Enough arguing! A Different Look at Grading

I am proposing that you think about coin grading based on this:

If we were to look at what a coin is SUPPOSED to look like when it is struck. Fully struck details, blemish free beauty. Not based on what coins were struck for that particular year, but on the actual model that the hub came from. How close is this design to what it should have been? You are correct, that there are many steps in the process of making a coin that determine it's strike characteristics, but if we concentrate on what it IDEALLY would strike as and make that the top of our scale, and make the bottom a completely flat from wear former coin, we can compare coins more emperically, and possibly agree on grading, but have a more uniform standard across series.

The reason I say by hub is that as hubs are changed, design details change. the Lincoln Cent series is an excellent example. Over the years, the design has become flatter and flatter. There is very little depth to the design now as compared to the 1909. I want us to use computer technology to determine a composite "perfect die state" as can be seen by comparing the best struck examples and compositing them into a master die state and this will be the standard against which that run of dates will be judged.

The depth of strike in contrast to the intended design will determine it's grade. I want to be VERY clear about something, so here it is on bold print:

IN NO WAY DOES ANY PART OF THIS SYSTEM SUGGEST VALUE!!!! IT IS A GRADING SYSTEM FOR TECHNICAL GRADE! What a coin is worth is a function of what the market will pay for it, and part of how the market determines value is purely a function of the market!!! A coin's grade is it's grade, and has NOTHING to do with it's value, it is value that is generally driven by grade.

I think that this explains my (if not many other's) problem with Market Grading. That said this is NOT a discussion of Market vs Technical grading. I want to be clear! This is an idea of something new and something different. Don't start with ANY assumptions, and let's look at it a differnt way entirely.

We will examine grade by comparing the strike of the coin vs. the intended. A much more empirical analysis. factors like luster and eye appeal are not used as they are subjective and will mostly determine the coins salability and therefore are market factors. In this more empirical way, you will be able to compare across the series as to strike, if a coin is an MS-63 and you put it in a set of MS-63s, they will all look mostly alike. This also means that in all likelyhood there are no coins in any series that grade MS-70, and the numbers above MS-65 are much less than the TPGs would suggest. Well, honestly... did any of you think that this wasn't true now???

Many may point to specific examples that might make this type of grading a challenge. These would definately include coins like the 1922 No D Lincoln Cent. So as an example, let's discuss that coin. The depth of strike on the obverse of this coin is mushy on even the best examples, so do we just grade them all VG? Well, no, of course not. This is a coin that typically is better graded by its reverse. It is also a coin that is well known as being an exeption to most grading rules. Why not describe the grade of a 22 No D as MS-63 Red reverse? I think that in that particular case it works, and is comprehendable.

I think where people have always had a problem with the current grading system is with coins like the 1926-S Buffaloes. Full horn, no full horn, how do you grade them? Maybe the buffalo series is one that is best described a different way. Maybe XF-45 85% Horn detail would be better.

All I am suggesting is a change in the way that we THINK about grading. I don't want to call the experts wrong, I want to further develop the system of grading because most agree that it doesn't work very well. It's inconsistent, it's difficult to learn, and at times it's antiquated. Man has used technology to further his existence with many inventions. every one of those came from someone who dared to think about something that couldn't be done, or was just a certain way and that's all there is to it, and they thought about it in a different way. A way that noone had before. I am not smart enough to do it on my own, but I thought that with all of our combined expertise, we could try to think differently. I thought that we could be the innovators instead of waiting for innovation to come to us.

My father always used to tell me things like 'that's just the way it is", and that's probably why I rail against it so violently, Doug. He used to tell me the same things over and over and I would ponder them, and try to understand. The problem is that as I began to think for myself, and ask him intellegent questions that challenged his beliefs, he said that he was tired of trying to explain it. I valued his opinions very much as I value your expertise, but unfortunately, he never really saw it that way and we never got to really get into much meaningful discssion man to man.

 

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Would there be any MS-60+ 1921 Peace dollars under your guidelines? Most of the high-relief coins wouldn't get above AU, then.

John

 

As I write the book I will send you the pages for your approval, Doug. This is what frustrates me most. You constantly press others for detail but when you are asked you simply reply "it's the way it is" and "I'm tired of explaining it over and over".

I am trying to go through it a step at a time and think it thorough instead of writing war and peace and having people try to sift through it.

I am referring to grading based on strike and detail. A Technical Grade with no influence on value. taking subjective things like eye appeal amd toning out and leaving those assessments for the people who want to buy the coin. A consistent grading across series based on design and detail, not where it was struck, under what conditions, etc. A different way of thinking.

