How would you grade this Morgan Dollar? How would you estimate its value? thanks for looking :smile scan 1 scan 2
well, I bought it from an all-$16 dollar morgans box in a coin store. It was easily the best looking coin and dealer didn't have any better non-slabbed morgans. i guess i at least didnt get ripped off. thank you for grading, i will post another 1900-O morgan from the same box soon.
Is it better to scan coins or take a picture of them? They look much different scanned... but is it better for grading?
It depends on your skills with each - scanner or camera. Scanners tend to wash out the luster in a pic and luster is extremely important in grading. But they also tend to show the detail better than typical digital pics. However there are tricks and things you can do with each device to obtain the best pic possible - you just have to know what they are and practice using them. A lot also depends on the equipment itself. Quality begets quality in the hands of a knowledgeable user.
If you're going to post pics for grading opinions at an Internet forum, scans are better. As GDJMSP mentioned, scans show better detail, and luster is virtually impossible to reproduce accurately without losing the details needed for technical grading. That makes the luster a point of discussion in every thread like this one. Therefore, get the details up as clearly as possible and we'll come to an estimate of luster. Either way, it must be stated that the difference between AU58 and MS is pretty much impossible to photograph (or scan) with many coins.
