1934 D Walking Liberty Half Question - Hello From Sunny Socal

Pretty sad experience indeed. I don't understand how a person can stay in business if they are not willing to help out. Its hard to believe someone owning a coin shop would not be able to tell a lamination error. Maybe see if someone on the forum can point you to a good shop in the LA area. I have a great one - but I am (more or less) near Gettsyburg!

BTW - love the looks of that 1934.

Yes this 1934 I just posted looks MS to me but aaaaaaaaaaaa what do I know!
The only real thing that bothers me so far, is the cheek on miss liberty?
Also can you tell me if this was protocol to put up another coin in this forum or should have I started a new one?

Remember the forum family is always here to answer questions and we are eager to do so. Its not a bother.

As to the cheek - when I see it zoomed it just looks like it took a small hit.

Remember too that grading professional grading is respected by many collectors, but the more you research, the more you will find the systems definitely are not perfect. There are many threads on this forum showing this. Ron Guth, a former president of PCGS can be quoted as saying the best graders only get it right 80& of the time (which is why they use three graders per coin to help get a better idea), and the companies will tell you the system is subjective - an art - not a science.

So saying a grade is "the absolute right grade" for any coin is calling an art form a science. Marketers like this, but subjectivity is a fact of the system and keeping the subjectivity in mind helps keep a good focus.

The forum saying for slabbed coins is to buy the coin, not the slab. This is wise.

You will also find that different companies train their graders in different ways, hence not even "experts" from one company to another will agree. Just learn to tell cleaning in hand, browse the grading threads here, get a book and use it. I have read/used the ANACs grading standards when looking at slabbed coins as a help.

BTW - Mr. Guth has also mentioned anyone can learn to grade, it just takes experience.

Youtube vids can also help. I think it may have been a PCGS video in which I learned that weak areas can be told from worn areas on an MS coin because a weak strike area will still show unbroken cartwheel luster over it when the coin's face is rotated under a light source. Of course knowing, from reading, the typical places of weak strike for a series plus the video together were a great help.

The key is just to educate yourself as much as possible (and its fun!).

Like I said in your thread in the grading forum, this coin has been polished. Lack of cartwheel luster, hairlines, and a "cleaned" color = cleaned/dipped coin.




Those are die flow lines, caused by Die Deterioration. Normal and very common.

Ingodwetrust7, I find it hard to imagine that 2 graders and a finalizer would have missed those if indeed they are present on the coin as the result of an attempted cleaning. Remember, they had the coin raw and in hand, we have only an image to render an opinion from.

hadleydog - Is there a different view about hairline scratches caused by cleaning than by other means. I agree the graders could not have missed something that appears to be so obvious, must be another explanation. If those are scratches I'm thinking its the slab not the coin. Anyways I have a lot to learn about numismatics. I'm not even sure if I pronounce numismatic correctly.

SilverDollar2017 - No need to be sorry, I messed up, and if the lord dosn't take me soon it surely wont be the last. The seller has a great return policy so I'm OK.

I have a liberty with a similar mark.
To me it look like a "w" mine is a 1943
Walking liberty.

Not trying to be a jerk, but unless you paid them to look at your coin that is asking for free advice. If you aren't paying it is free.