JKK

Indicators vary from coin to coin. I've never seen a Morgan that didn't strike up the rims fully (unlike the Peaces we were talking about at that time), but I have seen them with weakness in the breast feathers and other high points. On the obverse, I think sometimes the hair in mid-design comes up weak, maybe the little dots in the cotton bolls. Think of how the metal is forced upward and mooshed into the cavities, and where would be the last to strike up cleanly.

No; no; no.

That's weird-looking, all right, but I can't see any way it can be anything but an O--perhaps a filled one. Doesn't look deliberately altered; the ding across it looks like a circulation nick. Nice-looking piece and good photo, by the way. This might be one of those cases where a blowup of the MM might help.

Far as I am concerned, the coin has to meet all the grade requirements on both sides. I don't believe in split grades as an ultimate outcome, nor averaged net grades. I would say that one has an F-12 obverse, arguably, and a VG-8 reverse (can't make out much in the way of ribs in the leaves). Overall, thus, VG-8. Perhaps VG-10, since there are at least the faint vertical divots of a few leaves visible. I don't see how it gets less than 8, and I see no way it gets 12. Nice piece. Maybe someone who is more of an enthusiast will shovel around in Penny Whimsy and find the die marriage, which is possible thanks to some of the most excellent photography I've ever seen here.

That's weird-looking, all right, but I can't see any way it can be anything but an O--perhaps a filled one. Doesn't look deliberately altered; the ding across it looks like a circulation nick. Nice-looking piece and good photo, by the way. This might be one of those cases where a blowup of the MM might help.

That's weird-looking, all right, but I can't see any way it can be anything but an O--perhaps a filled one. Doesn't look deliberately altered; the ding across it looks like a circulation nick. Nice-looking piece and good photo, by the way. This might be one of those cases where a blowup of the MM might help.

That does not surprise me. No one behaves for very long in Portland, I find.

Out of curiosity, what part of Oregon? I live in the western burbs of Portland.

No worries. They are probably meeting on Zoom right now, like us, but you can still get in touch and get notified with a Zoom meeting link. Ours typically has a howdy session at the start, whatever new business exists (budget report, project progress), YN and adult member presentations, and then the coin drawing. When we meet in person, it's longer because the howdy session is an extra hour with a bourse (people selling coins), raffle ticket sales, general convo and banter, before we get into the main meeting. I bet they could enrich your numismatic experience a great deal.

And that's the spice of life.
For ANA member clubs, I found one in Southaven and one in Vicksburg. No idea how close those might be to you. If you are near a border, we might search that area. Here is a link so you can check it out, since the only things I know about MS geography is it touches the Gulf of Mexico and is between Alabama and Louisiana. It looks like both clubs sponsor regular coin shows, which is one of the customary ways clubs make money so they can have nice things. Ours (in Portland, Oregon) has one in October, but there are nearby clubs that also have their own, and we all sort of support and know each other, and many of our members visit their shows as well; I think there's also a club on the Washington side, in Van. Anyway, either of the clubs on the ANA list would probably be able to give you good information based on your area.

It actually looks like it may originally have been a decent strike. Take a look at the rims, which were once full (if perhaps not deep). I have Peaces that have such terrible strikes that they never had rims, just diagonal beveling connecting edge to surface. The lettering has survived enough to make me think it must once have been decent, if perhaps not sharp.

The first two are pretty sharp. Bottom one is a little muddy. I think it's easy to overestimate the need of zoom and underestimate the need of clarity.

It's not pestering to ask legitimate questions, especially if they come with good pics we didn't have to complain about (you would not believe the *spoon* photography people expect us to interpret). You'd have a very long ways to go, posting many posts that got the same answer and demonstrating no learning, to reach the pestering stage. From the reply I'm guessing that you'll gain in knowledge and that your later questions will start to be deeper, so it's all cool. Glad to see you joining our hobby. There are aspects of it you might really like, starting with the value of reputation and integrity. (Which not everyone has a good version of either--but we tend to know who does, and it means lasting earned respect.)

Don't know about anyone else, but for me the Ignore User function is how I remind myself that at one point, I decided that a certain poster was not worth my time to engage. It's the easiest way the technology offers.

