Panama Pacific Expo Medal Dollar HK-404 questions

coinsarefun

I just received this in the mail today and need some opinions. From the sellers pictures(Ebay) I judged this one to be somewhere AU or better. Therefore I bid at $90.
After looking at it in hand and imaging its not even close IMO. I am not that versed on grading medals.

Do you think that the sellers' images were a good representation of the medal?

Do you think that $90 was a fair price?
Ebay

Sellers images





My images

DUIGUY

My first question would be is it silver plated bronze or just the bronze version ?

coinsarefun

<< <i>My first question would be is it silver plated bronze or just the bronze version ? >>






From the sellers information provided, it is silver over bronze. Which I would say is correct.The pictures shows the bronze below the silver. But what grade would you say?

tmot99

I'd call it AU50 or 53. Rub on high points aren't deducted as much on medals as it is on coins because the relief of the medal is so high that you can't even stack them without the high points touching. It's not wear as much as it is rub. The fields look clean and don't show evidence of wear. The seller's pictures are dark and do hide the bronze showing through.

I wouldn't be happy with it at $90, but I sold one certified a while back that went much higher than I expected so what do I know.

coinsarefun

Thank you very much tmot99

jonathanb

I agree with tmot99 on the technical grade, but there's a really big caveat that NGC doesn't seem to agree with me. I just got back a different So-Called Dollar with significant gilt loss on the high points of the design, and they slabbed it MS-65.

If you sent yours to NGC, I wouldn't be disappointed if they slabbed it as AU-50 or AU-53 as tmot99 suggests, but I also wouldn't be surprised if it came back as AU-58 or even MS-62.

My personal collection is mostly unslabbed. Either I like a piece or I don't, and NGC's opinion doesn't much matter to me for the ones I'm keeping. Resale is a different matter, tho...

(And yes, to get back to the original question, I think the seller's pics were a very good representation of the medal. I had to read the original post a couple of times to be sure which pics were the sellers and which were new. One set is larger, and one set is a little darker, but they both show the same medal more or less equally well as far as I can see.)

jonathan