I have noticed many people selling silver eagles brag about the condition. Since they were never circulated aren't they all perfect condition? Why would you want to have one graded? I am just trying to learn, not picking on those sellers. Thanks!
It's just a seller thing....using catch words like uncirculated and graded. This goes for any coin seller really and is not just for ase. It's like a car salesman who touts AC and cd players even though they are so common today. It's just a selling point.
No, they're not all in the same condition. Uncirculated coins are graded on a scale of MS60, MS61, MS62.......on through MS70 with 70 being the perfect coin. There are many times when the owner of a 70 doesn't know the difference between it and a 69. So, in effect, they have bought the slab, not the coin. Chris
And if it is a 70 grade, just because it came from the mint and was not circulated, is no guarantee yours will be in this condition.
To help you understand, imagine this if you would. A coin is struck with brand new dies. Everything about the strike went just right, the pressure, the centering, the metal flow, all of the devices are fully detailed. The coin is a close to perfect as a coin can get. A 70 in other words. Now that same pair of dies is used to strike 300,000 more coins. The 300,000th coin coin comes off the dies and it is just as new and uncirculated as the first coin was. But, over the course of those 300,000 strikes the strike pressure has dropped, the dies have come out of adjustment and the coin is not well centered, the metal flow was not as good because of this, and the quality of strike is no where near as good as it was on the first coin - the devices are not fully detailed. So here you have 2 coins, both brand new, uncirculated, and fresh from the dies. But one of them is as close to perfect as it can get, and the other one is no where near close to that. So obviously the second coin cannot be graded a 70, it must be graded something less than that. Understand now ?
This raises an interesting grading question. Can grades be differentiated on the basis of the state of the dies? From both a market and technical grading standpoint the so-called LDS coin is inferior to the so-called EDS coin and the so-called MDS coin is somewhere in the middle. But is that how we grade coins, by comparing them to one another? Or do we start all coins at MS70 and grade on the basis of what happened to them after they were struck? At what point does the grading begin? At the point at which they were struck or at the point at which they officially left the custody of the Mint? I'm going to say even though an EDS coin is superior to an LDS coin and MDS coins are somewhere in the middle the state of the dies don't mean a thing to the technical grade but do mean everything to the market grade. Or something like that.
Yes, of course they can. They are in fact. Correct. But - that is assuming that all other grading criteria are equal on each one. If however the other grading criteria on the EDS coin is lesser than that on the LDS coin (or MDS), then the LDS coin is going to grade higher than the EDS coin will. It's a little of both. But it's not really that we compare to each other, but rather that we compare a given coin to what it should look like if it were as close to perfect as it could be. It begins the instant the coin leaves the dies. Those contact marks that a coin gets when it falls from the dies and into the hopper below, those contact marks count against the grade. As do any other marks, scratches, scuffs, dings, damage, or anything else that happens to the coin once it has left the dies. That is correct. And that, strike quality, is one of the main differences between technical grading and market grading. Two more differences are quality of luster and eye appeal. All 3 of those things are used in market grading, but not in technical grading.
OK, Doug. Hey, most of this I said I learned from you, anyway, over the threads. Now it's just re-affirmed.
Well thank you for the compliment. But my explanation and expansion on your comments was really more intended for other readers that have not been around as long as you have than it was for you
That was my thought, but I guess people are collecting them as if they were a real coins. Thanks for all the great replies. I fully understand now.
