Polished Mercury Dimes -- The New Normal?

Yup, as I said in my first post I refuse to fill the 16D. hahaha My "dealer buddy" has a NGC MS61 one he paid $11K for he keeps trying to get me to buy off of him. It is purty but I'm not that rich. Have a hard time putting more than $500 into anything but $10 gold indians, and my one AU55 3-legger. More tempted by Walker upgrades for that kind of dough.

I've been working on my Mercury dime set ever since I found an old blue Whitman folder and a 1936 for $2. It's not very full yet, but I'm working on it! My standards are low, but you can find a lot more low mintage years up here because not many people can name them (including me - I've been digging through bulk bins and resorting to the mintage figures on my folder to get the lowest mintage years).

Thanks, jpbone. I can spot the more obviously polishing especially on lower grade coins: it's seems highly unlikely that a VG seated half would have any mint luster left. Where it gets difficult for me is the higher grades. I was at my local dealer just today and he let me take a close look at two Walking Liberties, both in AU: one had original luster and one was lightly polished. Even with a loupe, I could not see any differences between the two. I guess you just have to look at coins to really get a feel for it, which is why I'm useful to have the knowledge from this forum available!