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Replies: 43 / Views: 4,433 |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2669 Posts |
Edited by xshift 05/05/2009 4:09 pm
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1083 Posts |
I am no expert, but something about that mintmark looks funky. The letters don't look genuine. It looks to me like someone tried unsuccessfully to add the CC to a plain 1893 and weren't successful. I hope I am wrong. The mint mark is also worn way more than the rest of the coin. Here's hoping there is a VAM with a weakly struck mint for Carson City?
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1429 Posts |
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
2669 Posts |
I checked Vamworld but didn't see anything related to the mint mark like this. I'll post a note in the VAM forum and ask them to come peek at it.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2130 Posts |
Hello, did you weigh the coin for authenticity?  26.73 grams
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
2669 Posts |
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Moderator
 United States
23731 Posts |
As far as grade goes I think this coin might just make F-15.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2130 Posts |
I'm sure your wieght is fine, due to circulation wear. But, that CC does'nt look right. 
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
2669 Posts |
The CC looks like someone either tried to remove it (from the die or the coin?) or it was smashed somehow. Any chance a CC was restruck at the Philly mint or the Philly mint got a die from CC that hadn't had the mint mark entirely ground off? (you'd think there would be more of these, though)
I was going through some older heritage auctions and I did see a bunch where the mint mark wasn't as prominent as it usually is.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1083 Posts |
If it is a CC, it is a valuable coin. If it were me I would send it in to PCGS or one of the major companies for authentication.
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Moderator
 United States
23522 Posts |
If it's real, it's a Grease Fill. These aren't exactly uncommon with Morgans. It would be extremely difficult to raise a CC mint mark on a worn coin, and there would have been no reason to do so as a contemporary alteration. My guess from the (beautiful!) pics is that it's an authentic grease-filled MM coin. Although I am not expert with mint mark placement for this issue, which raises doubts as to my believability (  ), I was able to find coins with seemingly-similar MM placement in the Heritage archive.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1219 Posts |
SuperDave is correct on his assessment. This is a VAM 4. Date placement right of normal. Mintmark tilted left. The coin is to well worn to show doubling on the 3. Mine show the same weakness on the MM. When taking pictures of mintmarks try to keep the bow ribbons as vertical as you can. This really helps to determine offsets left and right and high or low.
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
2669 Posts |
MorgansRmine - thanks, I'll keep that in mind. I tried different angles because the mm was so hard to see - but keeping the coin more vertical and trying different lighting could work as well. And thanks for the VAM determination, too. SuperDave - thanks for the picture compliment! I'm really loving the new macro lens, and was hoping my picture quality would improve. Not quite at your level yet, however  I may indeed send this one in for grading (& authenticating). I put it at VF20 (but as we all know, I am not the greatest grader yet  ) and echizento puts it -sort of- at F15. Any other opinions?
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Pillar of the Community
United States
851 Posts |
I had one of these CC's. I found it on a day I decided to look through my collection in search of things I knew were already not there. To my surprise I found the same faint MM's by using a loupe. I sold it to a coin dealer in my area who told me the marks were to faint to grade for 160 dollars. The grade was about VF 20. I am now wondering if I was taken advantage of?  
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
2669 Posts |
"Too faint to grade"? If it's a CC, it's a CC, nothing will change where it was minted.
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Moderator
 United States
23522 Posts |
Quote: SuperDave - thanks for the picture compliment! I'm really loving the new macro lens, and was hoping my picture quality would improve. Not quite at your level yet, however Postprocessing is your friend.  
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Replies: 43 / Views: 4,433 |