Monster Grade

Let me start off by saying, that in my opinion, wear is wear no matter what caused it. And yes that includes what is called cabinet friction.

But to answer your question, to understand the concept surrounding cabinet friction you first have to understand the history of it. Many, many years ago, long before any of the TPGs existed, the numismatic community as a whole came up with the idea of cabinet friction being an exception to the rule that wear is wear. They did this for one reason, it was because some very specific coins were unique in a way that differed from all other coins. Usually, these were not just ordinary coins, they were special coins, often presentation coins. These coins all had a known provenance of ownership dating from the day they were minted to the present day, whatever that present day happened to be at the time. In other words, with these specific coins it was known for a fact that they passed directly from the mint into the hands of the current owner, and were then stored in that owner's coin cabinet. And they never left it. It was this that gave these coins their exception on the rule of wear being wear. And it was only these special coins that were granted this exception. The exception did not apply to any other coins.

The logic behind the exception was that it was known for a fact that the wear could not have been caused by anything but cabinet friction because it was known where they were at all times from the day they were minted.

For those who don't know what cabinet friction is or how it could cause wear on a coin, it's pretty simple. Coin cabinets were usually large wooden cabinets built with many drawers, and each drawer was divided up into many small squares, lined with velvet for the purpose of holding coins. But the squares were not an exact fit for the coins, in most cases each square was larger than the coin inside it. And so when the drawer would be pulled out or pushed back in, the coins would slide around on the velvet inside their square. And it is this that imparted the wear to the coins.

Over time, cabinet friction came to be used as an excuse by some who wished to claim that their coins were uncirculated. That the wear on them had been caused by cabinet friction. But these coins were not special coins in any way, they were not presentation coins - they were just ordinary coins. And they had no known provenance. At least none that could be proven, only claimed. So when an owner made this claim, it was often looked at with skepticism by others and sometimes even viewed as being completely invalid.

When the first grading standards were developed this rule, this exception, regarding cabinet friction was followed. When the ANA developed their first grading standards, it was followed. When the TPGs came along, it was followed. All wear was wear, except cabinet friction. But bear in mind, this exception still only applied to very few coins - those with the known provenance.

Years later, when the TPGs decided that they needed to loosen up their grading standards they decided to make use of the concept of exceptions regarding wear. Suddenly wear could be caused by a great many things and not be wear. It was always wear before but because they decided to create exceptions for it - now it wasn't wear. Things like album friction, roll friction, flip friction, etc etc - all of these things were now acceptable excuses for wear not being wear. They even said that now the only time that wear was really wear, was when it came about as a result of a coin being used in actual circulation.

The thing they didn't point out to anybody was that there was absolutely no way to tell, ever, whether the wear was caused as a result of the coin being in circulation or if was the result of roll friction or album friction, or, or, or. No way to tell one from the other. All they had to do was "claim" the wear was caused by this or that and it was no longer really wear.

Short and sweet, they took the idea of the exception made for cabinet friction and applied it to basically anything, almost everything. Completely, but conveniently, ignoring the thing that made the cabinet friction exception and exception to begin with - the known provenance. They simply said if there can be an exception for that, we can use these things as exceptions too. Even though there was no way to prove that they were exceptions. They became exceptions purely because they said so.

And to further add to the idiocy of their exceptions, they still followed the original concept that any coin, even those pulled directly from actual circulation, would be graded as MS as long as there was no wear on the coin. In other words, they would ignore their own rule that allowed these new exceptions of theirs, the rule that said the only thing that made a coin circulated was the coin being in actual circulation. And how and why could they could do this ? Because they could say - hey we don't know if the coin was in actual circulation or not - all we know is that the coin doesn't have any wear on it so it's MS. But at the same time, these coins over here that do have wear on them, that wear doesn't count because because it was caused by this or that - so it's not really wear after all. Knowing fully well that they have absolutely no idea what actually caused that wear - merely that they could claim that it might have been this or might have been that.

And people actually accepted these ideas, these excuses. Why ? Because they wanted their coins graded higher than they deserved to be graded. They didn't want to own AU coins or XF coins, they wanted to own MS coins ! And the TPGs were all to happy to given them what they wanted. And again why ? Well because they pretty much had to if they wanted to stay in business, because if they didn't there would not be any more coins to grade.

So, a simple exception created over 100 years ago, cabinet friction, made for very specific coins and thus at least somewhat valid, was taken and bastardized into what we have today. A grading system whereby virtually any coin can be claimed to be MS even though it has obvious wear on it.