1833 Capped Bust Half, ANACS AU-58 Details

"Altered Surfaces" is the favorite, catch-all reason for rejecting a coin for grading at PCGS. It could mean anything from excessive dipping (which chemically strips off the original surface, usually impairing the luster) to "thumbing" (rubbing with the thumb so skin oils make the surface look smoother) to applying artificial mint frost made from aluminum powder. I suspect in some cases Altered Surface really means the grader just didn't like the coin and needed a reason to put it in a body bag. But, that's just me.

This coin has a uniform, dark surface which appears somewhat unnatural. If it were naturally toned the color would not be so uniform. Instead it would generally be darker at the rims and smoothly shade towards a ligher color in the centers. Probably this coin was excessively dipped years ago and the exposed metal surface then toned all over at about the same rate. The original surface and luster is mostly gone. It's still a nice coin but not as desirable as one with original surface.

Hrm....thanks for your opinions. I've seen a lot of OBVIOUSLY altered coins though, so I guess though this has had something done to it, it's not TOO bad. I definitely understand that this isn't as desirable as an original coin, but PCGS price guide for AU 58 is around 1100...so I'm thinking even if it's worth 40-50% of that, I got a bargain. Am I right to think this?

ebay

do you have the coin in hand? or is that a seller's pic? it makes a BIG difference, because a lot of the time hairlines magically appear when you turn the coin under a light.

I know nothing about this series, but the area around the nose looks suspect to me. Maybe it was whizzed?

How much does the price generally get cut for an altered coin?

As Bonedigger said, it was probably aggressively dipped at some point and then retoned but the process more than likely left a high AU coin without any luster. An AU details coin should always luster and if it doesn't, you can bet that someone worked on it too much and that will get you an altered surfaces. ANACS does not use "Altered Surfaces" as a catch-all like PCGS does- anything they happen to not like gets bodybagged that way If it was tooled, wizzed, etc, ANACS will specifically label it as such. The Heritage Numismedia price guide lists this coin @$575-700 in AU58, $225-290 in AU50, and $145-185 in EF45. It is really not a bad looking coin and obviously much less expensive than a problem-free AU58.



IMO, it really depends on the look of the coin. If it looks scrubbed and abused, the price will be abused as well. That one has dark and uniform toning but it is not a nasty blotchy toning that screams AT and in hand, luster is probably not visible. On the other hand, it is a very well detailed and centered coin with weakness in only one star and the motto ribbon is strong.