Coinbuf

As this post is a year old and @Woods020 has not been active on this forum for several months does it even matter? Don't get too sucked into another old thread that QA revived out of boredom.

Be careful not to fall into the tunnel vision trap, many new collectors become very focused on a single aspect of a coin and forget to look at the coin as a whole. In your op coin those tone or brownish spots concern me far less than the poor photo and what it might be hiding as opposed to what it shows. I'm not suggesting that you should ignore spots or toning but just remember to evaluate the whole coin.

The problem is your idea of grading is ancient and woefully out of touch with the current market and TPG grading. That is fine for you as you are not a collector and do not buy coins, but your advice is so out of touch that anyone who tries to follow it will never be able to purchase anything, and certainly nothing of quality. While I would prefer to see a return to technical grading that horse has left the barn and now way across the pasture, there is no going back in time.

No, these were counter stamped after they left the mint by someone or some organization to commemorate an event. I have not seen either of these two types of counterstamps so I cannot comment on who stamped them or why. Having said that there are collectors that like to collect counterstamped coins like this so they may be worth a couple of bucks to the right person. Welcome to the forum!

1) I would consider this a liner VG10 F12 coin, I would not be surprised to see some sellers call it VF20. 2) This is a spot on VF30, but another coin that you might see touted as XF40 by some sellers. 3) I agree at XF40, but would not be surprised to see an asking price close AU50 as there appears to be some luster and this date/mm is tougher in AU vs lower circulated grades. Keep in mind that todays market grading also takes the strike quality of a particular mint and date into account, so there can be some allowance given to those known to have poor strikes.

Tough to say, could be some left over tone that did not fully dip off if the coin was dipped. This photo is not lit well, perhaps intentionally to hide or maybe just in a hurry/poor photography skills, now way to know for sure. If the coin was dipped and not rinsed well dip residue will quickly tone back as brown like this too, I would grade this AU from just this single pic, perhaps higher with more and better photos.

While I do not know all the nuances of this process, I would guess that NGC would need some proof before they would process a request to use an already known provenance.

I found a Linkd-in account for a Alexandra Koslow who identifies as a coin collector on that page. Anyone can have their name put onto a slab label if they pay the fee, even if they are only famous in their own mind. I would guess that is the case here, just a person that wanted her name on a (or however many) slabs, I would not place any importance on it.

My grade opinion is not biased so much on the lower feathers, there are MS63 graded coins that show weakness and poorly defined feathers. But when I look at the coin overall it seems to have some slight rub on the cheek, the flowers, the lower braid, and on the upper wing of the eagle. But these coins are very tough to grade from photos, you really have to tilt these into a good light source and see how the light reacts to the surface in order to determine wear from strike weakness. The difference between AU58 and MS62 is very slight.

I agree that the price guides are useful, I only pointed out the PCGS plastic because there are collectors and dealers that only want to deal/buy in PCGS graded coins and then even drill down further to only PCGS coins with the CAC approval. Many of those collectors are willing, and even advertising, that they will pay above guide prices for those coins. In effect those folks are creating a price bubble on top of the current rise in coin prices for that combination of plastic and bean. So a savvy dealer with a high end better date coin with that combination will be likely to know this and willing to wait for the right buyer to squeeze every penny from these coins. I'm actually rather surprised that the dealer was willing to drop his price by $1,000, makes me wonder how long he has been holding onto it. I only buy from two or three select ebay sellers, so I spend very little time on that site anymore, however, I do know that you often will find the same coin for sale by two different sellers now and then. It may be two sellers working together or it could just be one seller who would buy the coin from the first seller and then send to his buyer, in the process making his markup and driving the price up. I find the practice to be somewhat scummy, but we are talking about coin dealers, and I have met many dealers (and collectors) that have no clue what the term ethics even means. I pay little attention to these shenanigans as I decide what price I am willing to spend not the seller, if a seller is way out of the ballpark then I walk with no regrets.

One post on this was enough, see the replies on the newb section thread.

Assuming that it is genuine, my bet is AU58.

Agreed it may well be a mercury plated coin, popular high school science experiment many years ago. Highly unlikely to be an off metal coin.

No.

I would consider that coin as more of an AU55 or 53, pricewise that is mostly in line with the current retail market for an AU58. I would want an AU58 to have less field disturbance than this coin and would keep looking myself, but that is just my personal choice.

