Coinbuf

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I think die polish is difficult for beginners to differentiate from cleaning hairlines, but most experienced collectors, dealers, and graders are not going to "miss" contact marks or damage from an improper cleaning because of die polish lines. At least not with an in hand inspection, judging from a photo it would be much easier to "confuse" hairlines with die polish. As to can it influence the grade, I want to say no but I suspect that in some cases it could and does. One thing to keep in mind is that if a die is polished many times, or a few really aggressive polishes, some of the minor details can be lost. So in those cases, at least in theory, the graders might deduct some for the detail loss. Going back to the Mercury dime, it is easy to tell an over polished die as the bridge of the nose will disappear as it sinks into the field. And if the die polish is an intrusion on the look or eye appeal of the coin that too could be a reason for a grader to deduct.

A very obvious counterfeit to my eye.

For me it's all a matter of degree, some die polish is ok and I do not automatically consider it as a negative. As written above the die polish shown in the photos of your example is rather extreme and that does tip into the negative eye appeal. The large and clear fields of the obv really highlight the polish lines, and I wonder if those are as noticable in hand vs how much they show in the photos. I have noticed that Mercury dimes in general seem to suffer from die polish lines often, most of the time I can look past it as it is "as struck". This coin from my collection sure has a lot of polish lines

Just a worn out die, there is no doubling on this coin.

A 68 would be nice, but the few I have seen listed on a few dealer websites over the past few years have been priced at around 4K, even the NGC graded ones. That is a really steep price tag for me, I think a 67+ is likely all I'll ever be able to afford. There is a PCGS 68 currently listed at $4,750 right now, great looking coin with some light tone, but way out of my budget at almost 5K.

Thank you, the 40-D became the low hanging fruit after you were able to get the points score revised, and while my previous 40-D Washington is very nice ti was always a bit dark for my liking. This upgrade is a better fit from a visual standpoint to most of the other silver coins in the set, still need to find that just right 40-S Merc.

I was able to add a few upgrades myself and get my score back to where it was prior to the removal of the CAC points, you will need more than 3,255 points now.

I purchased this coin from the Stacks and Bowers Fairmont (Rhone set) auction this past Aug. I had been mulling over a couple of lower grade examples on some dealer websites prior to this auction. I am really glad that I happened to look thru that auction as this coin is nicer than the two that I had been considering and less expensive (even with the vig) than the MS62+ coin on one dealers website. These are the S&B auction photos as I have not sent this to anyone for photos as of yet, MS63 CAC green bean.

Yep I agree with @Lem E and @The Neophyte Numismatist, heat damage, too close to the campfire.

If the dealer has a return option then it might be worth an in hand look, I usually try and give the TPG's the benefit of the doubt if I only have photos to go by. After all they have seen the coin in hand, sure they do make mistakes but they get it right most of the time. I would not fault your for passing on it, just some food for thought.

A very individual question that will resonate with each collector differently. Also, it would be useful if you would define what you consider the term "worth buying" means to you in the context of this discussion. Are you defining worth as in hoping for increased value in the future, or worth as in for the enjoyment of collecting those items. If you like those types of things and want to collect them by all means do so, just be careful not to be overpaying for them. For myself errors and varieties are not a focus of any kind for my collection, I enjoy studying them to understand how those things happen, but I have almost zero desire to own them. That is not to say that I have none in my collection, I do have a few clips, DDO's, overdates and over mintmarks, I do not own any errors as I consider them damaged and I do not usually want damaged coins in my collection. However almost all of those that I have I acquired many years ago when these types of coins were far less expensive than in todays market. Overall I see the error and variety market as a thin market that seems very easily manipulated, not that the overall coin market cannot also be manipulated, but the thinner the slice of the market the easier it is to manipulate. That manipulation can come from both inside and outside of the hobby, as an example; over the years I have seen many dealers (and collectors) use the "pump and dump" method to move inventory that might otherwise be difficult to sell. I honestly cannot count the number of times I have seen this done on coin forums, and the TPG registries have also given traction to items that would otherwise be very obscure. Another thing to consider is what resource to use in determining which errors or varieties to collect. Just this past week the PCGS registry deleted several varieties from lots of different coin series/sets. This seems (I say seems as there has been no direct communication from the folks at PCGS yet) to be in response to the new CPG which is what PCGS uses as their registry reference. There are a couple of threads on the PCGS forum with a few collectors that are very upset over the paper value losses they perceive to have suffered due to this sudden and unannounced change.

