New Grading System

When I was first collecting, I think the Red Book listed XF, AU, BU, Choice BU, and Proof. (I guess that was one source of the "proof is a better grade than Choice BU" misconception held by lots of new collectors.)

I've collected a few later editions of the Red Book, and I think at some point they started listing MS-60 and MS-65, but I'm not sure when.

 

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That was my first thought when I heard them.

 

For those who have not been around forever, the 70 point Sheldon scale was set up as a pricing shortcut tool. Each Sheldon large cent variety had a basal value. You took that dollar amount and multiplied it by the grade number to get an approximate value for the piece.

The system was shown to be flawed almost as soon as Sheldon introduced it. The most obvious problem was with the finest known examples of a variety which were worth way more than his system calculated. Then the rest fell to pieces.

As for the 10 point decimal grading system, the grading companies have been hoping it would catch on for years. If it had, they would have made millions on reholdering fees. Happily, it hasn’t.

 

I just looked at a 1998 Stack's catalog I had saved off. Choice BU, Gem BU, but also "Choice to Gem Brilliant Uncirculated" which I guess is around MS64 now? They also used "choice" a lot elsewhere, like "Choice About Uncirculated" (AU58 I suppose? but they also use "very choice" AU) and "Choice Very Fine." Quite a bit of "prooflike" scattered around. And they never seem to use plain Uncirculated, it's always Brilliant. So even in 1998 they still weren't using Sheldon. I suppose one could dig through their catalog archives and see when Stack's started using it.

 

One of the arguments for using the Sheldon grading numbers was that it put an end to using the imprecise language you noted above.

 

I found that to be an insightful post, although I only quoted a small portion of it.

 

It worked for comics and cards because they didn't have an already firmly established grading system, coins did. For cards and comics it just stepped in and filled a void. For coins it has to displace people from a system thy were already comfortable with. And sinc coin collectors are typically older folks reluctant to change if hasn't worked as well.

 

At the time the scale was created (and remember it was a PRICING scale not a grading scale) that premise was correct and it had been correct for some years. The problem was during the 1950's interest in large cent collecting increased and as more people came into the field it put and much greater demand on the higher grades than on the lower one so the original ratios no longer worked. The early copper community kept trying to adjust the BS-1 values and patching on rule exceptions to try to keep the pricing system working but eventually in the early 1970's the copper community dumped the whole system as unworkable. Then just a few years later the ANA adopted the pricing system numbers and applied them to the grading scale.

Because no one really used it other than the early copper collectors and Paramount before the ANA adopted it for their official grading guide in 1977. (by which time bothe the early copper and Paramount had discarded it. And the ANA guide only used 3 grades of Mint State 60, 65, and 70 with 70 being basically a "theoretical" grade that would never be encountered in real life. In the early 80's they added 63 and 67. In the mid 80's they were pushing to add 64. Then in 1986 PCGS came out with th plan to use all 11 MS grades. (Even so for about the first 5 years or so you still never saw anything graded higher than a 67, and those were rarely seen.)

 

Well, Sheldon also invented a scale for "valuing" people based on their body type, and believed in eugenics. "At the time", people thought that was all great too. But at this point, the coin grading scale means something else and it's just relative anyway. As an older folk reluctant to change, it wouldn't bother me a bit if we threw it out. But I grew up on letter grades.

 

I don't think there is anything wrong with believing in eugenics, the problem has always been in its application. It has typically been used to try and "correct" conditions that haven't or can't be properly defined (as in the US where its goal at one time was to eliminate "feeblemindedness") where is was often used just as an official way to practice racial bigotry. (being Black was almost by definition being feebleminded no matter how smart or accomplished the person was.) Eugenics is no different, in theory, from the selected breeding of animals with a goal of improving them breed. The problem is when it is forced upon people they tend to object. Incentives to get the people to do it themselves would be slower but probably work better.

 

Not much talk about eugenics since Hitler took it to the next level.....

 

Quite an odd and disturbing perspective if you really think about it. Exactly who is giving this incentive and for what reason? The incentive with plants and animals is that we eat or utilize either them or their products, for our own benefit. Incentivizing eugenics for humans gets into a whole other thing. But back to the Sheldon scale - can you agree that continuing to use it, based on the original premise, is kinda stupid?

 

You get a failing Grade in interpreting satire, but that is OK.

Your heart is in the correct location.

 

But that's just the thing; it's not based on its original premise anymore. Now it's just a grading scale.

As for how it's used now, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

I'm not against change in general, but I am against change for change's sake. The new system doesn't improve anything.

 

Yeah, I guess. I suppose we can blame the ANA. As a price-based system it was invalid 20 years before they adopted it. Now we're stuck with it.

 

It might improve the volume of resubmissions.

 

Exactly.