I found this interesting The ANA committee that produced the book adopted Dr. William Sheldon’s Numerical Grading System as shorthand for its verbal grades. The Sheldon system had been created in the late 1940s as part of a complicated means of pricing large cents. In brief, its numbers represented the average prices that a common variety, or Rarity-1, 1794 large cent would sell for at that time. A Good coin was worth $4, so the grade became G-4. A Very Good coin was worth $8, so the grade was VG-8. Fine coins might bring $12 or $15, so you got F-12 and F-15. Prices escalated as the grade increased, so you had wider gaps at Very Fine VF-20 and VF-30. However, the populations for 1794 cents decreased severely in the upper grades, so Extremely Fine EF-40 and EF-45 covered the scant census at that level, and About Uncirculated AU-50 and AU-55 covered the coins at that rarified level. Because Dr. Sheldon intended his system to apply to all the large cents of the 1793-1814 era (some of which did come in new condition), he included three Uncirculated grades for the sake of completeness, with the average to slightly better than average uncs at Mint State MS-60, the really nice ones at MS-65, and the theoretically “perfect” coins at MS-70.
If somebody doesn't know the history and particulars of both things - Sheldon's system and the ANA grading book - that comment can be very misleading. They didn't really adopt Sheldon's "system" - they just borrowed the numbering part of it - and that's all. The ANA developed completely and totally different criteria for grading coins than what Sheldon used. And that's what they put in their book. And yes I have a copy of the 1st edition ANA grading book, and yes I used to own a copy of Sheldon's Penny Whimsy as well. And the only thing the two have in common was the numbering used.
One thing that Tom didn't mention was that the ANA board initially only approved the grading service as an experiment to last six months. Like he did say they didn't really expect a lot of submissions for grading. A couple other things that he didn't mention was that The initial drive to create the authentication service began in 1968 pushed by Virgil Hancock. In 1970 he was joined by Abe Kosoff and they kicked off a fund raising drive among the dealers and major collectors to raise the $50,000 they needed to start the authentication service, then called ANAAT. Apparently there wasn't a lot of interest because it took over two years to raise the start up capital. One small discrepancy, To says the authentication service began in June of 1972 and I have it starting in April of that year. Possibly it started in April and the first submissions were in June.
