Cabinet Friction,stacking Or Wear

Without good, and I shall repeat-- GOOD digital photography, there would be no coin hobby whatsoever. Given that the majority of coin purchases are at arms length, online, how else is one supposed to evaluate coins? PCGS photo grade is an excellent resource for comparative photographs of various grades-- is it exact--No, but it is awfully good. Anybody who denigrates said resource materials is flat out incompetent as a collector, inasmuch as we need rubrics for online purchasing. So, the problem isn't coin photography-- it is bad, or doctored coin photography that misrepresents a coin. In the case of bad photography, I exercise my perogative not to buy the coin, if the photograph does not give me a good idea of the coin in question. Rather than criticize coin photography-- learn to use it to your advantage.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

Awesome and Thanks! Any and all info is very appreciated!!

 

I have purchased for cheap, (donation to my coin club) very impressive recent catalogs, Stacks Bowers, Pre Long Beach auction etc. The photos are amazing with what seems to be fairly good description/disclosure on each coin, token, errors, private mint assay bars and much more. Gives me a bit of a head start on coins or series I am interested in but have no way at the moment of handling, especially in any quantity.

 

Also gentlemen, links to any other threads or sites on grading, authentication, counterfeit, artificial toning and the like would be greatly appreciated. I have put grading and other terms in the CT search engine but just doesn't seem the get me to what I am looking for. Thanks!!

 

Not entirely true. Luster is the reflection of light from a surface. Just about everything (except black holes has SOME TYPE of luster. The black keys on my keyboard as I write this have luster. The paper clip under the lamp on my desk has luster. When I look into a mirror and move my gray hair aside there is luster on my greasy forehead!

Now to the point. Metal ingots have luster, the strip has luster, the blank has luster, the planchet has luster, the struck coin has luster. When I clean it, polish it, or remove black tarnish from an area there is still some type of luster reflecting from the surface. The key here is that the luster looks different in each case! Therefore, the part of a struck coin that was touched by the die has one type of luster, while weakly struck areas that did not touch the dies (and the inside of the planchet striations we have been discussing) have a different appearance to their original luster.

How to detect the many different "looks" on a coin's surface is one of the most important lessons to teach beginners about grading. Surface alterations (no matter what the cause) do not look like original mint luster.

Let me pick one more "nit." Metal flowing over a fresh, new die when a coin is struck does not give the coin its mint luster. The struck coin has it anyway - it's made of metal.

As more coins are struck, the die becomes worn microscopic grooves are scoured into its surface. Now the surface of the struck coin shows this as more pronounced radial flow lines. A coin struck from these dies has luster also but that luster looks different from a coin made with a fresh die. As you have probably written many times before... these coins have the "cartwheel" luster we all admire.

 

The market graders need "cabinet friction" to justify the market grade they intend to assign to the coin. "Cabinet friction" is wear but the head game the market graders are playing is that it's "cabinet" wear instead of "circulation" wear. In fact these graders are so screwed up in their own heads they can't call it "wear" but have to refer to it by another term, "friction." How do they know it's "cabinet friction" and not "circulation wear?" They know that just like they know everything else, really, they just know it. That's why they deserve to be paid so much.

 

May I call you Doug? You have been holding out on us. Seems like either you have:

1. Worked at some of the TPGS.

2. Spoken "off the record" with TPG about types of wear on coins.

3. Attended several ANA coin grading seminars (basic to advanced).

4. Or believe everything you read in the PCGS Grading Guide.

Best Regards, Mike

 

Trust me on this one Eddie,

If you spent twenty minutes with a good teacher like Bill Shamhart (former NGC grader) or sat in a grading room with a TPG who was a good teacher they could show you the different types of wear - THEY DO NOT LOOK ALIKE. TPGS treat them differently.

Doug and I AGREE that loss of luster on the high points is some form of wear. WEAR is WEAR. The hard part is either setting your own limits or adopting the TPGS limits as to how much WEAR is allowed on each type, composition, and era of coin. Simple right? An please stop bad mouthing the TPG's. They are just like us only more informed and richer

 

PS "Cabinet Friction" was a term introduced into the grading services around 1975. I believe I first learned of its use by a major dealer or auction house; however, it may have been "coined" as far back in time as wooden coin cabinets.

 

This is just GREAT information! I am really glad I revived this 7 year old thread. This is the kind of detailed information I have been looking for! Keep it coming.

 

Would you happen to have photos illustrating these two types of wear, Mike, for those of us who aren't as, well, clairvoyant? You had maintained elsewhere one can grade on photos. May I call you Mike, btw? Lol...

 

One more thing. Do you all know what wear means, why it's significant? I don't think you all do, so let me slow down. It means that much lower of a state of preservation. When we're condition-grading, that's what's important.

 

Could you please expand on these two statements.

 

I an computer illiterate. I just figured how to "quote posts" each time yesterday.
However, there is an IT person who comes around here who can help me. I have dozens of photos and "old-timey" slides.

I promise I will post some photos but it will not be until after the FUN show in FL.
In the meantime, I shall look for a column on this subject I saw published in Numismatic News some time ago. I don't know what the copyright laws say but it will be for education so I guess it's safe.

Until then, did my explanation about shiny or dull help at all? Look at a bunch of MS-63 - 66 slabbed $20 Saints. You should see that some have an original frosty knee (True Unc); a shiny knee (stacking); a dull knee (friction wear). Note all are graded MS. Don't buy the dull flat knee MS coins. Standards will change in the future for sure.

 

Circulated coins should have been graded mostly by the amount of detail lost. Unfortunately the ANA added the number of marks into the equation in their guide book: Unc Typical = 60 vs Unc Choice so a marked up coin with a tiny amount of wear (AU-59) is an ANA 50! No one said this would be easy to understand.

 

Sorry to butt in ...I was not asked.

 

No worries, this is what I signed up for!

 

Yeah. I'm not so dumb after all. Just experimented with a coin on my desk. One micrograph is a Canadian coin w/small debris (struck through). Next is same coin w/particle removed. So I will be able to get back to you Eddie...just need time to search for best photos.