Peace Silver Dollar Public Education

It was Kenneth Bressett the well-known numismatist and longtime editor of A Guide Book of United States Coins, “The Red Book,” who said (and I’m paraphrasing here): Grading is easy. All it takes is a good loupe, a good light, and experience from looking at about 100,000 or more coins.

If you are new to grading coins, you might miss seeing tiny contact marks or hairline scratches from coins sliding against hard surfaces or from abrasive cleaning, especially when tilting and twirling a coin under a light, but your observation skills will improve as you grade more coins.

Imagine a newly minted coin being struck, dropped into a bin with other coins, being loaded into a bag of 1,000 coins, then traveling over hundreds of miles by car, truck or train. With all that movement and bouncing up and down next to other coins, you’re bound to get tiny contact marks from silver metal colliding with other silver metal. The results are contact marks.

Coins that are perfect (or nearly perfect under 10x magnification) such as mint state and proofs can be given the highest grade on the grading scale, an MS-70 or PF-70 designation, by an independent grading service. Coins that grade as high as MS-65 or Proof-65 are called Gems because the strike is sharp, the design shows no evidence of wear, luster is above average, and there are only few and very minor contact marks or hairlines in the “prime focal area,” Ms. Liberty’s cheek or the surrounding field, which are relatively easy to see at first glance, as well as the eagle’s body and wings. Gems are generally superb coins with no distracting marks and above average eye appeal.

An average coin, graded MS-63, will have several contact marks and perhaps marks that appear on Ms. Liberty’s cheek or in the fields. Don’t forget the reverse. Coins are graded on both sides, even though the obverse side will count more heavily in the final grade determination.

Coins graded MS-60 will have lots of contact marks, and look pretty marked-up, but there will not be any indication of wear, or slide marks from someone passing the coin back and forth on a hard surface, such as a table.

The toughest coins to grade are those designated Almost Uncirculated (AU-58). These have enough slide marks or slight wear (slightly grayish areas) on the highest surfaces (Ms. Liberty’s cheek and hair and the center of the eagle’s chest on the reverse) to be considered circulated coins.

Coins graded AU-50 to AU-55 simply have more contact marks and a lesser degree of luster. AU-50s will have thousands of contact marks, such that when you tilt and twirl the obverse radically under a light source, you can see a circular halo in the field between Ms. Liberty’s portrait and the letters.

Coins graded Extremely Fine (XF-45) all the way down to Poor-1 have an increasing degree of contact marks and wear due to handling in circulation. It’s best to see the grading illustrations given in grading service links or references cited earlier to determine the degree of wear and, consequently, the coin’s grade.

As the dies, under great pressure, press blank planchets into coins, the metal spreads from the center outward. Metal flows into open spaces on the obverse and reverse dies forming the raised design and letters, and spreads until it reaches the collar, whose cavities form the silver dollar’s reeding. Remember, the obverse and reverse dies are a negative of the coin’s design features and metal flows into the dies’ recessed areas that form the positive (raised) design of the coin.

During striking, the metal dies pressing against the planchet create flow lines moving out in all directions on the coin’s surface. This imparts coin luster. 

As striking continues, the die deteriorates further, flow lines become more apparent as the dies age, and middle and later die states can be seen, producing coins that typically have orange peel like surfaces and less luster than coins struck from fresh dies. 

Coins struck with very late die states have dull luster, have an orange-peel look to the fields, may show die cracks, and may even have rare and desirable terminal die state raised bits of metal, called die breaks or cuds (raised planchet metal at the rim). This is a result of the die starting to break apart from repeated metal-against-metal striking under great pressure.

Natural toning or as some people call it, tarnish, is acceptable and sometimes highly desirable. It is the result of the coin being in contact with the sulfur in paper, or exposure over time to oxygen and moisture at elevated temperatures, which produce a delicate micro-thin layer of various colors on a coin’s surface.

Peace dollars stored in older brown Wayte Raymond-type albums attain a beautiful bullet or target type of toning, where attractive concentric circles of color can be seen at the coin’s periphery. Coins stored in rolls tend to take on delineated toning, especially at the ends of the roll. Overlapping colors from the paper folds at the end of the roll may result in an attractive appearance. Coins sitting in Mint bags next to the cloth may take on an attractive texture from the sulfur in the fabric. There may be attractive crescent toning at the edges of a coin, with double or triple crescents evident, or one-side or wildly attractive two-sided toning. However, Peace dollars tend to have less colorful toning than Morgan dollars. 

Toning can make the coin look beautiful, like a piece of art, and can increase the value of a Peace silver dollar significantly, sometimes doubling or tripling its value, or more. On the other hand, ugly toning can reduce a coin’s value. Natural toning may or may not be desirable, but lately more and more collectors demand little, if any, toning. Old-timers and dealers tend to like toning because it reflects a coin’s originality and can be appreciated as a piece of art. If it makes you feel good-looking at your coin every time you pull it out, there’s a good chance the next owner will feel the same and want to spend a good bit more to own it. Never try to clean the toning from your coin. You will reduce its value!