That is the reality of the current market, PCGS dealers want retail++ for PCGS CAC coins, just a simple fact. And very often CAC approved coins do sell close to and even in excess of some + graded coins. If you want to collect that brand plastic with the green bean you will be very hard pressed to find a "deal" in this market. And just to clarify, the CAC green bean signifies that a coin is an A or B coin and not a C coin for the grade assigned by the TPG. So without seeing this specific coin my guess is that the dealer feels it is a premium A level coin and worth the lofty price tag, as the potential buyer it is up to you to decide if you agree or to walk away and keep looking. I have found the price guides are way out of whack for the nicer material, they simply cannot keep up with this rapidly rising market. Bty, did you look up what CAC shows for that coin on their website's price report? It may be very close to what the asking price is.

Your desire to collect from rolls and circulation, as well as eliminating the small coins, really only leaves the quarter, half, and small dollars. The quarters will be the easiest to complete given your parameters.

As a general rule if you are talking to an experienced collector or dealer the term "dip" or "dipped" is in reference to the use of an acidic solution, an example of this would a product called Jeweluster or EZ-est. Dip That is what I will always be referring to when I, and most here, use the term dip. Acetone is more often associated with the use of the term "bath" as coins can be safely emersed in pure acetone for hours with no change to the metal. Acetone is not an acidic solution and will not eat or remove any of the metal, it will loosen or dissolve organic matter, good for things like PVC or dirt and grime. But as it does not attack the metal it mostly has no effect on the toning except some types of artificial toning, real toning is bonded to the surface of the coin. As the tone (really silver sulfides) build up the color of the toning will darken because as the toning gets thicker it presents as different interference levels to light. That is why there are rainbow toned coins which exhibit many different colors. Because dip is acidic most people use something to hold the coin while dipping, something other than their fingers, many coin supply stores sell plastic tongs. Much like a vice grip type of tool but soft and will not mar the coin's surface. But because that tiny portion of the tool is in contact with the rim of the coin the dip may not remove the toning in that small area, much like that area around 6 o'clock on this coin. Now on places like etsy, fakebook, twitter, even ebay, and others where some gather to fleece the public, the term "dip" may have many meanings as some many of the sellers on sites like those are very inexperienced and only there to make a quick buck. Depending on the strength of the solution (most dilute dip with water) and length of time the coin is emersed in the dip a layer of the surface of the coin is removed or eaten away. Too long, not enough dilution, too many trips to the dip jar or some combo of these conditions will leave a coin with what is called a dipped out and lifeless look. That happens when so much of the surface is removed that the flow lines are so diminished that there is no luster, no cartwheels left on the coin surface. You may also hear someone call a coin like this as burnt.

The spot at 6 o'clock looks more like a toning spot, maybe where the person who dipped it was holding it. The spots alone do not determine if the coin is AU or BU, but I also agree that it is a dipped AU. On the obv in front of the face, all that chatter is a sure sign of light circulation, this is the type of "slider" that would have been sold as BU prior to TPG grading. Acetone will not have any effect on toning, it will only work on organics, crud, gunk etc. MS70 can work to some degree on this but its not worth the effort on a slider AU.

Wow this thread got derailed quickly.

Parking lot coins are the next big thing in numismatics, I'm ahead of the curve.

Market grading yea...NOT!

Sometimes it is just better to rip off the band-aid quickly rather than prolong the agony.

A lens cloth can leave the surface of a coin with hairlines and a "cleaned" appearance, and a toothpick can easily gouge a coin's surface. I would suggest that you avoid using both of these items in the future. Coin conservation should only be done by someone with experience and coins with numismatic value should never be cleaned, especially by someone that knows nothing about it. However, if you feel the need to experiment use a cull or otherwise face value coin and 100% pure acetone. Soak the coin in acetone for a few minutes up to a few hours if really dirty or stained, the acetone will evaporate quickly so use a closed glass container in a well ventilated area. If you need to remove some very heavy caked on gunk that the acetone will not, use a rose thorn, a rose thorn is soft and has less chance of gouging the surface. As to your question about the coin in the op, I see what appear to be flow lines from when the coin was struck not lines from a tool used post mint. I would also caution the use of a microscope like this, high magnification like this will have you chasing your tail over nothing more than not. I always say the everything looks like something at the micron level.

Are you seriously suggesting that this coin left the mint looking like this? This coin has been intentionally damaged or run over repeatedly in a parking lot, probably both and is not any type of mint error.