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Is a straight grade unusual for this 1796 half?
brianc1959
Posts: 342 ✭✭✭✭✭
The stars are engraved. Shouldn't this be a details coin?
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brianc1959
Posts: 342 ✭✭✭✭✭
brianc1959
Posts: 342 ✭✭✭✭✭
brianc1959
Posts: 342 ✭✭✭✭✭
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They sure are. Nice catch. I'd notify the auction company. It's possible the TPGS missed it.
Good catch indeed.
Nice work!
Hmmmmmm. It's clearly just junque now. Better send it to me for disposal.
This coin was sold by HA earlier this year in their Central States auction. To HA's credit, the lot description mentions "expertly reengraved stars."
It's possible the TPG guys noticed it and used a different standard (net grading) due to the significant importance of a small eagle half dollar. It's not like there are 50 others on the market to chose from. TOO BAD someone messed up what would have otherwise have been an entirely wholesome coin to make such a trivial, useless modification.
It's scary if a details exception was made because of scarcity. Defeats the TPG's purpose, IMO.
RE: "It's possible the TPG guys noticed it and used a different standard (net grading) due to the significant importance of a small eagle half dollar."
Once cannot "net grade" deliberate alterations any more than once can "net authenticate" a 1916 Mercury dime with added 'D'.
interesting
The TPG should have picked this up and given it a details grade. The coin is too important to call it "junk," but many collectors would rather have a straignt graded piece.
It's too bad. The hair detail would have made ideal for my set, although I'm not sure about what might be going on with the reverse. The weakness in the certer concerns me.
Here is the one in my set, which is the same grade. I had hoped to find one in VF, but it just was not in the cards. There has been another one floating around for the past couple of years that is much sharper, but it has a scratch that is really distracting.
You don't straight grade Fraudulently Altered coins!
Ever
Once cannot "net grade" deliberate alterations any more than once can "net authenticate" a 1916 Mercury dime with added 'D'.
Wrestling with this statement....
EAC guys will net grade large cents with deliberate alterations (burnishing, re-engraving, etc), but I'm sure no one would net authenticate a 1799 altered from a 1798.
But that's EAC, not a major TPG.
I agree that regardless of the scarcity or appeal, it should have been put in a Genuine holder.
Now as to why they didn't - that's for much bigger fish than me to explain.
High five to Heritage for mentioning the re-engraving!
Net grading will open up a can of worms. Most collectors have a pet peeve and dislike certain distractions more than others. Who’s to say if scratches are more annoying than rim bumps, porosity, cleaning, re-engraving, etc? I can handle a rim bump, other things are a no go. Other collectors don’t mind a cleaning or whatever.
The late Herb Silberman used to grade coins with "fixes" on them Basal State-1, no matter how sharp they were aside from the repair.
@Walkerguy21D said: "Wrestling with this statement....
"EAC guys will net grade large cents with deliberate alterations (burnishing, re-engraving, etc),..."
Say it isn't so! Is this in the EAC Grading Guide? I don't remember that exactly.
tisk tisk, should not be straight graded!
Many members on this forum that now it cannot fit in my signature. Please ask for entire list.
This coin has been around for a while in this holder. It should never be in a straight graded holder. It should be bought back by PCGS and put in a details holder.
Say it isn't so! Is this in the EAC Grading Guide? I don't remember that exactly.
I don't know, I don't own the EAC grading guide....I do, however, read large cent auction catalogs with detailed lot descriptions written by prominent EAC members.....so I guess I chalk this up to real life differing from the text book.
Does the PCGS Grading Guide explain net grading? Many seem to think it happens. I don't recall seeing it in the first edition, but perhaps it appears in later editions.
Let me be clear, I agree with what y'all are saying. If I unknowingly bought a coin and discovered an alteration like this later, I'd be pretty upset. If it was a 5-figure 18th Century rarity, I'd be furious. I'm just of the opinion that maybe...... possibly the people in the grading room made a conscious decision to overlook this. I think it's a bridge too far as all of you do, but things do happen. I suppose three professional graders could have flatly missed something this glaringly "wrong" but it seems unlikely on a coin of this magnitude. I'm quite certain 5-figure coins get a more thorough look than run-of-the-mill widgets. Either way putting it into a straight-grade holder was a mistake, and should be corrected. Given the cert number, the coin was most likely formerly in a rattler or OGH and possibly re-holdered at some point.
