Grade My Peace Dollar And A Few Questions (New Pics)

The coin you posted is not possible to accurately grade for surfaces because there is way too much light on the coin; looking only at sharpness and field disturbances, the presence of what appear to be numerous nicks and dings in the fields and on the devices, as well as a slight indication of rub on the forelock, cheek and eagle's breast/perch, I would figure this is an AU coin.

Grading is a highly subjective thing, and I agree with what BH1964 wrote above, as well. That being said, to me, a truly "Uncirculated" coin is one which did not enter circulation long enough to obtain any appreciable wear or degradation of luster and surface originality. Such a coin might have been pulled from a freshly-minted shipment to a bank, or from a new bank roll, or obtained directly from the mint, but was not otherwise subjected to its intended use as a means of payment. The question of "how long can a coin be out of the mint's hands before it becomes circulated" is a very broad one and the answer to that question is largely subjective. The very strictest of graders will tell you that once a coin has been touched by anything outside of the mint which struck it, it is Circulated, and other graders might be a bit less conservative and allow brief periods of handling by bank employees, treasury workers, mint workers, collectors, and individuals but still consider it Uncirculated if it was handled in such a way that the surfaces do not show wear or disturbances.

When it comes to differentiating wear from a weak strike, the key often lies with the surfaces, especially luster. A truly Uncirculated coin with weakly-struck areas will show no interruption of luster or change in color or "frost" across those areas. Usually, once actual wear / rub occurs, the surfaces will lose luster and change color or appearance relative to the surrounding areas of the coin, although it can be difficult to determine what is the result of contact with other coins (e.g. Morgan and Peace dollars in bags) and what is the result of human handling.

If you study a particular coin series, such as Peace dollars, you can learn with practice which areas of the coin, and even which particular dates and mintmarks, tend to be weakly struck, and looking at graded Uncirculated examples of those coins vs. high grade Circulated (AU-55 to AU-58) can teach you how to distinguish strike issues from circulation wear.

with all of the above. That's good info from BH1964 and paralyse.

To properly grade the coin, we will need pics with better lighting that show the coin's luster. As it is, like others said, it looks polished/cleaned with a lot of "shine" but no luster.

Better pics needed for sure.

As a general rule yes. I always look at the high points for signs of wear/rubs.

Your new pics still show a cleaned coin with Uncirculated details.

These pictures show a coin with an unnatural shine and surface finish. I am not saying with certainty that the coin has been cleaned, only that it looks like it probably was cleaned.

Now whether or not someone considers it market-acceptable is a whole other animal. It does not appear harshly cleaned.

If this sounds confusing don't get frustrated. There is a lot of subjectivity in numismatics and your coin is an example of that.

Man, I don't know how you guys figured this out based on the pictures, as I still can't see it and now I know what to look for (I think).

I took it down to the coin shop and they told me that it has, indeed, been cleaned. He graded it a high AU and offered me $20 (but I'm not trying to sell it). I paid $40 for it. I'm going to try to take it back to the guy I bought it from and see if he'll exchange it for one that hasn't been cleaned.

I wouldn't have known this if it weren't for all of your expertise, so I appreciate it. I'm going to post another one of my Peace dollars for grading here shortly, so I can hopefully get an opinion on grade for a Peace dollar I have that hasn't been marred by cleaning.

Thanks again,

AC

An offer of $20 from a dealer is actually generous. What you paid for it is irrelevant.