1976 FM Malta 25 Cents. - Matte Uncirculated, Grade dubious?

7Jaguars

Here is a really pleasant and exceptionally rare coin. Original mintage was 300, but the entire mintage was bagged up and sent off to the Central bank in Valletta, Malta.
It seems that these were either paid out to customers or lost. In any case in over 40 years have not seen another. I bought this one from a shop in Malta and neither had the owner ever seen another with this very coin still pictured on his website all these (8) years later.

Anyway, GTG if you'd like from our hosts......

You

64

coinkat

Grading a modern clad type coin seems to have different issues and expectations. It’s possible the obverse carried the coin. 65 seems possible but I am unsure it is probable.

7Jaguars

This came back "cleaned" and was quite disappointed as well as disagreeing on technical grounds. Not to push it but I have collected FM coins of the rarer types for probably 40 years. On the same grading group a rare Guyanese 10 dollar with an unfortunate irredeemable corrosive spot came back "66" - no damn way on that one either as it should have been "environmental"....

pruebas

If you really think it wasn’t cleaned, you could try some MS70 cleaner. But if it was, it’ll probably look worse after the MS70 since all the dreck covering the hairlines will have been removed.

Maybe try acetone first, but it’s unlikely to do anything.

coinkat

Some additional thoughts… the focal point of the coin is the obverse design within the circle. That looks okay. There are what I think are faint die polish lines there that are neutral. The issue is the unprotected field between 25 downward to Cents. There are faint hairlines present but I doubt that is attributable to a cleaning. They might see the luster as impaired as they simply may not have a point of reference for this coin. Have any been graded? Seems improbable.

7Jaguars

Yes, CK, I think that is a problem with a number of the coins I submit - they have not seen anything like them before. Some while ago I had a problem with PL Unc. 1978FM 5 and 10 dollar coins. The planchet prep was a bit rough and then the strike left an halo effect around the lettering and devices (I think there is a term for this ??) where the fields immediately surrounding were struck flat. A bit difficult to explain but having a number of coins like this and similar led to my conclusions.