The auction house did the correct thing in pointing out the re-engraving. The new (or current) owner might not care. With or without the engraving the coin is insanely desirable (at different price points) due to pesky nature of type collecting. It's not like it's a subtle problem and it currently isn't being deceptively offered. If the new (or current) owner decides to avail themselves of the guarantee, our hosts would almost certainly make it right à la grade guarantee.
Funny that it turned around so quickly from one auction to another, n'est-ce pas?
Any chance something was smoothed out on the reverse south and west of the center?
Looks possible.
that coin has been around for a while you should be able to find an old post about it. I was offered that coin raw in 2007 or 8. It is very obvious in hand and never should have gotten by a grader. I an amateur caught it right away. i wish I had bought it back then it was really cheap.
They certainly do. Here's a straight-graded VG8. It also happens to be an R7.
Lance.
HOLY.... There are too "X's" on each side of that coin. IMO, this is a clear case of net grading by a major TPGS.
I have a confession but keep it to yourself. I'm a fairly strict grader and every place I've worked since 1990 I've been told to try and lighten up. My finalizers, like to show me coins in other TPGS's slabs such as the two POS coins in this thread to make their point.
Buy the coin not the slab because this stuff will not stop UNTIL professional graders just describe the condition of the coin (grade) and let other professionals price them when they reach the market.
I've posted about this exact coin a couple of times in the past.
I'd be interested in reading those - do you have a link, or maybe just a rough date when you posted?
That's a really great coin you've got! Utterly envious.
I can't find an online photo of it, but the Dan Holmes S-80 Jefferson Head '95 large cent (Goldberg Auction '09) was in a straight graded PCGS VF20 holder, and clearly showed what was described as 'parallel hairline scratches' in the hair, and additional ones over the cap and into the field. It also appears in the photograph to have been lightly smoothed or burnished, but no mention of that. It's a high R5, and I think only one other is in a higher state of existence.
It was previously graded by ANACs as F12, and EAC graded VF25 net F12, and brought >$90k in the auction, despite the issues.
I find it hard to believe they would "straight" net grade it. The EAC folks are VERY particular. They may net grade it with a mention of the defect which is effectively a details grade.
"VF net Fine" is not a straight grade, it indicates there is a defect. The 1796 half does not mention any "XF details net F"
To be honest, when I first magnified the image and saw the stars I thought they looked cool (silly me!!), but then I read the Heritage blurb and caught on to the problem. Kind of glad the coin is out of my reach right now, since otherwise I might have been foolish enough to trust the slab if I hadn't read the description. Lesson #1: don't be so trusting. Lesson #2: get smarter!
The day before FUN 2011(?) Platinum Night, Tony Terranova and @specialist catch the previously raw (IIRC Dr. French) 6/85) 1794 $1 catalogued in the raw sale as having had some hair re-engraved. It was in a PCGS AU55 holder and looking to be reasonable at that morning's $400K all-in current bid, $500K as a murmured shot 58. It was withdrawn. A bit more than a year goes by, then it's for sale via direct purchase on the Heritage website at $250K. For a long time the few times I noticed.
Don't know what to consider as a better esthetic (lesser intrusion?) for each of the foci of center and rim.
If I knew what I was saying had a point, rather than simply being a dramatically expensive data point, I would say "Just sayin".
As a dealer I have sometimes dealt with coins that made me queasy, though I must say it was never my goal to get a straight grade on that not-so-lightly-cleaned VF 1792. The lines were much less obnoxious in the AT holder.
On the other other hand, me looking, @MrEureka pricing and Don Kagin selling, we buying ($103,500 yowza), I'd happily defend the Parmelee 1792 Silver Disme (three known) with the two big "original" scratches and VF30'ish details in what I think is a current VG8 holder.
Calling the sequela of alteration "damaged", "enhanced" "repaired", "holed and repaired", accident, idiocy, art or avarice aside, are, to many, levels of a numismatic Dantean's descent through the Circles of Hell. Beyond and below dreck, degenerate degrading gradations of scheisse.
"Weird scenes inside the gold mine"
CJ,
Your post of Chapter CXXXIV of Fear and Loathing in Coinland was entertaining, I think. This miserable grasshopper will now have to spend the rest of the evening figuring out what it means. I think I'd rather take a GSAT again.
