1959 Penny Grade

Well for starters Trout that coin has errors,there is an extra line of metal that runs down the Queens neck & back,doubling around the back & top of her head & also looks like a light veil in front of her forhead & eyes too.
The coin is obviously Uncirculated but with water spots & weakness in strike above the ear & in one of the curls below the ear or that could be caused by the double strike as well.
If I were selling that coin or even as a buyer I would be describing it as an UNC coin with errors & water spots.
I'm obviously not Sap or Sel but thats the way I see that coin.
I like itdo you want to sell it ?

Clearly real and clearly a high grade IMO but with a few errors and a little ugly spotting. Bit weak on the obverse elizebeth legend. The photo is taken throigh a slab so quite possible the doubling effect is a trick of the camera.

The photo is an excellent representation of the actual coin, the lighting used when the image was taken was fine and there are no artefacts in the image that are a result of either poor lighting or slab damage. It's from a half roll of 1959M pennies we sourced in USA a few years ago. A few of the coins were water spotted and this coin was one of the more spotty ones. Some of the coins were struck in an interesting manner showing MDD (machine die doubling) and strong metal flow, more typically representative of the Perth struck coins than Melbourne mint coins. The extra line on the top of the portrait is representative of MDD. There's also a degree of ghosting shown on this coin which you don't see often on 1959M coins.

Other coins from the roll exhibited toning that was more typical of Perth coins too, like this one, http://www.thepurplepenny.com/382,p...culated.html A few of the coins in the roll were typical 1959M coins, well struck and with a deep red colour that you often see on the year.

It's hard to say why some of these coins were a bit outside of the norm for 1959M pennies. Perhaps it was a Monday morning after a long weekend when they were made? Perhaps the dies were reaching the end of their life and they had the pressure wound right up causing MDD and metal flow. Perhaps the roll was stored in humid conditions and moisture caused the spotting while the coins were rolled? Who really knows. The coins are what they are, and the images show what they are. I have one of the coins from the roll in my own collection, it's a MS64RB too, a little less spotty but very much like the coin being discussed.

Getting a coin slabbed as an error costs 3 times as much, so no it's not noted on the slab. I tend to agree with you about not wanting my non-error collection having any sort of errors and I wouldn't want this coin sitting in my 1959M penny slot. That being said one of the coins in the roll had a big planchet flaw and that one is sitting happily (raw) in my error collection.

We try to take the best images we can (and have spent many hours working out the way to the best images) that show the coin in all it's glory, warts and all. Major flaws we tend to describe, others we leave up to the image to describe. At some point people have to decide if they like the "look" of a coin or not. That's what the image is for.