Grade This US 1851c Dollar

Hi Wwhitman,
That appears to be a nice AU example of this Charlotte dollar. There is a ding at the top of Liberty's head but it's not too serious. I see some hairlines on the reverse, but again nothing too bad. Your photo doesn't show much luster; there should be a significant amount of remaining luster on an AU coin. Lack of luster may indicate it has suffered a cleaning.

I have one of these, graded AU-55 by PCGS. Here are some photos:





It looks to me like my coin has a bit more detail in Liberty's hair and I know the luster is fairly strong. I'd be inclined to call yours AU-50 by comparison.

For what it's worth, your coin looks authentic. I'd be worried about counterfeits for almost any US gold piece, especially a scarcer date like any of the Charlotte coins. Have you considered having this one graded?

It does appear to have scratches on the obverse,that would indicate some cleaning....

Hello

I'm curious. These coins seem to almost always have a better
obv. than rev. When I looked at this coins obv. I thought pretty nice.
High AU myself. Then the rev. looked not as good. Do they still stick
to the old "worse side gets the grade" period, or are they more flexible now on certain coins ?