1843 $1

Thanks, BH. I bought the coin earlier today on ebay, for $918, believing it to be problem free and original because it was certified. I just now contacted the seller about returning it.

with BH1964. Far from original surfaces hopefully you are able to return it. If you are looking for certified coins on ebay I would suggest you stick with PCGS, NGC, and perhaps ANACS until you know what to look for in spotting problem coins.

This is one coin I would like to have at $600 cleaned than $2,000 unmolested.
I could spent the $1,400 on something else. In my case, perhaps a nice ancient!

Returned it, and got this one:

Much better coin for your spend. Great eye appeal on that PCGS. Good luck with it

the pcgs has little or no cartwheel, but the surfaces appears almost prooflike, does have a bit more luster in the protected areas between the stars and numbers and letters. And I noticed a number of hairlines.

is all this consistent with an original AU50?

To be frank about it, when I first viewed the PCGS coin I thought it had been quietly net graded 3 or 5 points for a light, market-acceptable cleaning.

It looks far better than the ICG coin from what can be seen in the images and likely was a better value based on dollars spent.

Please remember you bought the ICG coin for half of what an attractive, original AU58 might have cost. There's a reason for that. The PCGS coin better reflects $900 in value for this date. Whether or not it's entirely original or not? Who knows. You're spending a lot of money here, spend some time learning before dropping a grand on a coin again.

actually, the "hairlines" look more like the random, minute little marks a coin could get from circulation