1914 $10 Indian Eagle ~ Please render your opinion and possible grade by PCGS
Paradisefound
Posts: 8,588 ✭✭✭✭✭
Taking a chance on another raw; advertised as a BU and I really think this was a safe buy.
I am contemplating whether to send it in.
These are the original and the best pictures for you to examine.
Please tell me what you think.....Thank you
4
Comments
55
@mannie gray
It maybe more like MS64?
I agree with @mannie gray - all of those darker areas (obverse - neck, cheek, feathers, hair, left field; reverse - eagle's head, wing, leg feather, olive branch, all fields) indicate wear. If there's a little bit of that rub, then maybe 58, but there's too much in this case. It's a mid-grade AU.
I see plenty of obvious wear on both sides.
If the picture is representative of the look of the coin, I don't see hardly any luster...luster you would certainly need to see if a grade of 64 were to be assigned.
The comments by @mvs7 are spot on.
62
Latin American Collection
My grade AU-58, slab or market acceptable grade, MS-62, maybe MS-61 because of dull luster. It's a nice coin.
It needs more luster to make a higher grade. This one is graded MS-63.
AU55. The wear is obvious.
Obv and rev field disturbance prevent it from being uncirculated. Might have gone from a bank teller to someone's purse to a gift box to being spent then back to a bank.
It's still a nice clean coin. It does lack for more luster, and has a couple obverse "Knick Knacks" above the eye. 58 might be just a little high.
Pete
55
I see an AU58
My YouTube Channel
Nice fresh near unc. $10 Indian.
My apologies to John Franklin - very pretty coin.
However, based on some of your posts, and some of the messages you have sent on the open board, I'm going to take a politically incorrect guess and say that you are not what one would call either a very advanced collector, or an advanced collector. Most of us are not.
Therefore, I'm going to pretend you are a relative of mine and suggest that until you become comfortable enough with your grading skills to argue with one of the advanced collectors here (those forming the top Registry sets?) that you ONLY PURCHASE coins already graded by our host. They will be more expensive but well worth the experience you'll gain.
I would be careful about buying raw U.S. gold coins unless you quite familiar with the real thing. Counterfeiters have been copying U.S. gold pieces for longer than I have been a collector. Their products are far from limited to the base metal castings that some tired to pass off in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Back in the ‘60s there was an active counterfeiter in Lebanon who was making counterfeits of U.S. coins in sold gold with the right alloy. Sometimes these counterfeits are even a little heavy. Detection is not easy for the average collector who is just getting started with U.S. gold.
Buying a counterfeit when you think you are getting the real thing is no fun. I just toss that out there for you to consider. Lower level Mint State certified pieces are not that much more expensive.
You certainly could have done worse. That coin is attractive.
Collector, occasional seller
I think honest discussion is healthy but not once do I see myself remotely near advance on my knowledge. I am merely sharing what I thought in the forum. Thank you for your candid advise.
Best guess based on the images is 64.
Doggedly collecting coins of the Central American Republic.
Visit the Society of US Pattern Collectors at USPatterns.com.
Also, looking at a lot of coins of the same type on Coin Facts is good to get a feel of how they grade, albeit their images are "ideal" and may be hard to compare precisely: http://www.pcgscoinfacts.com/Hierarchy.aspx?c=779&title=Type+4,+With+Motto+(1908-1933)
I thought 64 just as soon as I looked at it. Can’t say I can see any rub from the images and the coin is also very clean, free of and distracting blemishes .
A very nice attractive piece.
Mr. Jones, I'm going to make a little clarification to your excellent advice.
This statement is incorrect: "Back in the ‘60s there was an active counterfeiter in Lebanon who was making counterfeits of U.S. coins in sold gold with the **right alloy.*
While much of the C/F gold in the US did contain gold, I have heard that there was not a single counterfeit gold coin seen by professional authenticators in the 1960's that was the correct gold alloy. In fact, it was not until the mid-1970's that authenticators began to see fakes with a "passable" composition. One authenticator told his students that by the time he left ANACS they had stopped weighing or taking the specific gravity of gold coins.
I see a great looking 58+. It could even go 63. My PCGS 62 does not look nearly as good. There is certainly nothing there I’d call “obvious wear” per one of the posts above — just the lightest rub and high point luster disturbance. Assuming genuine & no surface alterations (!) it’s a really nice coin.
