Grade Distribution for Modern Coins

There are issues for which the overwhelming majority of graded examples are 70's. It's high time people started realizing that a 70 isn't difficult any more.

 

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You've looked at too many slabs. I was trying to be polite.

He's right, though. If you can see a mark in a Heritage photo, it's not a 70. By this standard, my anecdotal experience shows about half of PCGS 70's and two thirds of NGC 70's don't belong there.

 

I'm just curious if there has ever been an unbiased study performed on all of the current TPG services. I know many a (dare I say) old timer collector that only trusts older slated graded coins such as the old rattlers and the like. They may not offer 50 different backgrounds to choose from as the current market offers. On that note, there are price differences just because modern coins are in a more aestheticly pleasing case. I thought that we were grading coins rather than the box that it is in. But I digress, if there is anyone out there that knows of imperical data rather than one's opinion I would love to see it.

Colorado Ron

 

It has less to do with aesthetics than that the coins were graded more conservatively when the TPGs were starting out. They didn't yet know what monkey business they could get away with in market grading. That translates to any number of those coins are undergraded by today's standards, if you can even call them "standards."

 

Current collector issues minted, handled, and packaged for collectors (not roll-packed ASEs or mint sets) have a sufficiently high percentage coins grading 70 to satisfy collector demand for these. The population reports will be skewed a little by bulk orders with a minimum grade of 69, but a PR68 from the mint is becoming more and more of an anomaly. Proof ASEs more than 20 years old have fewer coins graded 70 in part because sending in hundreds or thousands at a time in bulk wasn't the thing to do, but there are still plenty of coins with that grade. Take a look at the PCGS pops for these to figure out percentages.