1897 Un Centavo

come on guys , you won't hurt my feelings!

I have the same problem with grading some of my Afghan coins that were struck on severely worn dies. Here is one with a similar orange peel look:



I would think that your coin has seen some circulation because the orange peel look is not consistent on the reverse. That muddies the water a bit becuase it becomes tough to tell what is wear and what is strike. In my collection I would probably call it VF.

Ok here's my reasoning, I gave the above coin a grade of AU-50 but it very well could only be an EF-45.

after comparing it to other coins that were or probably were struck with dies in better shape than those that struck the coin in question and looking at the wear pattern on coins that I know are circulated.

like this one that I gave a VF grade to.



I can see the high points of the design, the coin above shows wear on both wings and the breast and the cactus and ground swell that the eagle stands on, compare that to the original coin,

In this picture notice that the branches and leaves are worn to the top of the rim, flat lacking most detail except for the very deepest of the veining in a few leaves.