Can anyone help me understand Sesquicentenial gold?

[MikeKing]

I'm not at all familiar with either gold (anymore) or gold commemoratives, and have been looking at some Sesquicentenial gold pieces on Heritage's site.

It looks like MS65 is about twice the cost of an MS64, and the price range for MS64's ranges from 3+K to 8K. What's the story?

[BillJones]

At the FUN show I ran into a dealer who had a double row box of Sesquicentennial $2.50 gold pieces. The grades ranged from MS-62 to MS-66. Most of the coins were PCGS graded and a lesser number were NGC coins.

 

I had been looking for one of these coins for quite some time, but had not found the right one at the right price. I looked at them all, which came to over 80 pieces. I was, for the most part very disappointed in the quality of the coins that were graded MS-66, especially since those coins are now bid at $18,200.00 a shot. The bid price on the MS-65 coins is $3,400. The MS-66 coins had too many obvious marks and were really not much better than some of the MS-65 graded and even the "PQ" MS-64s.

 

I ended up buying this piece for ... let's put it this way less than $2,000. It's a PCGS MS-64, which I viewed has "PQ." It has a few marks that one can see with a 10X glass (this photo magnifies every sin the coin has), and it has a couple of copper spots in out of the way places. I think that copper spots are pretty common on these coins. I've seen a lot of Sesqui $2.50 coins that had them.

 

At any rate, here's the piece I bought for myself at FUN:

 

 

[TomB]

Your coin has wonderful eye appeal, Bill, and I believe I can see a few, small copper spots but they truly are not bad.

[MikeKing]

That is a great coin. Thanks for the education about the grading stuff and your photo.