When I left things off with my last entry talking about this coin, the one unknown, the one X-factor, was, how nice was this coin going to be in-hand and which of the two coins I’d been looking at would have better eye appeal in-person, the MS65 or the MS66.

As is required by the nature of online shopping, I’ll never get an answer on the second point. I didn’t buy both coins. I’ll probably never see that MS66 in person. I’ll probably never know if I would have liked it better.

As to the first, I have to say, I was rather happy when I saw the coin in my hand in good light for the first time. I didn’t get to look at the coin until Christmas day because my wife and I agreed to let my toddler wrap it and put it under the tree.

The coin looks great with a solid strike and great luster. I’m not sure my latest photographic attempts are the best or do the coin full justice, but they’ve been posted in the set.

I think the most important thing that can be said for it is that it has an overall look and feel that’s highly consistent with that of the 1876 and the 1879. They’ll go together well. One of these days I'll have to work out an approach for taking pictures of multiple coins together that I actually like the results I get with it.

On another note, the results from the second ultrasound were pretty much the polar opposite of what we were hoping for, so it looks like this is going to be the last pregnancy and last kid for us and it will likely be ending about six weeks sooner than we’d originally thought. The next 10 weeks are starting to look rough.