New spray painted Buffalo..

[jom]

Yes...that's right. I caught up with that poor Buffalo I was chasing with my paint gun. Look what I did with it! Even NGC graded it. The fools....

 

 

jom

[TomB]

You did one heck of a job on that one! You even got the luster to look real!

[Wihlborg]

Jom,

 

That is one heck of a good looking '25s!

 

I believe that this is the first ‘25s that I have ever seen with rainbow rim toning.

 

Great job spraying, err…I mean snagging that coin.

 

John

[jom]

In all seriousness (I think): I'm always the one to point out the flaws in the coins I get. I mean, there IS a reason NGC graded it 62.

 

1) Strike. This one is obvious...the weakness around the perifery and the devices is typical for the date. However, it is probably somewhat better than the 16-D and 16-S I bought earlier this year...and they graded 63 at PCGS. Therefore there MUST be something else...

 

2) The coin is "marginally" mint state. There is SIGNIFICANT rub on the Buff's hip bone...it is well into the lower part even. BUT (watch out...here comes my rationalization!) there are really any circulation marks to speak of. Not enough anyway to say the coin got this "rub" from circulation. It may have rub but it probably didn't circulation. Therefore it is uncirculated but NOT mint state...?? My guess the rub came from the holder it was clearly in.... It was also suggested to me that the weakness on the hip is a strike problem. I don't buy that one however since MOST of the time Buff's don't have strike problems there...

 

3) Hairlines. Possibly from a clean (although VERY light) and maybe from the slide holder.

 

4) Toning. It is completely real, IMO. The "tight" color bands tell me this is the case. Other people probably have differing opinions but there's mine...

 

Any thoughts?

[Hoot]

Sweet coin and looks very eye appealing, especially for the date/mint. The 25-S is VERY hard to come by in a coin that is superior in one way or another. Most gems are unappealing (to me) for the 25-S, and I've seen few that have nice character, fewer with great toning, like yours.

 

You're right that there is a little rub in the hip and shoulder area of the bison, but the lack of detail in the tail is strike weakness. If that much of the tail had been missing from rub, the the coin would have been worn overall, which it's not. Also, rub/storage friction can at least be partly distinguished from light circulation by the absence of significant field marks (tics, hits, breaks in luster). With such marks, the likelihood is greater that the coin circulated; without, the coin may simply have been handled/mishandled in a way that caused breaks in device luster from sliding about in envelopes, cabinets or having album slides over the surfaces. Single-sided rub is often from coins in cabinets (one side down), loose coins in a box, or album slides (which also often leave straight, parallel hairlines). Two-sided rub is often what is seen on coins from envelope storage. (Just generalities).

 

Here's an excerpt from a Coin Values article I wrote that is in their December newsstand version:

 

The terms MS (mint state), Unc. (uncirculated), and BU (brilliant uncirculated), are all used with a loose wag of the tongue to indicate a coin whose condition is not significantly impaired from how it was when it left the Mint. Loosely speaking, these terms all mean the same thing. Strictly speaking, any coin is MS. MS, which is usually followed by a numerical grade, is a comparison, of sorts, of a coin’s current state of preservation to how we imagine it was as it left the coin press.

 

On the other hand, an Unc. coin, strictly speaking, has not passed from hand to hand in some form of monetary transaction. However, this is a nearly impossible state to recognize for coins of even the slightest antiquity, so it is oft more loosely translated to coins that show no visible signs of having been circulated with an attending public. Like MS, this term has broad implication, but may be more narrowly related to a given range of grades.

 

The cousin term to Unc. is BU. Brilliant uncirculated coins, as usually applied, are coins that show a natural Mint brilliance and no discoloration that one may otherwise expect for a coin to take on over time. However, BU is more often more loosely translated to be synonymous with Unc.

 

I'll add here (if it isn't obvious), that the narrowest of these terms is BU, since it supposedly only refers to uncirculated coins that are untarnished. Uncirculated coins can include BU plus toned pieces that have not circulated but may have attained rub from cabinet friction or a related collector phenomenon. Mint state can be applied to any coin, so it's the broadest of the terms. For MS, all you're doing is comparing a coin's condition to a presumed or hypothetical condition as the coin left the press or even what the best of the coins were that left the press. We simply narrow our use of MS to the grade ranges of 60-70, the lower of which includes coins that may have circulated lightly or have some form of rub. MS coins (obviously) need not be brilliant.

 

Hoot

[Wihlborg]

Jom,

 

My take on the coin is basically the same as yours. The strike is typical for the date. Mark wise the coin is very clean. There is significant rub on the hip, as well as what looks like a little on the lower cape/upper shoulder, however I agree that the coin probably did not circulate, and rather the rub came from the coin being stored in an album and having the album’s slide come in contact with these areas as it was opened and closed.

 

This theory would also account for the toning, which is beautiful and absolutely natural in my opinion. Overall I think the coin is a technical AU that was bumped (market graded) to a low MS grade due to what it is, a rarer date that did not circulate, but has some rub due to the way it was stored, and has other attributes (very clean, nice toning) that make up for the rub.

 

Regardless of what grade someone may call it, I think it is a nice coin for the date and worthy of the value the MS-62 grade gives it.

 

John