For Grading - 1881 Indian Head Cent

I'm at XF45

40 seems about right. Nice original look.
Was this variety the result of an over-polished die?

Here is the description on https://www.indianvarieties.com/

"Very rare variety; it may not have started service with the ribbon ends missing."

Here is a direct link to the variety - https://www.indianvarieties.com/cen...881-odd-001/

40. Yes, that is in fact a scarce variety. I have one of my own in worse shape. The bizarre ribbon is something you can't miss once you know to look for it.

I suspect the reverse die was cut too shallow.

I think that it would benefit from careful conservation to "de-gunk" it.

I can never understand why some collectors will show photos of their coins that are full of gunk in between the letters and numbers when a simple home conservation is fairly easy to do . Starting off with a distilled water soak ,then an acetone soak . Use tooth pic , Q-tip or porcupine quill while coin is still in acetone . Give it a few more dips in clean fresh acetone . You can use Verdi-Care at this time for finishing touches of entire coin , make sure coin is dry before you put it into a 2x2 holder , I found out about that the hard way .

Lots EF-40 to me.