Either they were a male_generative_organ to someone for no good reason, or I decided they were insufficiently_intellectual, or they posted so many debris posts I didn't want to encourage them, or committed some other act of gross insensitivity. So someone will post a 30-line para; Ignored, life's too short, you can't be bothered to be readable, I can't be bothered to shovel literary debris. Someone gets snippy with a well-intentioned regular telling them what they don't want to hear? Ignored; I don't come here to take that from people I try to help. Someone nags because they didn't get an answer in ten minutes tops? Ignored; don't need nagging.
My board life becomes much simpler thereby. Basically, I let most of you assume the best of people and test them out to see how they act. You can now throw stuff at me. When I see a junk post, I figure 'Stang or JustBob or some other eternally kind person will deal with them. Or not, and not is okay too. If they don't, eventually, Kurt will do Kurt, and we'll find out that way too.

You might be surprised to find out what a big thing exonumia is. At our club, seems like half the presentations are about tokens. We've got one guy who is probably Oregon's foremost expert on those from this state. They love this stuff and have a lot of knowledge in TAMS.

That one might be tough. You might have to contact TAMS and see if they have a forum where you can ask. Most trade tokens have some sort of indication of where they might be valid, and this doesn't have any such thing. Don't assume it's somewhere in the US; in my search through a couple hundred, I found many that were non-US.

1919 was my thought.

One bit of information that might not yet be 100% clear to you is that if an auction house is offered the coins, they typically handle sending them in to be slabbed/graded/authenticated. This gives you several advantages. First of all, they get faster treatment; I won't editorialize on that, but let's just say that most businesses in this world will prioritize their highest volume customers and that would include the auction houses. Second, they get whatever discount they get, which means you get that discount. Third, it means you don't have to fool around with learning how to do it. They probably send in many coins per day and they certainly know how to do it correctly, which if you did it on your own, you would have to learn and be worried about doing it wrong.
Your greatest risk is the possibility that some or all might be returned as not authentic; that some might get details grades (such as AU, cleaned or EF, damaged) rather than straight numeric AU-50 or EF-45. You should at least brace for some of this. The truth is what it is and this is how you learn the truth (or at least the truth through the eyes of a highly experienced evaluator). This is why people buy from auction houses: they expect to be able to take authenticity on faith. This is not possible on Ebay, for example.
Don't be shocked if they do not list all your coins at once. Flooding the market is rarely to your advantage pricewise. They typically decide on timing and you should keep an open mind about it, bearing in mind that their goal is to obtain the highest bidding for your coins, that yours aren't the only ones on auction at any given time, and that they've got a lot of experience with this.

Glad to help. I understand how overwhelming it can be to go there and look for coin supplies, and see seven listings that all seem at first to be the same thing. It creates a worry that one is getting the wrong thing, going to have a headache, feel like a dork. (Take a guess how I know that.) I figured we could burn this signal right through all that noise.
Long term, for vendors, if you ask about here there'll be lots of responses on coin suppliers. No experienced collector here is going to use anyone bad, so you should feel pretty safe there. But for starters, this is just one option.

Let me simplify the storage options a bit. There are cardboard flips (usually 2x2; there are 1.5x1.5s as well) that you fold over and staple, and write on the outside. There are Saflips or other clear plastic flips, where you slip the coin inside but do not seal it, and you stick a little cardboard insert in the other side containing the information. The "coin pages" are the album pages where you can arrange those flips (I got mine from BCW; I say got because I ordered too many and what I have will probably last me for life). They work for either cardboard or plastic flips. This is the most common way. You can see it on display in the type books of any coin shop.

Why would you pick one way over the other? I use cardboard for modern coins and clear plastic for ancients, which are my main area of collecting. This is because once I've identified and graded a modern coin, there isn't much else I'll ever need to do with it. I won't be taking it back out unless the mylar gets torn, and I won't need to write new stuff on it. For medieval and ancient stuff, I sometimes want/need to reprint the insert with corrected information; I also sometimes need to take the coin out for a closer look at this or that, put it under strong magnification. Also, the clear plastic is one size fits almost all (except for great big hockey pucks like 1790s Russian 5 kopeks, Maria Theresia thalers, and other lethal weapons). Obviously, the cardboard flips only fit that size or smaller, so penny flips could be used for dimes but nothing larger.
Other storage options include airtites and the like (solid clear plastic containers that sort of snap together, either round or squared up to 2x2), or encapsulation slabs (basically a homebrew version of what grading services use) which are a fancier version of the airtite genre. It's a very individual thing and there is no right or wrong way provided you protect the coins from avoidable damage.
If I were you, doing what you're doing, I'd go with the 2x2 cardboard flips. This is the Honda Accord of coin storage. They are sized to fit each denomination of US coin, so you want to get the penny ones, typically sold by the hundred; get a couple hundred, they aren't spendy. Either get a flat-clinch stapler or prepare to do some work with pliers as you go (I still use the pliers; don't like flat-clinch, but I'm in a small minority). Also get a pack of twenty album pages, the 20-pocket kind. That should keep you out of the fleshpots for a while. You'll probably develop a preferred stapling pattern (I'm pretty fascist about mine), format for labeling the flips, and so on. Don't forget that if you find you don't like a method, you can always change; you'll only be out the small cost of supplies. I looked on BCW and came up with the following itemization for the supplies I suggest:

