I Went Off The Deep End. I Won An 1884 3CN On Ebay!

That is a very pretty coin!

Awesome coin!
If it turns out to be a genuine business strike I'd say you got a killer deal. It does look like an honestly circulated coin, although it could of course have started out as a proof.

I would also wonder why Sterling Rare Coin did not have it slabbed, if it really is a no-problem business strike. I'll keep my fingers crossed, too!

There's nothing, at this point, that indicates any sort of cleaning on this coin. If I were to see any hint of it, it will go back and I'll take the approximate $30 shipping loss. I've had a couple of other people take a look at the auction coin and neither said anything negative about the coin. In fact, one of the two people notoriously hates just about all ebay stuff and calls it all cleaned. The pictures don't reveal that.

The pictures do reveal what a business strike would like like in a nice XF grade, though. The basic factors seem to all align up with what should be a business strike.

Still, I'm a wee bit concerned why this isn't in a TPGS slab. One reason might be is that a company such as PCGS will not slab it as a business strike if it has more than high AU wear due to diagnostics wearing off. However, for this date, the one diagnostic that Alan Gifford writes about should exist in just about any grade (lack of bottom, left ribbon connection to bow).

I'll post high-res scans (which will likely be cut down a bit by my picture host) as soon as I get the coin.

PCGS and NGC will body-bag coins that they believe have been cleaned. They however are fairly inconsistent since I and many others have seen coins in their slabs that certainly look like they were cleaned.

ANACS will slab cleaned coins and deduct points from the final grade depending on how severe they consider the defect to be. This is called "net grading". ICG has just started slabbing "problem" coins and will assign them "details" grades according to how much wear is present. Both ANACS and ICG will state the nature of the defect on the slab label.

I agree with 1 sickevo for the reasons he stated, the devices do not match the surfaces, it may be an old cleaning but a cleaning none the less.

Wow! That is a RARE beauty. I would be a little nervous too, but the coin looks to be problem free from here. 3CN are definitely underrated. They really are beautiful and rare...usually an expensive combo.

Raw, rare and on the 'bay worries me as well, but it is a series you are familiar with. The seller also states that he guarantees it's a business strike (in the Q&A section), I would make a copy of the ebay listing just in case there is a problem.
Has this coin been cleaned? Hard to tell from the images, but the thought also crossed my mind as soon as I looked at the coin. I don't know.
Good luck, Prethen!

For those that think this "might" have been cleaned, I'd be curious to see images of 3CN coins in this grade that you feel do not look cleaned.