Owner Comments:
Total Graded: 93303
Total Prooflike: 7
Percentage: 0.0075%
Prooflike Indian Cents are rare. Well, that is a bit of an understatement. PL Indian cents are RARE! When I asked one of the leading Indian cent dealers (Charmy Harker) about PL Indians, she said “They don’t exist.” Well, I refused to accept that as an answer, and kept looking. I knew that NGC had designated at least a couple, so they had to be out there somewhere.
Finally, I found this one. I was at the 2016 FUN show in Tampa, and had gone to pay a visit to Rick Snow and asked him to take a look at my Flying Eagle cent (to determine if it was a proof or actually a prooflike business strike). While at the table, we started talking about my set and my quest for PL coins. He showed me a 1908S in his case, and I immediately knew that I had to buy it. It was priced quite strongly, but it was worth it. At the time, it was in a PCGS 65RD holder, with his EagleEye sticker. He said that this coin was previously owned by QDB himself, in a set that Snow had helped him build.
The coin is bright red, with flashy, deep mirrors. There is a significant amount of cameo contrast on strongly struck devices. A couple of very minor carbon spots, and a couple of minor contact marks are all that hold this coin back from 66 – which is why NGC crossed it to 65+. There is a moderate amount of very fine die polish lines in the fields. For some reason, NGC did not designate this stunning coin as PL on the first try, so I had to send it back for a designation review, where it easily earned the PL.