2x2 paper flips q100, penny, q2: $5.49 x 2 = $10.98
Pro 20-pocket page, pack of 20: $5.99
Max flat clinch #10 stapler: $14.99 (optional)
Max #10 staples, box: $5.99 (optional; out of stock)
Shipping: probably $10ish; this is a smaller amount than most collectors buy. If you prefer a normal stapler and pliers, and have your staples already, obviously that's off the shopping list. I like one of those mousetrap staplers with spring-loading that bangs down with a brutal whack, and I then plier the staples flat in such a way as to drive the tips into the cardboard which reduces snagging, but I might be the only one who thinks it's worth the effort. Obviously you can also buy the flips and pages at your coin dealer (they will like you) and the staple stuff at Office Despot (they won't care but they also won't be out of stock on fricking staples).
Hope that helps bring some clarity to the avalanche of confusing options.

I did not say they didn't mix metals. I mentioned brass. Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc.
I mentioned pewter. Pewter is an alloy of tin, antimony (or lead, in earlier times), copper, bismuth, and sometimes, silver.
Coins made from silver were almost always mixed with some metal, usually copper.
 
My point was that the way the quote from Coinquest was worded could be misleading.
Your replica is very likely pewter, which is why some silver showed in the test.
I am just trying to help you understand that your coin is a replica, and that many of them have been, and are still being, made and sold. Evidently, I am doing a poor job of it.
If you want to disagree with my assessment, that is fine.
 
 

As Lem E suggested, I would begin by ordering a current Red Book (search for Red Book US Coins 2021). While the prices are not going to be current, they will give you an idea in relative terms what's what. Another good buy would be the ANA Grading Standards guide, which will teach you how to assess the coins' condition. If you're only focusing on a couple of types (IHPs and Lincs), you should pretty quickly get good at seeing the stuff the standards describe. For example, on the reverse of wheaties, to get VG-8 or better it's got to have half the lines showing on top of the wheat stalks. For F-12, need 'em all, however weak some might be. The reason I suggest addressing this at this point is that the boards, while interesting collectors items that should in no way be tossed, probably have sulfur-containing cardboard which long term isn't good for the coins.
So: if you're going to be popping them out and putting them in flips, it is easier to grade them when they are outside the flips, and for that you'll want those books. If you do decide to put them in flips (cardboard/mylar or clear plastic Saflips, your call, pros and cons of each), might be nice to get some album pages (2x2s fit twenty to a page) whereby you could if you wished leave blank spaces for those you want to fill later. Basically it's creating your own board but one that fits in a binder and isn't going to f-bomb up the coins.
Cool collection. That should help you get moving on understanding what you have.

One bit of information that might not yet be 100% clear to you is that if an auction house is offered the coins, they typically handle sending them in to be slabbed/graded/authenticated. This gives you several advantages. First of all, they get faster treatment; I won't editorialize on that, but let's just say that most businesses in this world will prioritize their highest volume customers and that would include the auction houses. Second, they get whatever discount they get, which means you get that discount. Third, it means you don't have to fool around with learning how to do it. They probably send in many coins per day and they certainly know how to do it correctly, which if you did it on your own, you would have to learn and be worried about doing it wrong.
Your greatest risk is the possibility that some or all might be returned as not authentic; that some might get details grades (such as AU, cleaned or EF, damaged) rather than straight numeric AU-50 or EF-45. You should at least brace for some of this. The truth is what it is and this is how you learn the truth (or at least the truth through the eyes of a highly experienced evaluator). This is why people buy from auction houses: they expect to be able to take authenticity on faith. This is not possible on Ebay, for example.
Don't be shocked if they do not list all your coins at once. Flooding the market is rarely to your advantage pricewise. They typically decide on timing and you should keep an open mind about it, bearing in mind that their goal is to obtain the highest bidding for your coins, that yours aren't the only ones on auction at any given time, and that they've got a lot of experience with this.

The coin looks AU, and while the ding might very well result in a details grade, that details grade would be XF at an absolute minimum.

Looks like a normal cent that spent a long time in a tumbler, or something else that caused outsize wear. I bet if you weighed it, it would come in very light to reflect the metal loss. Probably short in diameter as well.