In your opinion, should the marks on the portrait have kept this from an MS66 grade?
braddick
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I don't know Jefferson nickels as well as most other collectors.
Personally I am a bit surprised this one received the MS66 grade considering the two large marks on the portrait (along
with many tics on the reverse.)
Perhaps these types of marks are allowed and I am being too strict.
Your thoughts?
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I'm surprised it received an MS66 grade because of the color!
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To begin with, I would have been embarrassed to send that in for grading.
I believed you with respect to the grade assigned. I just would have expected AT (QT) given to the coin.
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I would say no to a 66. I'd give ya a 65, jmo & fwiw
My thought is that questionable color aside, perhaps you’re not being too strict.😉
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I don’t do much with Jefferson nickels either, but the marks should preclude a 66, imo. Crazy color but I agree maybe QT (I have to confess I like it though).
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Those marks on the portrait are awfully big. Seems like a generous grade all around.
Along with the marks on Monticello also. I would have guessed a 64 on this one. I really think the color is probably juiced some. These get a lot of nice blue colors but that blue is just a little extreme to me. Jmo
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Color got it a 66. It is an MS63
+1
Looks like an MS 64/65 that was market graded a 66 based on the color.
Normally you see this color on proofs from that era. On a business strike, it is more questionable (and some get that designation). However, I have seen nickels with similar color straight grade. So it is a toss-up on what happens when sending these in.
Usually "that era" is considered the early 1960s proof Jeffersons up to and including some 1970 dates.
It is a bit unusual to see this blue/purple tone on a 1957, let alone a business strike as you stated.
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I tend to consider it being mid 1950s through the 1970s for proofs (with the majority being 1960-1964 proofs). On business strikes it is certainly unusual.
I'm going to play devil's advocate for a second. All of those marks are toned the same as the coin. Are they as obvious in-hand, or is the lighting in the TrueView accentuating them so they're much more apparent in the photos?
That's not to say I don't question the toning, or to say that, based on the photos I think the coin should grade 66. But... perhaps the flaws aren't nearly as apparent in-hand.
I am not commenting on the grade, but those are not contact marks, they are planchet roughness.
Now that's a term I've not heard before.
The two large gashes on the upper jaw make it questionable for even a 65 imho.
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If offered to me as a 66 I would reject it immediately.
I used to own that coin. I do not think it’s a solid 66 based on those marks (which are evident on the obverse but not the reverse, in hand) but it didn’t bother me because the grade doesn’t matter too much for this one. It is a wow coin, with a great strike and luster. I own another toned 1957 nickel that is cleaner and graded 65 the first time (although it is a 66 now).
The color on this one is very bright but I had my doubts as well. It has a twin owned by fellow forum member @ElmerFusterpuck and those are the only two MS nickels I have ever seen like that. I’d lean AT but it’s awfully nice. I enjoyed owning it for a few years!
MS 66 designation is supposed to be reserved for the nicest "gem uncirculated" pieces. Those two gashes on the portrait should automatically disqualify this nickel from being called a gem.
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Interesting discussion. Like @david3142 mentioned, I do own a lookalike. It's also a 66 but the color is it bit more subtle than the one pictured here.
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MS66 is a grade, not a designation and the term "gem" is somewhat ambiguous. However, "gem" is often equated with a grade of 65 - does that mean you think the coin should have been graded lower than that?
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I think 64 would be more appropriate.
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Of course, it should have been graded lower than that. Not even a gem:
(strictly) gem=MS 65 designation or grade
(nicest of strictly) gem=MS 66 designation or grade
(superb) gem=MS 67 designation or grade
(nicer of superb) gem=MS 68 " "
(nicest of superb) gem=MS 69 " "
perfect= MS 70
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I would not pay MS66 money for that coin, the color is very suspect and not pleasing to my eye and the hits keep it at MS64 max anyway. But when the right person submits this is the result.
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It needn’t be about the “right person” submitting it. I’ve seen a lot of coins fail to upgrade when submitted by the “right person”, later sold to the “wrong person, resubmitted and upgraded. It can be about the right place and the right time.