I'm in the 55-58 crowd.
Well, insider, since most people don't bring the water and the scales to coin shows to do specific gravity tests, much less know how to do them, I'd say that bit of information would not do you much good on the fly. What I did see from bad gold coins bought in the '60s and '70s was less than perfect details which gave the coins away. Usually they lacked the crispnes of the genuine article, especially on the high points. They also had little tooling marks are dots, which usually did not show up on genuine coins.
Still the tooling marks that are showcased in many counterfeit detection books aren't going to do you that much good. First, you can't remember all of the stuff. Second, there are counterfeits that the authors have never seen.
Unlike you, I was not working for ANACS where I could have gotten the information that you have. My information came from dealers who were working the street level store coin counters in Philadelphia at the time. From what they could see, the counterfeit metal in the fake coins looked pretty good. It was the details in the strike and the dies that gave the coins away.
Ditto
"Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working" Pablo Picasso
MS60
The whole worlds off its rocker, buy Gold™.
BOOMIN!™
Wooooha! Did someone just say it's officially "TACO™" Tuesday????
I can't see how this 1914 can grade beyond the low Mint State levels. Historically subdued luster like this has cost such coins 1 or 2 Mint State grading points. I know because I have bought some of them thinking that they had been shortchanged.
Well, my friend
Mr. Bill, now you have done it, purposely I suspect. 
I did not plan to "come-out" and reveal my true identity on CU until later this year after the freedom of Information requests about the "Omega" counterfeits came back.
Yes, you are correct, I did work at ANACS in the 1970's. That's where and when I came up with both the "Technical Grading System" for our internal records and the "Die Scratch Method of Counterfeit Detection!" No brag. Anyone could have done it if they were put in the place I was at that time in our numismatic history. I also worked at four other TPGS including the **first coin grading service in the U.S. - INSAB.
Thanks to you, now I don't need to hide behind nonsense in my posts such as "I heard," "I learned," and AFAIK!
BTW, only about 5% of the information I got (BACK THEN) came from anyone (Mint lab, Phila. Mint personnel, and Hoskins) who was not available to you or anyone else. I did not have the luxury we all do now of the internet and massive amounts of printed research.
Now to your post. This from you: "What I did see from bad gold coins bought in the '60s and '70s was less than perfect details which gave the coins away. Usually they lacked the crispnes of the genuine article, especially on the high points."
We named that characteristic "fatty relief." Back then, the counterfeits were very "mushy" with full blazing luster yet the design details of an XF on their high point. As today, most think/thought that crude fakes such as those were cast. THEY WERE NOT. Ninety-nine percent of them were die struck counterfeits. Their method of manufacture and die making was not so hot even with modern coin presses in Beirut. Actual casts are so scarce that one of the treasured coins in my teaching set is a Type 1 gold dollar with a casting seam around its edge!
Additionally: Any gold counterfeit sold in this country in the 1960's and up to at least 1975 WAS AN OFF-COLOR PIECE OF CRAP!
Soon after I joined ANACS as a "rookie" authenticator, a person I had considered to be the "Father of Counterfeit Detection in the U.S." and one of my idols (I had a file of all his articles in the Numismatist) came to our office. It was the first time I met him. After introductions, he motioned me over to sit at the lab desk with my microscope, pulled up a stool next to me and said "Sonny, I want to show you a few things." He reached into his jacket and pulled out a thin black coin wallet. Reaching in, I saw he had retrieved a 2X2 with a $5 Indian. "That's a fake I said IMMEDIATLY." "Well look at it under the scope" he said. "I don't need to it's bad!" Slightly perturbed, he pulled another 2X2 from the wallet. "That's bad too!" "How do you know without looking at it he asked?" "The color is bad, no genuine coin looks like that." With that, he went into the ANACS Directors office (Hoskins) for about fifteen minutes and left without saying a word to me. When he was gone, Hoskins came out and said he was told that "ANACS was not to authenticate any $5 or $2 1/2 Indians anymore as the counterfeits were too hard to detect!" Needless to say we did not follow this powerful man's instructions which came back to haunt both of us later!
From then on, that "Ex-Pert" was simply a source of amusement to me. Soon we discovered the OIN counterfeit collection in his possession was full of genuine coins "Old Cracked-Eye" (the derogatory nickname I gave him after we met) had condemned as counterfeits and acquired from dealers over the years.
