Would very much appreciate your grading opinions on this $ 5 1909 Indian Head. I am not familiar with the series, particularly since the design seems to have been struck incuse rather than the normal way. I hope the photos are clear enough to allow an estimation of the grade. Thanks, eduard
Extremely difficult to grade #1 This coin is extremely difficult to grade in hand. We graded a set of Indians in an advanced grading class & it was pure punishment for all the students. You need to look at the fields & determine if there is any wear and evidence of circulation. This observation will help you initially deternime if it is a circulated grade or MS. Any lack of luster on the field & you should drop it out of contention for an MS grade. You can really only do this with the coin in hand. I'm sorry but I cannot make the determination by your photo. #2 Compare the coin to all the counterfeit detection book photos. I don't have my books with me but the bad coins share a lot of the same reverses. You should look for any tooling marks especially spikes around the perimeter. Any tooling marks are indicative of a fake. Copper spots & other US mint quality is indicative of a genuine coin. Good luck with this one. Do you own it or are you considering buying it?
Since nobody has commented yet, let me share an experience with you. There were about 20 smart people in our advanced grading class and we were all grading the same Indian coin. The grade opinions from the class ranged from EF45 to MS65. As a class, we then graded an entire set of Indians and each coin had the same spread of grade opinions. Those Indians can be tough to grade even with the coin in hand.
Having never tried one of these before, I will say AU55. BTW, if you cannot find anything else to do with it, you can send it to me.
There doesn't appear to be any circulation scratches on the fields, just a couple of small nicks on the reverse above the eagles back. The base of the feathers (the parts that look like clouds) on the headdress look a little flat, but that seems common on this type. I'd want to see an extreme closeup of the front of the eagle's left wing feather; that might be one of the first points to show any wear . With no obvious wear, some nicks, some weak strike points but no sign of circulation, and with rather dull fields, I'd call it MS 62/63.
I'm not as familiar with the 1909 gold coins as I am the copper, nickel and silver... but the mintmark position on yours seems off a bit to me. Here's my 1909-D for comparison: Your mintmark is placed significantly higher so that would concern me a bit if I were trying to authenticate this coin and I'd be searching for certified examples with similar placement of the mintmark before I was comfortable with it. That said, the coin appears to have some minor wear on the eagle's breast and on the headress on the obverse. Also, since the mintmark is the only part of the coin raised above the fields, the mintmark itself wears away very quickly... your "D" looks worn and almost filled in. Again, it's either wear or an added mintmark or just a counterfeit. If genuine, these are very tough coins to grade but I'd give this one an AU53. Edited to add that I did look at some other certified 1909-D $5 Indians and saw a few examples with mintmark placements as high up as the OP's coin so I'm less concerned about it being altered or counterfeit.
Thank you Collect89,davidh, illini420 and rlm for your opinions on this coin. I thought it would be easier to grade this type of coin, but my expertise lies rather with the early types in silver and copper. I bought it at auction in Frankfurt a few years ago, where it was graded as Very Fine....Based on your input at least I now know it is a bit better than that. The sufaces are fairly smooth but there are some contact marks here and there. However, I cannot tell whether it has any wear or not. Once again, thanks!
The coin appears to me to be mint state (63ish), however, the luster is hard to read from the photos, and I'm concerned with the coin's authenticity (striking weakness in Indian's neck).
