In fact I was surprised at the grade they gave, GTG if you'd like as I did not agree naturally enough. I bought the coin because of the very original toning that I believe is from the elaborate holder that the whole set came in (I don't have the case), and the fact that it had the wonderful toning and relatively mark free - also the price in those days was criminally low, since corrected and maybe overly so.
Even if I didn’t know that you don’t agree, I’d assume they said either PF-62 or Detailed for cleaning or questionable color based on the pattern of the toning. No matter what they said, I love it and wish I had a similar set
Well, good guess there sir. Actually if you look at pictures this is normal toning for the issue as the cases they were issued in imparted this toning to the silver coins especially and often less pleasant toning to the "up facing" copper coins in the set. Also there are some planchet prep hairlines seen that preceded striking (see bottom right obverse field as an example). There also is a bit of die rust which occasionally shows on the devices as little pebbles & not seen in the fields as these were polished away prior to striking. Usually the 62 or even 3 is from polishing lines AFTER striking that is seen in rotating the coin under different light conditions - not seen on this coin, though I do aplogise for the picture of the PCGS photo as some of the pictures are currently hard to obtain from them nowadays.....