RMR: 'Wer, wenn ich schriee, hörte mich denn aus der Engel Ordnungen?'
CJ: 'No one!' [Ain't no angels in the coin biz]
Let me translate this into English for collectors who are not “insiders.” When they are selling it to you, these problems are not important. When you are are selling it to them, it’s a mountain as high as Everest, and if you paid more than a relative pittance for it, you’re screwed. I’ve been down that road enough times to know how it works.
Except for 3-4 stars where the lines don't intersect perfectly, this may have been missed. Whoever did the job needed to wear the stars down a tad more.
If the coin were raw, it would be a perfect candidate for getting repaired. Smooth the stars, retone the coin, and who would ever notice? Just saying...
Doggedly collecting coins of the Central American Republic.
Visit the Society of US Pattern Collectors at USPatterns.com.
As long as we're talking re-engraved stars, add this one to the list....
Points off for visible knife marks, and this one is not even noted in the description!
https://coins.ha.com/itm/early-half-dollars/half-dollars/1805-4-50c-fine-12-pcgs-pcgs-population-13-170-ngc-census-4-63-cdn-900-whsle-bid-for-problem-free-ngc-pcgs-fine/a/1274-7551.s?ic4=GalleryView-Thumbnail-071515
https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/comment/11642051#Comment_11642051
https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/comment/11032860#Comment_11032860
https://coins.ha.com/itm/early-half-dollars/1796-50c-16-stars-etched-stars-ncs-vf-details/a/1104-2307.s
So the coin was in a details holder, but a buyer must have cracked it and slipped it by the second time.
I would take issue with the cataloger's statement about "expertly reengraved stars". They're comical, IMO.
Top is the OP coin. Below it is a higher grade VF with natural wear.
I have a hard time believing graders "missed it". It was shamelessly net graded.
Lance.
I highly doubt this coin was not in a PCGS holder in 2007-8. Take a look its serial number (06872907). It should be a coin either reholdered or re-graded from an OGH. You must see another regraved one.
Based on its serial number, when the coin was graded, there wasn’t detailed grade holder at the time so that this coin must be net-graded.
That's true...at the time it was submitted body-bagged coins were returned unholdered.
But the question is, did PCGS miss it or was it net-graded?
If it were submitted today under the guarantee would PCGS write a check?
Lance.
It was in an NCS holder as VF-details in April 2008 [see my post above for the slab photo].
Clearly it moved to its F-15 PCGS holder before its next auction appearance in July 2009.
So it could definitely have been raw in 2008, for some period of time between when it was sold in April 2008, and the July 2009 auction.
...it’s bit of a bad look no matter which way you slice it, or however many more threads get started about it...A shot-caller at PCGS should be able to make this problem sleep with the fish pretty easy...unless the owner won’t budge...Probably the coin is rare enough to outshine the label...but that doesn’t mean the label should be incorrect...a brand new pair of Jordan’s should look the same regardless of who’s feet go in them. I’m pretty sure Russell Westbrook’s pairs get more looks than mine though...Kinda like how the OP coin gets and will continue to get more looks than anything I have ever owned in PCGS plastic...Nobody’s perfect but The Best stay squeaky clean and that takes effort
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@Insider2 said:
@Walkerguy21D said: "Wrestling with this statement....
"EAC guys will net grade large cents with deliberate alterations (burnishing, re-engraving, etc),..."
Say it isn't so! Is this in the EAC Grading Guide? I don't remember that exactly.
I find it hard to believe they would "straight" net grade it. The EAC folks are VERY particular. They may net grade it with a mention of the defect which is effectively a details grade.
**
I did NOT say EAC will straight net grade anything....as they are not a TPG, I don't think that warrants any discussion. And frankly EAC net grades pretty much everything.
Further, my point on the '95 Jeff head was that another defective coin was straight graded by PCGS also, and net graded by EAC....no one called it Genuine details, or whatever you guys are all gunning for.
Sorry for trying to contribute anything - we obviously already have enough experts on the forum....
Certainly the OP coin should not be a straight grade. That is definite. I would like to hear from PCGS on why it was graded this way. We can debate the should's and should not's all day (and there are some very good inputs)... however, until we hear from the TPG, we have nothing conclusive. Cheers, RickO
Using PCGS photograde, and judging by the hair detail remaining, I would grade this coin a VF20 (not including the reworked stars). Seems net graded by two grades to me.