Wear or Poor Strike ? Morgan up for Auction
max911
Posts: 72
Wear or Poor Strike? I still struggle to understand how experts determine the difference. I found this extreme example while looking through the beautiful catalog of ANR. There is complete lack of detail above the ear consistent with wear ! But guess what - It is graded MS66. I can only surmise that the clean fields tipped the scales in favor of UNC. Are there other clues in this picture ?
Link to Auction
Link to Auction
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Comments
My Collection of Old Holders
Never a slave to one plastic brand will I ever be.
Nasty scrape to the right of the eagle and some hits on the eagle's breast -- you can probably find better examples in MS-66.
Wear often differs in appearance from weakness in strike, in that it manifests itself as a different color (such as a whitish or grayish color) from the non-worn portions of the coin's surface. Wear will also often be accompanied by missing luster in some areas, along with light circulation marks and/or hairlines on other parts of the coin.
It also helps to be aware of the typical strike qualities/characteristics of whichever coin, date and mint is being examined.
I see no evidence of wear on the coin in question and actually, the strike isn't all that bad either, at least compared to a number of other dates in the Morgan Dollar series.
"Bongo hurtles along the rain soaked highway of life on underinflated bald retread tires."
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Chris
My Collection of Old Holders
Never a slave to one plastic brand will I ever be.