Cracking Rarity: 1863/1 Shilling

[7.jaguars]

OK, here is one for you Brit fans. Guess the grade on this with commentary, no fair looking up cert number (I don't know how to erase that out). I'll give my commentary a bit later....

[7.jaguars]

Ah, no guesses? This is as the coin appears in hand, an early strike with very proof-like fields and most likely the nicest overdate 63/1 a person is to see. Anyway, a very nice coin that I'm quite proud of.

[rmw]

A very nice piece!

I just came across your post.

[7.jaguars]

I think readers may be a bit shocked when I give away the grade!

[rmw]

I cheated.

What WHAT?

[7.jaguars]

Boddybagged for cleaning! PUHLEEEEAEEESSE! This coin in hand is truly lovely and is so very proof like, and such a rare date to boot!

 

I prefer this to my very nice (and highly graded) 1850 shilling.

[rmw]

The grader must have had scratches on his/her glasses. Looks gemmy to me. Great coin from the picture anyway. But sometimes resolution in the pic is not good enough to show fine hairlines. I sure dont see any in the pic.

[rmw]

Do you have a picture of your 1850 shilling? Sounds like a great condition rarity, let alone rare as a date.

[7.jaguars]

Have to dig for the coin itself as it is NGC graded 58 (IMO fairly at that). If can get out of SDB, I will get picture. Even the 1854 at MS64 is not so nice.

[rmw]

That would be great. Looking forward to seeing a great rarity.

[physics-fan3.14]

It is impossible to grade coins from the PCGS so-called "True" View glamour shots. It's even harder to grade proofs or prooflikes. 

What I can see looks like an attractive coin - but I'll bet that in hand the coin looks quite different. Impossible to see any hairlines here, but they might appear in hand. Of course, die polish often contributes to PL fields, and a grader may mistake them for hairlines. 

[rmw]

Sometimes you can pick up things like hairlines by downloading the picture and doing some photo editing .

And in some cases when looking at coins from certain auction houses I will ignore their photoshopped picture if an unedited one is available.

[7.jaguars]

This has regraded with our hosts at a "62" but quite a beautiful coin in any case.

[rmw]

I like the pic for sure.

[7.jaguars]

This ended up as a "62" with our hosts...No PL designation.

 

Slightly off topic, but related:

I looked at the Richard Stuart collection of Br. Honduras slabbed by NGC and was rather appalled by the liberal grading of silver and copper. Guess it was not the same graders at work.

[rmw]

I would guess that different graders with different specialties re countries were involved. But you would think that there should be some consistency in the technical grading.

For that reason, more and more, I just use the grade as a guide only in my collecting decisions, and often buy raw pieces anyway.

Let the coin speak for itself, not the holder.

[7.jaguars]

Absolutely, and I apologise for belabouring this post, but this is truly a phenomenal coin in hand and certainly confirmed by having it back once again.

[rmw]

Not at all. I enjoy the discussion.

I have a British piece that shows the limitations of numerical grading, a 1693 shilling ( William and Mary).

it is graded AU 53, which might be low compared to a lot of others out there, although it does have a little wear.

I will take this piece , however, over most that have been graded higher. That is because it is unusually well struck on the obverse. Whereas most pieces of that date, even uncirculated ones,show little or no detail in the hair on the Monarchs portraits primarily due to a poor strike, this one shows nearly full detail despite a bit of wear.