I thought that was a new system. Maybe not complete or even completely thought through, but a different idea. Like space travel, or quantum physics were to 18th century man.

 

This post boils down to "market grading is a way for sellers to take too much money when they sell me a coin". However, there is no upside for sellers to go to the method you suggest and unless there is then it simply won't be accepted. There is just too much money opposed to it.

Additionally, this method emphasizes strike as the most important factor in grading and that simply isn't (and shouldn't be) the case. In fact strike is one of the least important factors.

 

Do the hubs exist for all of the coins?

If the mint is in possession of them why would they let anyone analyze them to set some form of criteria?

How would you document the different design aspects?

If too much data was published would it make it easier for counterfeiters?


Like Doug said - I guess I would like to understand how you would go about hypothetically implementing something like this.

 

You create a computer composite Darryl by examining the best known examples. you measure strike characteristics and determine hub characteristics based on ideal strikes. since no coins have all of the ideal characteristics, we would look at several coins and make a composite of ideal conditions.

Cave Troll, I was suggesting a grading system that is NOT run by people with a vested interest in value, thereby seperating the two. I think one corrupts the other. I realize that what I have suggested focuses almost entirely on strike. I think that much of the technical grade of a coin focuses on strike and preservation, and I wasn't suggesting a move away from that.

This is not a method for determining value (as I feel grading has become today) it is more a way to determine quality of the artifact. Value is left out of the equation.

 

Isn't this exactly what the ANA book does? It does not worry about toning or eye appeal - yes it talks about cleaning and such things up front, but not on the coins. As the buyer you get to determine the grade and the price you are willing to pay. I understand some of what you are saying, but no matter what you come up with it boils down to the sellers opinion and the buyers opinion.

 

When looking at the individual coins grading standards I have seen toning mentioned - but never eye appeal. Yes - luster is mentioned, but I would expect that. I have not seen(granted have not read and remembered everything for each coin type) one grade that says something like "eye appeal" for a technical grade. What am I missing?

 

As a matter of fact, Doug, I work for Safeway. In the produce warehouse. Apples are not made, they are grown, and therefore are all different. A manufactured product is subject to quality control. Not QC that is varied from factory to factory, day to day, but is the same, from plant to plant in order to form a product that is standard, reliable and very much the same from one to another. Coins are manufactured and therefore like any other product can be standardized and grade as such.

But let's forget tha for a moment and go to something that is not standard but yet is graded. Back to the grocery business to you guessed it... eggs. grades are not made in standard plants mor are they standard in any way, but we still group them by size, color and quality into categories called grades. They are standard and they don't vary chicken to chicken or even from farm to farm.

The market didn't have to accept these standards either, they were foisted upon them because it was the best system available. My hope was to displace the current system for grading by creating a better one.

 

If it is PCGS' "opinion" on their case that helps determine the value of the coin, then they play a large part and have a HUGE interest in what the coin sells for in many ways. Not the least of which is their perceived brand in th marketplace based on the consistency of their grades and the acceptance of said grades in the marketplace.

Why would they create registry sets if not to influence the submission (and subsequent resubmission) of coins in large numbers?

 

I agree with what you are talking about, Mike. A true grade versus a conditional grade...much like what was used for several hundred years before TPG's came along. Unfortunately, like Doug said, there is just too much invested greed in the hobby to revert back to accurately grading coins based on their actual grades to ever make this a reality.
Guy~

 

*sigh* this is so devolving into an argument, but here we go again...

same amount of pressure... no. spacing the same... again, no. dies the same,... no.

The process of manufacture will vary in order to create a uniform product, not the other way around. And trust me, this is not done in a uniform way, factories do things from day to day to adjust their process in order to create a consistent product from day to day. In fact, it is incumbent upon manufacturers to vary their process in order to create a uniform product in order to remain consistent in the marketplace. The US Mint can be held to this same standard. The fact is, their QC has been allowing product into the market that has been anything but standard in it's final product and this doesn't surprise me. What does surprise me is that we don't judge their product as a more standard and uniform product when that is what the government has always claimed it is. Judge the product on what it is supposed to be, not what the best they could make that day is. Be more critical of what they were trying to manufacture, not what they did manufacture.

 

I think you have to look no further than to gradflation in this case. As too many coins are graded in TPG holders, the grading standards get relaxed, and the whole process starts over again, so although I don't think it is quite black and white, I will grant you the point you were making. Theoretically the grade on the slab is irrelevant to them as long as more coins continue to be graded.

But factually the market can't even agree on the grade under the TPGs system, or we wouldn't have stickers on slabs.