1954 Threepence Grading Help

The ear and hairline on the obverse are the high points. These are often weakly struck on QEII coins though and it can be hard to differentiate between strike and wear.

I'll go with EF'ish too but would note the heavy bag mark in the obverse fields. Hard to get any more accurate because the image doesn't show any lustre.

Actually the shoulder is a high point too. The metal flow into that area is the reason why the junction of the ribbon and three wheat stalks on the reverse is commonly found very poorly struck up. Rim beads on the reverse are poorly struck rather than damaged.

Actually the rim beads/denticles are commonly poorly struck because in an attempt to lengthen the life of dies. In a lot of cases dies are not actually flat. They are ever, ever so slightly curved with the centre of the die protruding slightly and the edges of the die (which forms the rims) slightly withdrawn. This is to ensure that the important parts of the design are always struck properly (and thus the coin is useful as currency) if lower striking pressures are used. It just so happens that mints tend to strike at a lower pressure when they are trying to lengthen die life. So you get coins with the centre of design fairly well struck up while the rim beads/denticles are poorly formed. This phenomenon is also exacerbated by the fact that the rim beads/denticles are usually a low relief part of the design. I've got a 1956 3d (seen below) which almost has NO reverse denticles.

those usb microscopes show the lustre pretty well

$28

I knew it was a key date, but it looked more aUNC than EF at the time.

i bought an ipad a little over a year ago and it lacks much of a laptops functionality IMO. In hindsight I should have got a pc.