How much does this detract from the grade of this ASE PF?

[gold_fever-migration]

Hi everyone. I bought these '87 ASE PF'S in a unopened mint box. 5 total. They are IMMACULATE upon first glance. I was excited to submit them. I showed my wife before I put them in the box to send out to NGC and she says,"wait a min. Let me see the loop..." Turns out, they have this minor discoloration near the sun on all 5 coins. I bought these with the hope that I could fill the lack of an '87 PF70 in my collection, but I don't want to waste the money on the submission, if these aren't good Candidates. The seller I bought them from tells me he knows what I am referring to and has submitted these coins with the same issues and received 70's. is this a lie? Thanks VERY much guys in advance!

[gold_fever-migration]

I have searched the web high and low for something that defines the the difference between an MS69- ms70 and can't find anything. I DO buy a lot of coins strictly for submission purposes. If I were to know more about the difference, I could save myself a lot of money. In my opinion that little bit of tarnish shown in that picture would bring it down 1 point at least. I formed that opinion merely after thorough scrutinization of my submissions, taking one MS69 and one MS70 of the same type of coin, and placing them side by side and compairing them. I don't know if this is the best approach but thus far its all i have to go on.

[James_OldeTowne]

A coin with toning can grade 70 -- at least according to the way the "70" grade is being used today. But as far as I am concerned, it is a purely hypothetical grade, and I have never ever seen a single coin so graded that was in fact "perfect".

[kryptonitecomics]

One thing I learned long ago is to not micro grade. I know that is easier said then done when you are shooting for a MS70 but honestly you should worry more about enjoying the overall appearance of the coin then some tiny speck of toning that you can only notice when using a loop.

 

As far as grade.....it should not detract at all.....but I agree with james that I don't believe in ther magic 70 grade and must could not tell the difference between a 69 and a 70 if someone was holding a gun to their head.

[Mark T]

Look those coins over long and hard for any marks . You will probably find one.

Even the most trivial small mark will knock it out of a PF 70 .

I agree with James and comics getting a PF 70 is a shot.

 

Definitions:

PF 70 : As struck, with full strike

PF 69 : Virtually as struck with minuscule imperfections, near full strike necessary

 

[L1ncolnF4n]

Even though it shouldn't block a 70 grade it will, at least IMO. While it may warrant one from a lack of marks and a superior strike, bad toning just doesn't scream perfect, which is my impression of a 70.

[gold_fever-migration]

Thanks a lot for all the responses and tips! I submitted them...I'll post again in two weeks after I receive them back.

[gold_fever-migration]

Whelp, even tho' I scrutinized the heck out of each coin (looked at all of them under 5x mag and only sent in the ones that, TO ME had no flaws) I got all 69's.

19 proofs that looked to me to be flawless, EXCEPT for the 87's w/ the tarnish pictured, and not one 70! I honestly don't understand what makes a perfect coin.

When I acquired them, They had the eye appeal right off the bat. Noticed no GLARING flaws, set the ones that stood out to me to the side. Then I used the loop...which revealed flaws unseen so i took those out of the mix. THEN I went through them under a 5x mag. light, (spending probably too much time ) keeping ONLY the ones that looked flawless under that magnification. What more could one do?

 

I've bought and sold 100's of proof ASE's. NEVER took the time to submit any because I always noticed a spot or some tarnish.

THESE coins however, were in a vault for the last decade. They sat in mint issued packaging the entire time, never sold, then resold ten times over, just sitting there...and to me, the lack of handling and moving around, stood out. When i opened the velvet boxes, they were still CRISP for ###T sake!

The irony here is that I had an 08 that'd been sitting on my desk for 1 and 1/2 years, and decided to throw it in the submission last minute, and it came back 70?!!! go figure!

 

I as well sumitted 25 09 koala halfs 11 perfect?!

20 2010 koalas 7 perfect

20 08 kookaburras 6 perfect

5 07 year of the tigers series 1~ 2 perfect

 

So your guess is as good (well prolly better actually hahaha) then mine

[cpm9ball]

I was at a local coin show a couple of years ago, and while at one dealer's table, he began to rant about getting 69's on 2 1995W SAE's from NGC. I asked him if I could look at them. So, I pulled out my 10x loupe, and tilted each coin slowly back and forth, side to side, every which way under the light. If there were any flaws in the cameo surfaces, I would see a tiny flash of light reflecting off the bare metal where the frost was damaged. On one, I counted 5 minute tick marks, and 4 on the other. They were very tiny, a llittle more than the size of a pinpoint, but that's all it takes to keep them from grading 70. The dealer grumbled and grabbed them out of my hand. Needless to say, I didn't do any business with him that day.

 

Despite the fact that your SAE's had been stored in a vault for some time doesn't make too much difference as far as the discoloration is concerned. Most vaults don't have climate controls set to the liking of serious coin collectors.

 

Chris

[coinman23885-migration]

No offense meant, but I would max each coin out at MS69. I know that many of the top grading services (i.e. PCGS, maybe NGC on a lesser scale but I'm only personally familiar with the former) are notorious for down grading coins that would grade PF 70 to PF 69 for haziness. I imagine that the same logic would apply to mint state coins. I would not submit them, or if I did, I would send one coin in as a test. I hope things work out for you, but I couldn't justify spending the money required to slab all of them with the discoloration.

 

As a side note, it is notable that even if NGC (or even PCGS for that matter) did hypothetically give the coins a grade of MS70, many buyers may still be turned off and they may think, perhaps, that the coin turned in the holder (I would assume this and look for untoned samples elsewhere). Unless they were buying the holder and not the coin (which happens, but I would hope not too commonly given the capricious nature of third party grading services), you are probably going to end up with a huge proverbial albatross around your neck if you slab them.

[coinman23885-migration]

Sorry for my last post - I obviously only read the main title before posting or else I would have realized that you already had submitted the coins.

 

My advice when aiming for high grade coins is to scrutinize every little detail. The least bit of haziness, weakness of strike, or mellowness of luster can bump a coin from the magic grade of MS/PF 70 (if one believe that such a thing truly exists). I personally can tell the difference between a MS69 and MS70 by looking at the coins through the slab - it is an exceptionally laborious process and requires more than 10 minutes per side. Remember, it only takes one tick to bump it down to MS69 land and if you grade it like you would coins in the lower gem grades, the odds are that you will miss something, no matter how minute.

 

Some other advice: increase the magnification power of the loop. I personally use a 10x triplet loop for normal grading; however, when identifying potential MS/PF 70 grades, I try to use greater magnification to aid me. Secondly, stereoscopy with a USB camera seems to be useful, and can even same image files on your computer. You can take high resolution images at 25x or higher, and blow them up even more on the screen to look for imperfections, although it is always preferable to look at them directly through the stereoscope whenever possible. It is noteworthy that PCGS and NGC both use high powered stereoscopes when grading coins.

 

Good luck on all of your future slabbing adventures...

[prudden]

Wasn't there a post or two a few months back abouth the grading companies no longer awarding 70's to these because they were spotting after slabbing.?Don't know if was was one or both the biggies.