Care To Grade An 1804 Quarter Eagle?

Amazing coin, Thanks for sharing.

Hopefully there was no bump down for the reverse adjustment marks. I'd give it a nice strong 55.

I'm going with AU50 based on the light obverse hairlines and the reverse eye appeal being hurt a touch by the adjustment marks. A 53 grade would be no surprise though.

The former is correct.

Nice coin!

AU-55.

This coin is in a PCGS AU-50 green label holder, and that grade is accurate. The "scratches" on the left side of the reverse are adjustment marks. They do not lower the technical grade, but if they are in the wrong place, like straight across the obverse portrait, adjustment marks can make the coin harder or a lot harder to sell, and probably will lower the price regardless of the assigned grade. Adjustment marks do not lower the technical grade because they were a part of the minting process which was done inside the mint.

Over my years as a collect, a very large majority of the 1804 $2.50 gold coins I have seen had adjustment marks. They are so often seen on that date, that they virtually come with the territory.

What are adjustment marks? Back at the first mint, it was important that the coin blanks (planchets) had the exact legal weight. Planchets that were too light had to be thrown in to the melting pot and remade. A few exceptions are found with early Flowing Hair dollars that had plugs pushed in to them to bring up the weight. When such coins are found today they bring premium prices. I am not aware of any other denominations that had such plugs added to them.

When the planchets were too heavy they were adjusted with a file raked accross until they were down to the legal weight. Who did the adjusting? They were women employed at the mint to do that tedious work all day long, 12 hours a day. They wore leather aprons into which they pushed to scraps which were subsequently dumped into the melt pot. For this work these women were paid 65 cents a day. They were the lowest paid workers at the first mint, even lower than the young boys, who had the title of "boy" in the mint's payroll.

I once read a scheme of long ago where they would shave away this coin's reverse leaving a thin obverse shell. Taking a dime they would thinly shave away the obverse. Since sizes and reverses dies are identical by mating the two, and gold plating the silver back portion of the sandwich it could pass as a quarter eagle again. By doing so they turn an investment of $2.60 into $2.50 in coin (counterfeit) to shill and about $2.00 in gold dust. For a profit of $1.90 they could spend a bit of time doing this and still make out well.

Adjustment mark history is fascinating. Agree with AU-50 grade.