As for this statement of yours: "Still the tooling marks that are showcased in many counterfeit detection books aren't going to do you that much good. First, you can't remember all of the stuff. Second, there are counterfeits that the authors have never seen."
You have swerved into some good advice. Books on counterfeit detection are a good start to learn the basics. Today, there is only one of our older methods of counterfeit detection still in use. In my experience books and their specific diagnostics for particular fakes soon become almost obsolete. For example, the "tool marks" and "pimples" you mention have not been seen to any degree on a decent fake coin since the 1980's!!
I'll save the story for another time but within six months of my start at ANACS we almost called a very worn Pan Pac Slug counterfeit as it looked to be a cast specimen. After that experience, I started teaching that the most important requirement for coin authentication is to know what the genuine coin looks like. It is a very simple concept yet no one ever expressed it that way that until I did! As I wrote above. Anyone, could have done any of this back then. I was fortunate to be the lucky one. When you know what a genuine coin is supposed to look like, if you see something unusual, you may not know if the coin is good or bad but you will know it is different - that's a big start. Then your job is to find out why it is different.
Read my post again. The decent counterfeits in the late 1970's and 1980's had the same alloy, dimensions, and weights as genuine coins. We stopped measuring them. Sp. Gravity tests and balances are virtually obsolete - nice to have access to but rarely needed anymore for U.S. coins. I have to hold back my disgust when I see a professional authenticator put a magnetic, across-the-room, piece of crap fake Trade dollar on a scale and tell everyone in ear shot the coin is an underweight Chinese fake! Please.
And while you've got me in a bad mood I'll add this: I would not trust 75% of the coin dealers in this country to grade or authenticate anything for me! When I started at ANACS, we had a large team of well-known outside consultants (most no longer alive). That's why I can tell you now that by the end of my first year at ANACS we had stopped sending coins to all but a few of the originals as I discovered that after comparing their opinion on a coin with known genuine specimens locked away in museum collections for years,most of them could not authenticate their way out of a paper bag!!
Now that you have exposed me
as a swell-headed, know-it-all-in his own mind, anti-social, angry 
curmudgeon, I'll look forward to crossing swords with you in the future. 
Signed F. Michael Fazzari
The LOL cracked me up! Bill, I love and respect you and what you have done in our profession. I wish I had even one of the coins in your collection and I am out of my bad mood!
Given what has been stated and posted previously, bad mood aside, I don't know if I can believe any of this!
To say I'm confused is an understatement. Is this true?
Did you just come out? Or is this all BS?
I ain't getting in the middle of any of this........
I QUIT!
Pete
Interesting read, and this is what I do except I'm no professional. Good thing I mostly stick to bullion. lol
Edit: And almost forgot...Do you think the Indian is authentic?
The whole worlds off its rocker, buy Gold™.
BOOMIN!™
Wooooha! Did someone just say it's officially "TACO™" Tuesday????
photo=55-58
coin=??
MS-64
Lets see what PCGS says.....More to come.
Thank you all for your insights
Hey Pete...Look inside the top loop of the "R" in "Liberty." Remind you of another thread where TTTT and I posted?
1914’s can come with great lustere. I can’t see lustere on the OP’s coin. Maybe it’s the photo. I don’t have a great feeling on this coin. I hope near melt money was paid for it to protect the downside or I hope the pic is off and I’m wrong
mark
Fellas, leave the tight pants to the ladies. If I can count the coins in your pockets you better use them to call a tailor. Stay thirsty my friends......
Send it in and let the chips fall where they may...
The biggest issue I am having is likely with the picture and not the coin... Could be the lighting. I am in the MS camp and in the 63-64 range. Good luck with the submission if you choose to go that route.
Experience the World through Numismatics...it's more than you can imagine.
I suspect the coin looks better in hand.
Experience the World through Numismatics...it's more than you can imagine.
@Justacommeman said:
Paid 10% above melt and I will take pictures in different lighting once when I return.
Just a beautiful coin
After a day of window shopping it I almost feel like I own it so I'm naturally upgrading it to low MS.
"Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working" Pablo Picasso
Good risk reward. Good luck!
m
Fellas, leave the tight pants to the ladies. If I can count the coins in your pockets you better use them to call a tailor. Stay thirsty my friends......
Good price and a nice looking coin..... I will wait for better pictures ... if it has luster, it will certainly go MS.... Good luck... Cheers, RickO