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Interesting...
I'm perhaps stuck in 1980 when I last collected. At that time (as I understood it at the time) grading was a matter of the visible detail compared with an "ideal" BU example of the same coin, now called MS-70 or PR-70. I may be wrong (again) but at that time, if a coin left the coin press with less than perfect detail then it could not approach a perfect grade. Also, the coin was graded to the weakest side, not like today's dual grade.
Oh well...
An ancillary question. In reality, does rarity play any part in grading? That is, say you have two absolutely identical IHCs with equal wear, color and detail. If you covered the dates then everyone would give them identical grades. However, if you uncovered the dates and one was an 1877 and the other was a 1909, would they then still grade identically? (in this, and any similar comparison, I'm assuming that there are no other details on the coin that would indicate its date.)
I'm thinking that, while grading it ideally objective, there's really a lot more subjectivity and bias involved than there should be.
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