We know who's first but who's second?

Animalkeeper

I have a bad habit of cruising the auctions towards the end of bidding. If I see something that is just too cheap to pass up, I'll usually snag it. I found this St. Gauden's double eagle for very close to bullion price and I couldn't control myself. The scratch didn't seem all that bad to me (on the reverse below the CA in AMERICA). Cracked it out and sent it in to NGC. This experiment confirmed for me what I had come to suspect. ANACS is extremely hard on scratches and NGC is not.

Agree or disagree?

For what's it's worth I really like the coin and have no intentions of parting with it (especially since gold was about $525/oz. at the time )

TomB

ANACS can be brutal with their decisions on net grading and many of these coins certify at both PCGS and NGC as problem-free.

Cameonut

The scratch that starts by the 4th feather and heads southeast, looks like it may have been on the planchet and therefore 'as struck' and not scratched afterward. The ray does not look scratched to me. Perhaps that is why NGC graded it.

Does the other scratch exhibit anything that would suggest that it was on the planchet?

JoesMaName

I totaly agree.
ANACS is way too quick to pull the damaged trigger, just because it can, in my opinion (especially with gold).