Home World & Ancient Coins Forum

Does this coin appear to have been "smoothed"?

I recently won a 1933 France 25 centimes in a European auction. The auction house had some especially good photos and, even though the coin is pretty cheap, I decided to go for it and won. Here's the coin from the auction company's website:

The coin in hand looked gorgeous, with that light toning that copper-nickel coins get. Since I have a French Modern Republics registry set, I decided to splurge and send it in for grading (even with shipping, I had spent less than $30 on the coin). Here's the True View:

PCGS graded the coin as "Genuine UNC details (98- Damaged)" On the PCGS holder, the coin is described as "Surfaces Smoothed."

I reached out to the auction house and they essentially said the coin was fine, the best of a small French pre-WW 2 collection they had purchased.

I have never encountered a coin that was given this designation. Given the detail in the coin's design, it is hard to see how just its surfaces could have been smoothed.

So, I thought I would reach out to you guys to ask if you see something that supports the PCGS' grading. The expense of asking for a reconsideration isn't worth it (arguably, just getting it graded in the first place made little sense!), especially when I have nothing to offer to contradict the graders' conclusions.

Any thoughts?

Thanks.

Comments

  • TomBTomB Posts: 20,697 ✭✭✭✭✭

    The PCGS image appears to show vertical hairlines through the back of the cap and into the fields. Perhaps this is what they are seeing? Alternatively, maybe they don't like the nasty bit of lint just above 25 on the reverse that they apparently missed when taking the images?

    Thomas Bush Numismatics & Numismatic Photography

    In honor of the memory of Cpl. Michael E. Thompson

    image
  • 7Jaguars7Jaguars Posts: 7,228 ✭✭✭✭✭

    IMHO, this is copper nickel planchet and very hard. I think the lines young Tom points out are planchet prep lines that did not fully strike out. At least from the pictures I do not agree with the TPG.

    Love that Milled British (1830-1960)
    Well, just Love coins, period.
Sign In or Register to comment.