Please Grade My Coin! (1856-D Half Eagle)

$5 dollars?...never seen one of those before! - I'd say MS-60 but I don't have a clue about them hehehe

For anyone noticing the differences between biokemist6's numbers and mine, realize that there have been many resubmissions over the years, and nobody wants to talk about it. For that reason, graded populations for such a rare issue will usually exceed the known actual population of the coin.

Wowser. Either this seller is the biggest counterfeiter on ebay, or he's a legit numismatist with access to some really serious gold, and a lot of it. I see little rumblings about overgrading (his pictures are large enough to get within a couple of points).

Kshaplin, I am somewhat reassured by the seller. I strongly urge you to submit the coin to PCGS for grading - they are known to be pretty paranoid about altered surfaces these days, and if you can get it into a PCGS slab you're golden (so to speak ). If it comes back cleaned, you're out the grading fee, of course, but then you know to send it to ANACS for a Net slab and still-reasonable market acceptance. Either way, this one belongs in a slab for authentication reasons alone.

Even if it's cleaned, the very worst I see happening to you here is ending up with something worth what you paid for it.

PCGS will not grade the coin if it's cleaned. That's why I suggested ANACS, which will slab a cleaned coin. Its' value in a PCGS slab is so much greater that I believe the $50 it'll cost you to grade is a worthwhile risk. If they refuse to grade, PCGS will tell you why they refused, i.e., Altered Surfaces or Counterfeit.

Accurate grading will require someone who is quite familiar with Dahlonega strikes. The pictures, in all honesty, aren't up to the fine discrimination between good AU and Mint State - the reverse certainly looks no worse than AU58 to me, but a slightly different picture could sway me one way or the other.

kshaplin,
I just looked up the ebay seller and all I can say is .
He has alot of raw C, CC, and D gold- must be an old-school guy that shys away from plastic. Seeing his inventory, I am of the opinion of SuperDave- either he is a counterfeiter on a grand scale or he is a legit seller of high-end(for ebay anyway)coins. I could see that a legitimate MS coin and if it is, you got a deal

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Why would the seller leave so much money on the table?

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Good question. Possibly because he's got so many of them that he's making a metric ton of cash just turning them over for cash flow. Or maybe he's laundering drug money.

I'm not joking.

Hi Kevin and welcome to the forum!

Repeating what everyone else said, it appears you got a great buy! I just hope the 56-D turns out OK at a TPG.

I'll throw in just another guesstimate on the seller. It may be he's an old retired guy (like me) who deals with raw rare coins more as a hobby or retirement job than as a hardcore dealer who needs to make a living. Sorta like an eccentric, just likes to buy and sell coins to keep busy or keep himself away from his wife . Makes enough money off what he has without going through the hassle of submitting them to a slabber.