1914 Caballito Peso In Stack's Auction - What Is "Altered" About This Coin?

7Jaguars

I was watching the Stack's auction today and watched as a 1914 "altered surfaces" Caballito Peso went for about 1300 USD. What was altered on this coin? There looked to be a bit of very light rub in the fields of the reverse but didn't look too serious. What are readers' takes on this?
PCGS verification number: 40259039

Can't seem to post the pictures.

Until a year or two ago when I bought a Caballito as a bit of a risk that our hosts certified as "65", I didn't even really know about this series and am trying to learn.

Boosibri

Looks matte

brg5658

I think trying to figure out exactly what “altered surfaces” means from a TrueView or any other picture is a fool’s errand. You can’t see in photos what graders saw in hand.

That being said, the pictures make the obverse surfaces look very odd and the luster looks impaired.

7Jaguars

Good points there, it's coins like this that make me careful at auction if the coin is not seen in hand.
Another tough coin from pictures are the early Philippines pesos struck at US mints ....

MrBreeze

I think there are multiple places on the obverse where something was removed...perhaps to harshly.

7Jaguars

The upcoming MS61 in the Nov. 5 Heritage sale looks good for grade [judged on pictures].
I looked at a few on the net and it appears this date comes with issues many times; I still don't see from the pictures of the OP coin even on magnification don't show clear cleaning signs but looks like the obverse is a bit dull. There is an area between the 2nd and 3rd sun ray that looks slightly discolored is all I could see. And this I see on many other specimens.
Buying this date looks a bit like a minefield to me.

TwoKopeiki

@7Jaguars said:
The upcoming MS61 in the Nov. 5 Heritage sale looks good for grade [judged on pictures].

So does that PCGS MS63

brg5658

These three areas look strange to me on the zoomed in photos of the obverse.

Again, hard to tell from photographs.

HoledandCreative

The black dots at 10 appear to be the remainder of many that were removed.

7Jaguars

Those didn't really bother me, I've seen rather a lot of such on many coins; Brandon's points are a bit more to the fore IMO. I wonder what this one looked like in hand?