The pitfalls of market grading and very similar coins.

I think it was a great idea to post this thread. You could have provided better pictures, but apart from that I like the idea to look at a number of Morgan dollars of similar quality and talk about their grades.

 

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PS: It appears the pictures of the NGC coin are better than the pictures of the other Morgans. I think that’s why people tend to grade the NGC coin lower than the two other coins.

 

Sorry you did not hear what you wanted to hear.

 

Two problems with this thread:

1. I'm really not sure what you were trying to get at: gradeflation? TPG variance? Differences in grading between years? Something else?

2. The pictures you provided were awful, and we were not able to grade from them at all. A later post gave us better pictures to grade from, but the thread had been de-railed by then.

Cryptic posts with awful pictures leave us confused. This thread is the result.

So, some lessons to learn for future OPs (and, I'm not picking on you at all, just trying to help the forum be better):

1. Please either teach us something in your original post (clearly explain, answer any potential questions, and help us learn) or ask a clearly stated question (what does this grade, why did this happen, what is the answer to this question).

2. Please provide clear pictures. Out of focus, dark, blurry, incomprehensible pictures will invariable lead to posts asking for good pictures, or will de-rail your thread. Even an iPhone can take better pictures than you gave us.

So, going forward, let's all try to make better threads, so that we can all learn and help each other.

 

Moderators, please be so kinds as to delete my account.

 

Fine, no problem. I have far more pressing health issues in my household, than to discuss grading and photograph quality.

 

Looks as if you are gonna get your wish, that's too bad, I have learned quite a bit from you through the years.
Sorry about your family illness.

 

Morgans are not my forte, but I agree with the posters who made the point that the coins were graded by different companies at different times. Though it wasn't supposed to be so, that does make a difference. There is also the known variance in grading the same coin by the same service. FWIW, I thought the two graded by PCGS probably were PL, but the NGC coin probably is not PL on the reverse. Several different photos taken in different lightings were posted, and they show the coins differently as always happens. That's why making fine grade distinctions from photos really doesn't work.

I'm old school, and I realize the train has left the station, so no need to flame, but I don't believe ANYONE can consistently distinguish the 22 grades of mint state that have now been foist upon us. And there's a push to go to a 100-point "system" with 50 different grades of MS! Obviously, the goal with Morgans is to have a different price point (er, grade) for every coin.

 

I wouldn't call it a push and actually I would say that the majority are actually very against the idea. A couple people kicked it around but every time it's mentioned there is substantial push back. There may be more additions in the future such as the + or the * are, but I wouldn't be worried about seeing a 100 point scale. Too many people are far to opposed to it and they would have to offer to regrade everything for free to have any chance of not losing a substantial aspect of the market. That idea has been around for a long time and there's a reason nothing has come of it

 

That, of course, is why the issue is absurd. What is most absurd to me is the fact that anybody thinks having 50, 22 or even 11 grades of UNC is a good idea.

The 22 grades we have only matter if you believe the TPG graders to be infallible.

 

That’s really not true, if you only used a few like 60 63 65 67 70 then you just end up rounding a lot of them and lumping superior coins in with lesser ones. The real problem with the system was that there was ever a hard circulated/uncirculated drawn at 60 instead of just being one continuous system. Today’s 58s are superior to 60/61 and many are superior to 62s as well but they’re technically graded lower.

 

I completely agree, except that no matter how many grades of UNC you have, grades are categories/slots, not continuous. Some will always fit better than others, and decisions have to be made. To give an example at a lower end of preservation, there are many coins that are nicer than F-15 but not quite nice enough to be VF-20. Though nicer than they need to be, they have to be graded F-15. Does this mean we need extra grades between F-15 and VF-20? I think we do not.

 

I would say probably not for a F18ish. The more wear there is the harder it gets to split hairs with grades that fine in my opinion. If anything I would say just extend the plus grades to that range since they spot at 40 or 45 right now I believe. I fully get why there’s no 69+ but always seemed a bit odd to me the plus grades get cut off in xf.

At this point all we can really do is tweet the system, there’s to much money invested in the current system for a complete overhaul without causing a massive loss of collectors if everything was turned upside down. I do think we would have been better off with a continuous system instead of the hard lines, but that ship has saled already

 

Sorry to hear about the health issues. Don’t quit CT just because some negative comments were posted in this thread. Who cares about the numbers on a label anyway? It’s all about the coins...

 

I really don't want to see you leave CT. That was not my intention with my post. It seems like I've offended you, but that was not my intention at all. I apologize if I communicated my intentions poorly.

The intention of my last post was to help you (and anyone else reading) to create a clear original post. When starting a thread, we need clear pictures, and we need a clear question. Otherwise, it is difficult to help (or it is difficult to guess what you are trying to ask/say). Your post was not clear, and it lead to some confusion. This is by no means a reason to quit - discussing grading and photo quality is one of the prime reasons to be a member of these boards!

It seemed like you started this thread with some purpose in mind, and wanted to talk about a certain issue. However, because your photos weren't clear, and/or because you didn't ask a clear question, this thread devolved. Please don't take this as a personal attack, because it is not intended to be. Please take this as a request for all posters to think about what they are trying to say, and to try to say that as clearly as possible.