Well, the color is a uniform chocolate when seen in person. The lighting situation for my photos will hopefully be fixed soon (have to fix my setup on my days off). The dealer where I purchased it graded it as a VG-8, but I think he was very conservative with his grade on this one (usually I agree with his grades but this is an exception). I too examined it and thought F-12 or F-15, and bought it for $75.00. I don't think it's been cleaned so much as it's been handled, and yeah, the dings kind of irk me, but overall it's a nice coin for the money and I have ZERO regrets buying it for my set. Thanks for the input everyone!























