1851 Quarter Eagle

[nwcs]

Well, I haven't bought a coin in years and this week I bought 3. I haven't done coin photography in a while, either, so I thought I'd give it a try. In case you're curious it's PCGS AU 58. It seems a bit weakly struck to me but fairly typical of the series from what I can tell.

 

[coinman_23885]

I say this to be helpful, and not critical, but the coin looks to be heavily covered in hairlines consistent with cleaning to me. I don't think it should have straight graded.

[nwcs]

I can see why you say that but in hand it's not abrasively cleaned. In fact there are nice hints of rosy red throughout.

[DaveG]

Nice image.

 

I can certainly see why you say it looks weakly struck (on the eagle's feathers) and I can also see the hairlines on the obverse.

 

Perhaps the hairlines are an indicator that the coin was wiped (with a cloth) rather than more harshly cleaned - or perhaps your imaging exaggerates the hairlines.

[nwcs]

I think there is a bit of a wipe, most old gold does. I think the lighting is making both hairlines and die polish more exaggerated. Next time I'll angle the light differently.

[Hard Times]

I think there is a bit of a wipe, most old gold does. I think the lighting is making both hairlines and die polish more exaggerated. Next time I'll angle the light differently.

 

try using 2 or 3 lights if you only used one for this image. This is typical of many AU gold coins from this era in terms of hairlines at this grade. These kinds of hairlines could occur through normal handling as well. I think if the hairlines crosscut the devices and into the fields, this is where the TPG's draw the line in cleaned vs. gradable, based on what I have learned collecting Liberty gold.

 

Mine has just an many hairlines in the fields but shot differently:

 

[nwcs]

I used two lights on this one but I think the difference is that the relief of the lines were magnified by the angle of the light instead of being minimized by light adjustment. I may retry it tomorrow.