1869 Shield Nickel, Seeking opinions and grade

Aspie_Rocco

I received this today and am looking for opinions and comments as to its condition. It has the most visible detail left of all my shields and I am excited to own it! I see a lot of dings and imperfections, the wear seems to be around 30-45. The stars seem better than 45. I would greatly appreciate any insight. Thanks for looking.

LanceNewmanOCC

35?

jughead1893

Vf

pursuitofliberty

Looks like decent surfaces, nice detail and reasonable color ... maybe a little bright? A few digs hold it back a little on eye appeal IMO.

Ch VF to EF (30 to 40)

291fifth

VF25. The photos make it look like it may have been cleaned.

Aspie_Rocco

@291fifth said:
VF25. The photos make it look like it may have been cleaned.

Thank you for your assessment. I suspected this and was waiting for someone to mention it. The coin sold for less than Good/VG price so I assumed something was amiss.

ricko

Looks to me like a 40... Cannot ascertain cleaning from those pictures.... Cheers, RickO

BillJones

It looks like an EF-40 to me. These coins are notoriously weakly struck because of the copper-nickel alloy, which was hard to strike. It chewed up dies, and the medal flow was often bad.

The reverse was “hammered” and looks like an EF-45. The obverse is flatly struck and looks like a VF.

LanceNewmanOCC

@BillJones said:
It looks like an EF-40 to me. These coins are notoriously weakly struck because of the copper-nickel alloy, which was hard to strike. It chewed up dies, and the medal flow was often bad.

The reverse was “hammered” and looks like an EF-45. The obverse is flatly struck and looks like a VF.

.
if not for the many dings and somewhat questionable surfaces/color, i for sure would have gone xf even with a weak strike.

@Aspie_Rocco

nice pickup. i remember how exciting it is to acquire something more valuable, higher grade, scarcer etc and enjoy it the few times i get to do it.

did you take time to try to figure out the attribution broken letter reverse? kinda looks like a rpd too maybe. although nothing wrong with just enjoying a type coin w/o all the extra.

BillJones

@LanceNewmanOCC said:

@BillJones said:
It looks like an EF-40 to me. These coins are notoriously weakly struck because of the copper-nickel alloy, which was hard to strike. It chewed up dies, and the medal flow was often bad.

The reverse was “hammered” and looks like an EF-45. The obverse is flatly struck and looks like a VF.

.
if not for the many dings and somewhat questionable surfaces/color, i for sure would have gone xf even with a weak strike.

@Aspie_Rocco

nice pickup. i remember how exciting it is to acquire something more valuable, higher grade, scarcer etc and enjoy it the few times i get to do it.

did you take time to try to figure out the attribution broken letter reverse? kinda looks like a rpd too maybe. although nothing wrong with just enjoying a type coin w/o all the extra.

The EF grade has been considerably degraded in recent years.