Coin Description

I know that grading now is done with numbers, but there are still descriptive words attached. In this case, I think it's gotten a little out of hand. This ebay coin is described as BU (with no number). While it may be U, it's certainly not B. Is there any logical reason why the use of the letters/words (G, Fine, etc) should be continued?

 

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Because eBay will not permit you to use numbers unless the coin is certified by an authorized TPG.

Secondly, here is Heritage's definition of BU

and here is PCGS's

 

Nice concise response Rim.
IMO the only "U" that should be attached to that coin is AU.

 

Originally Posted by davidh
Is there any logical reason why the use of the letters/words (G, Fine, etc) should be continued?

Because eBay will not permit you to use numbers unless the coin is certified by an authorized TPG.

Secondly, here is Heritage's definition of BU
Quote:
Brilliant Uncirculated A generic term for any coin that has not been in circulation.

and here is PCGS's
Quote:
Brilliant Uncirculated
A generic term applied to any coin that has not been in circulation. It often is applied to coins with little "brilliance" left, which properly should be described as simply Uncirculated.


As far as ebay's policy regarding non-slabbed number descriptions - it applies only to the heading. You can pretty much say anything you want in the description.

As for BU descriptors of coins that aren't B - maybe PCGS is tending towards logic and may remove B from coins that aren't.

 

that red background looks awfully familiar.

 

BU in this case is Beat Up.

 

Haha. Thats funny. It isnt that bad. High XF to me.

 

Another descriptor I haven't seen in years, but which used to be applied regularly to Lincoln cents was "Full Bow Tie". Nowadays even MS cents don't always show a full bow tie on Lincoln.

 

Do you mean he's wearing a bow tie?

Think of BU rather as a term of art used to describe mint state coins that don't quite make the cut to gem. But used literally the B is an oxymoron with reference to this '09, I hear ya...

 

One more thing, we're finding BU coins all day long in circulation, aren't we? Same thing. The U is not a literal descriptor but rather a description of the coin's grade.

 

"U" means Uncirculated, or in current terminology, MS

 

But that's my point, David. We're finding Uncirculated (Mint State) coins in circulation all the time. "Uncirculated" is not taken in a literal sense but in the sense of denoting a condition or grade of the coin.

 

Rather than get into a philosophical and logical discussion about why I think you're wrong, let me set this scenario.

1. The mint makes pennies
2. The pennies are bagged up and sent to a Federal Reserve Bank
3. The FRB counts and rolls the pennies
4. The rolls are sent to your local bank
5. A local restaurant goes to the bank and obtains coins, including several penny rolls
6. The restaurant breaks open a roll and puts the pennies into the register
7. You visit the restaurant for a meal and, upon paying cash, receive three of the pennies in change
8. You put the pennies in your pocket with your other coins
9. You later visit a grocery store and use the pennies to pay for your purchase
10. The pennies go into the grocery's register and are later handed out as change to another customer
11. That customer gives the pennies to her child who, on their next visit to the local mall throws the pennies into the decorative fountain.
12. The mall cleans the coins out of the fountain and deposits them in a local coinstar machine
13. Coinstar coints and wraps the coins and deposits them in a local bank
    
    and on and on...

Question - at what point in the above scenario does the coin go from being Uncirculated to Circulated?

 

When I find it, that's the answer...I just always have that bad luck.

Really, though, read your Red Book. I'm not the party defining those terms "philosophically," the ANA is. I don't know what else I can say that I didn't already say. If it grades MS according to their criteria, they don't care if it came out of your digestive system, they're going to call it uncirculated.

 

Technically, any coin which has been in circulation cannot be called uncirculated. That's academic.

In the Real World, a coin is no longer called Uncirculated when it first shows discernable signs of wear (luster breaks, loss of detail, high point rub, etc.)

 

According to PCGS and the ANA:

Uncirculated
Term to indicate a coin or numismatic item that has never been in circulation, a coin without wear.

Seems pretty simple to me. If you get a coin from a FRB roll at a bank then it's uncirculated, as long as you immediately put it in a protective container. As soon as you touch it and handle it in the same way you handle any other common coin, it's circulated (step 7 in my story above). You can not find an uncirculated coin in circulation. AU maybe; Brilliant maybe, but not BU or MS.

