My $10.00 "Pot Luck Penny" I took a chance, what condition do you think I'll get?

MarkW63 · August 3, 2021 12:04AM

Looking through my Lincoln Cent collection I happened to see another needed upgrade, the 1918-D was labeled G-4 So I took to ebay scouting around and for some reason I landed on the one pictured below (actual online pictures), its was $10.00
I grabbed the pictures, played with the lighting, tried different digital filters and I started picking out some details and thought, darn it! I'm going for this pot luck penny the seller had it owner graded at XF, I checked his other listings and he just don't believe in a decent picture at ALL (I'll get spanked for that), they had sold a LOT of coins, and had bunches of good feedback.
This one is testing my limited skills of picking out deals on poor pictures of what might be (??) a keeper raw coin.
What do you see grade wise, what looks good enough to maybe take a chance on?
I'm expecting to receive the coin in the next couple of days, so when I get it I'll post pictures of it in this thread.

ALSO! I'll include this reminder here, I have a 10 Set Of Mint State Kennedy Half dollars in a coin giveaway and thus far a correct answer hasn't been submitted yet! so if you missed seeing the thread it was relocated by the forum moderators I guess for being posted in the wrong area of the forum? Anyway, here is a direct link to it, drop by, and drop your best guess!
https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/1061116/forum-giveaway-a-10-year-set-of-mint-state-kennedy-half-dollars/p1

thebeav · August 3, 2021 4:53AM

That sure is a rough photo.
I hope it's nice!

ChrisH821 · August 3, 2021 7:39AM

Did a little brightening in windows photo viewer.. looks like you'll get an xf or so.

MarkW63 · August 3, 2021 9:09AM

@ChrisH821 said:
Did a little brightening in windows photo viewer.. looks like you'll get an xf or so.

You must have a much newer version of the Windows photo viewer, I fiddled with those pictures for a good while with different options and I did get them a little better, but not hear as good (decent) as you did.

MarkW63 · August 3, 2021 9:11AM

@thebeav said:
That sure is a rough photo.
I hope it's nice!

That seller had lots of other coins listed and I'd say the pictures of mine was near average.

Portross · August 3, 2021 9:19AM

I’m guessing AU, and a nice strike.

MarkW63 · August 3, 2021 9:28AM

@Portross said:
I’m guessing AU, and a nice strike.

Man, you folks are way better at Photo Therapy than I am nice!

MarkW63 · August 3, 2021 1:42PM

I received the coin in today's mail!
I'm pleasantly surprised.
So, now where does its grade fall? (its for sure an upgrade to the 18-D G-4 I had)
Drum roll please!

First, in hand color pictures Natural Light!

Now for extra detail here is pictures taking with a digital microscope, I did work with added a better artificial light source to help with color and surface appearance, although better than some of the microscope pictures I've done in the past, they're still not very good. They do show a little better detail in the Wheat stalks!