1880-S $5

Welcome!


Your coin is I think a high AU grade, probably AU-58. There is a slight dulling of color and luster on Liberty's cheek and in the obverse field which indicates light wear. The reverse alone would probably grade BU (MS-60 or better). Unlike many gold pieces, your coin does not have a lot of scratches or scuffs, so I'd call it above average quality for an AU. It's a nice example of this common date half eagle.

Thanks, guys. AU-58 is about what I thought I could hope for on this one, but I thought I'd check. Just wondering, since I'm just getting into gold coins--if a dealer labels something MS-60 and the experts would only call it an AU-58, is it time to find a new dealer? I'm not experienced enough to see the difference yet so for the time being I still have to trust that the person I'm buying from is not too liberal with their grading. Could I still get an MS-60 price out of it because of the superior reverse?

Here are some pictures with more even lighting in case using the flash on my terrible 6 megapixel camera in a dark room is somehow misrepresenting the coin. In person, the luster on it is bright and even, though I couldn't say anything about the high points on the face due to inexperience.

[EDIT] Those pictures are obscenely large, even when scaled to fit the page, so I'll just provide a link to the imageshack gallery:

http://img15.imageshack.us/gal.php?g=1020600.jpg

I've always trusted the dealer I buy my gold from, so since there seems to be some real ambiguity involved here I couldn't blame him for personally being unable to make up his mind on the grade, even if it had been labeled MS-60 in the glass case when I chose it. I completely understand that grading is subjective, but when I'm paying as much as I am a little certainty goes a long way in allowing me to psychologically justify spending this much Thanks again for your comments.