 

David, let's take this definition you stand on...namely: "Uncirculated: Term to indicate a coin or numismatic item that has never been in circulation, a coin without wear" [emphasis supplied]. What is a coin that has never been in circulation? Establish that. You own a restaurant, and you found this shiny penny in your cash register, and you sign a notarized affidavit to that effect. Does that establish that coin has been in circulation? I own a restaurant, and I find a shiny penny in my cash register, and I sign a notarized affidavit that I got mine direct from the U.S. Mint. Does that establish my coin has never been in circulation? Think about it. Is direct testimony of any use, here, whatsoever? For one, grading would then have to turn on the credibility of the affiant/witness, wouldn't it? And then, maybe you want to cross-examine me on my sincerity because you don't happen to believe I got mine direct from the U.S. Mint, as my notarized affidavit otherwise asserts. Do you see how crazy grading would be if it put any reliance in direct testimony? That should then tell you why grading should rather necessarily rely on a different kind of evidence, only--that being, circumstantial evidence. And, guess what? That's indeed what it does. Circumstantial evidence, of course, being evidence of the existence of one fact (i.e., "wear") which establishes a reasonable inference of the existence of another fact (i.e., "circulation").

Think of these terms in those terms (i.e., from an evidentiary standpoint)...or, I'm afraid, you're going to drive yourself nuts, pal. And, I know, because I didn't quite understand this, myself, at one point...

 

As has been alluded to - there is "uncirculated" which is clear and then there is MS (Mint State) which is not so clear. MS is determined by wear as Mr. Spin states.

I think it was CladKing who wrote somewhere that it's possible for a coin to exchange hands several times and still be considered MS-xx. Then sometimes it looks bad right out of the bag.

I often wonder when I get around to putting together my mint sets of pennies, nickels and dimes of recent years whether I'll use the MS ones I've pulled out of circulation and am comfortable that they are indeed "MS" or whether I'll break open my mint sets to be "sure" they're MS. But I digress.....

 

Well, No. But "direct testomy" doesn't enter into the question and has no real meaning in the question of AU vs UNC.

If there is a shiny penny in a restaurant's cash register, it either came directly from a FRB roll (in which case it is Uncirculated), or from another customer (in which case it is Circulated). The difference here is moot as long as the coin is in the register tray. However, as soon as that coin is handed to a customer in change by the cashier, it becomes Circulated from that point on. Circulated means that the coin has been "Placed into circulation".

Think of a new car sitting a dealer's showroom. Now, let's say you go to that dealer and sign a paper transferring ownership of that new (Uncirculated) car to you. At that instant, the car becomes a used (Circulated) car. It may have zero miles on it but you can not re-transfer ownership of it as a new car, even though it may be identical in all aspects to another (new) car in the dealer's showroom.

The Uncirculated coin becomes Circulated as soon as someone takes possession of it in regular commerce. If a new FRB 2008 penny is used in commercial trade along side a worn out 1995-D penny, then they are both circulated.

Now, I understand that coins showing NO wear, but showing nicks and scratches ("bag marks") may be described and traded as Uncirculated or MS-xx. But when other coins showing evidence of handling, such as fingerprints, or scratches, scrapes or gouges not attributable to "bag marks", are described as Uncirculated, then the terminology has gone off the tracks and is meaningless.

We can disagree on details but I think there is no question but that there are Uncirculated coins and there are Circulated coins. Something, somewhere, happens to transition them from one stage to the next. Again, refer to step #7 in the list I gave before. You may disagree with that assessment but, as I asked before, at which step do you consider the coin to have passed into the Circulated relm?

My original post in this thread asked whether the descriptive grades have any real meaning any more. I feel they are meaningless and if grading is to be done (of course it should) then it should be on an absolute scale from 0 (nothing more than a smooth disc of metal once having been a coin - a reversion to a "blank planchet") to 70 (the current equivalent of a 100% original untouched coin). This might lead to some subjective grading, but that's what we have now anyway (what's the real difference between an MS-62 and an MS-63?, or between VG and F, or VF and EF? ).