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True that the right time and place can also be a factor, but it is also true that none of these three are mutually exclusive. It could be a combination of the right person at the right time and place just as it could be your example of the wrong person at the right time and place. Without pulling back the TPG curtain and without full transparency from the TPG's we will never know for sure.
What is true is that there is some consistency among the replies that this coin appears badly overgraded from the TV. What factors aligned to arrive at that grade only PCGS knows.
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Exactly my thoughts.
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I would not buy it as a 66.
How does “planchet roughness” result in the appearance of digs?
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
I may be wrong, but I see these type of digs on so many of the early relief Jeffersons and buffalos that I assumed them to be heavy pre-strike hits that were not completely eliminated during the strike because of the high relief of the dies. I also am thinking that perhaps a minor dig is expanded during striking, but I don't know for sure. I see this almost always on nickels, so possibly the hardness of the planchet also helps it to not smooth out. These are my thoughts on the subject.
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"
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A true product of the Atomic Age… looks radioactive.
Seriously, looks like a decent coin from the new age of mass production. Is it a 66? With Jefferson nickels within the mid 50s date range, one never really knows in view of the fact the quality was lost at the expense of quantity and mass production.
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Yes.
It’s a low end 66 but mainly I just don’t like the color. It’s a common coin from a series I have no interest in. Good luck with it.
Tough date to find with an EDS or full strike. A nice bullet strike as I like to call them. Add 10-15-20 years behind the search for a well-struck example and a few of you would have a different opinion on the op's coin. And the fields look a bit PL. The 50's and 60's produced some very rough planchets and those marks are what they are, planchet roughness that didn't get pressed out during the stamping of the coin. Bern Nagengast's book, The Jefferson Nickel Analyst will tell you the same thing. Sure.....finding a cleaner coin is a greater joy but it does take some time, years to locate a well struck mark-free example! The 55-D and the 64-D among many others due to the very hard element of "nickel "are two other dates that fall into this catagory. But after you've seen a couple of hundred coins in mint state of a date, you eventually learn to look past those marks until, hopefully, a better coin come along.......and they eventually do.
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Those gashes are hugely distracting. This one definitely received a color bump. IMHO.
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My thoughts are it was market graded. If you were selling this coin, what would you price it at? 5, 10, 22, 35, 500 ? somewhere between the last 2? Those are the price guide for 63, 64, 65, 66, 67
Copper-nickel is a hard metal. The high points on copper-nickel coins are often not fully impacted by the dies since the metal doesn’t flow easily enough into the low points of the die, leaving texture from the planchet. Planchets are typically rough and marked up with little digs that then survive on the struck coin. This is very common on Jeffersons and other copper-nickel coins like Ikes.
I don't agree with the grade and I think its no way a 66. As a comparison, if another coin from another series had that type of "nick" then no way would that coin ever be a 66. I never saw a Capped Bust Half have a nick like that in a 66 holder. I guess a reason why I don't collect Jefferson nickels........
Thank you.
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
Your "right place" and "right time" remark is begging for clarification.
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A lot of coins are conservatively-graded, while a lot of others are liberally graded. Regardless of who submits coins for grading, due simply to the luck of the draw, some coins will end up being liberally graded and/or higher than they were previously.
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Many times when I examine a coin closely with a loupe, etc., I'm surprised it got the grade it did; I'd rather trust the seasoned professional graders who had the coin in hand and were comparing it with all the other comparables they examined that week.
So, in the case of this blue colored nickel are you acknowledging that it received an overly liberal grade from a grading service known more for its across-the-board conservative grading?
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I’m acknowledging that in my opinion, based on the images provided, the coin looks over-graded. However, a couple of posters who sound highly knowledgeable, have opined that the distracting flaws are mint-made.
I don’t agree that the grading service (PCGS) is “known more for its across-the-board conservative grading”. But rather, in general, their grading is thought to be stringent than that of one of their major competitors (NGC) and more liberal than another of their competitors (CACG).
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The two deep gashes on the portrait are most certainly not mint made. The gashes disqualify this piece from being called a "nicer gem" which is what MS 66 grade is supposed to represent. That's my opinion, of course.
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That has an ASE color lab test look.
I think it was simply a tough day at the grading desk. Margin of error kicked in.