I only just saw this thread, I tend to unplug from the forums over the weekend. The photos are woefully insufficient for anyone to make much of a guess from. That is not a knock on you, I am assuming that these are the sellers photos, but it is not surprising that you had only one grade guess from those photos. Also, just to clarify I am guessing that you meant wing feathers not breast feathers, that is not a Morgan dollar. Anyway should you decide to purchase it, which seems unlikely given your reply, please update with your own photos, that might get some better dialog going.

I spent many hours revamping the look of this set in an attempt to make it more user friendly, I think it is better but I don't know. The custom registry is both open in many ways and yet very difficult and restrictive in others. In order to have photos of the slabs vs just closeups of the coins, (this set is about the slabs so that is what is important to see) I had to start from scratch and recreate each line as a want list coin instead of owned as most of the coins are. Something I considered was reducing the size of the set to include only one coin per type of holder, but I have the coins so why not include them all, but does that make the set difficult and perhaps boring to view? I attempted to include as much information on each slab type as I have in the description of the first example of each type, but I still have more to add on several of those and if anyone has any additional data on a type please let me know. Link to my custom set

Welcome to the forums, many new collectors are drawn to "shiny" coins as they often stand out against the usual dull coins we see in our change. That alone does not mean a coin has any value over its face value, this coin might have been pulled and placed into an album by a collector many years ago and if that collector passes and the collection is broken up many coin dealers suggest that coins like this that have no real value of their face value should just be spent by the heirs. Nothing wrong with holding onto this coin if you like it, but from only the obv photos you have provided I do not see anything that would make this worth more than the face value.

I don't know if there is any exact answer, I can say that from experience looking thru the coins that I collect via my business that the Denver coins seem to be of better quality. I noticed on many of the Philly quarters in recent years those coins would exhibit a strange ring around the coin in the fields, this looks to have been caused from poor production or quality control, I seldom saw this on any of the Denver coins. Additionally, I noticed on the crossing the Delaware quarters that a large percentage of Denver quarters have an almost proof like quality to the fields, conversely most of the Philly coinage I encountered appeared dull and lackluster. I attribute some of this to living on the west coast as Philly coins have to travel longer thru commerce channels before I see them, still even the best uncirculated coins that I have seen the Philly coins just don't seem on par with those from Denver. Also, it seems to me that most of the error coinage that I have seen or read about comes from the Philly mint, maybe there are more shenanigans that happen at the Philly mint, or maybe the QC is lower there, I don't know.

I did not do a deep dive on this coin, and I'm not a variety or rossie collector, but in general yes, it looks to me that this is a coin that might take time to find the right buyer. And I suspect that the sale price may not be one to take your breath away.

The 68 proof does look to match FS-502, so that coin would be worth the cost to have certified. The caveat to that is it could still be a tough sell as varieties are a thin market dominated by collectors that prefer to find these varieties themselves vs buying them already certified. As I type this there is an NGC certified PF67 of this variety for sale on Great Collections listed at $400 but no bids, I'm not sure how long that coin has been listed by GC. And to add to that PCGS just delisted many varieties from its registry and database, I'm not sure but I think this was one of those PCGS delisted. The 85 is a mess and is not eye catching or appealing at all to me, it looks like a victim of environmental damage. While the appetite for toned coins surprises me all the time, I doubt there are many collectors that would pay anything, much less a premium, for that look.

You have a circulated 1923 Peace dollar, the value of the coin is largely tied to the spot price of silver and is worth around $25 give or take a buck.

Enjoy your newps!

Can you explain why you feel it would be worth having this coin graded? From your photos I see no reason to spend $60+ dollars on this coin.

Hope everyone that can attend has "Fun" Much too far and too expensive for us poor collectors on the West coast to go.