I'll start this by saying I really like the below coin. I'm going to now bash it a bit but it's more about being critical of the coin than me not liking it (if that makes sense...). Vespasian 69–79 A.D. (Flavian Dynasty) as, struck in Rome 71 A.D. Laureate head right IMP CAES VESPASIAN [AVG COS III] / AEQVITAS [AVGVSTI] SC Aequitas standing left, holding scales and long sceptre; S-C across lower field RIC II 2nd 287 / Cohen 13 25mm 9.83g ROMA E-Sale 76 Lot 965 11/2020 Ok I lied I'm going to say some more nice things. It's almost deceivingly well struck, and has a very nice patina. The patina is a bit rough there is some corrosion or tooling (or attempt at restoration) on the portrait of Vespasian but I don't think the legend is tooled and looks great if however off-centered. I swear I can read his whole name in hand. Reverse is just one step lower and may have a little more evidence of cleaning/restoration but I don't see smoothing or tooling. And now the ask...I'm trying to keep an honest rating for each member of my collection. Currently it's one overall rating but I do see the need for split ratings for many of my coins. I would rate this near Very Fine. Which means it's fine, but it deserves like an F+, which then makes it sound worse. Curious what you thought and love to hear any grading comments you might add (even if unrelated to this coin). I know it needs to be done in person, but such is the world we find ourselves in for now and I'm trying to improve my own skills at grading rather depending on what's told to me.
Well, I certainly wouldn't say it was tooled without looking at it in hand, or with a much higher resolution image. I would describe this coin as "aVF, significant porosity, portrait expertly tooled," if I thought it was tooled, otherwise I'd just leave off "tooled." Honestly, the porosity bothers me more than anything else, and I probably wouldn't buy it because of that issue, unless it's some kind of insane rarity I'm not familiar with. I say this because I do own a Marcus Aurelius provincial bronze with some porosity issues for which there are only about 3 known. I wouldn't have bought that one either, except for the rarity, that he's an Antonine emperor, and the fact that I got it for like $85.
Pictured below is a graded bronze from Alexandria for comparison. The strike on your coin might grade 4/5, & the surface 2/5. Click the images for an enlarged view .
I would call it nearly VF. Letters are visible, portrait is nice (I can't say if it was tooled or not), reverse is OK. Too nice to be a straight F, but not a standard VF either. This level of roughness is not a major problem - personal choice. For the strike quality - well, I am not the best person to judge this, as I tend to like oblong coins or ones struck off center, I just feel it adds some individuality. And I'm not bothered at all that usually this decreases the price. It is very good that you want to keep a honest record of your coin grades, as I see most small auction houses tend to overgrade a lot.
NGC assigns grades for strike and surface based on each individual coin type. So, 5/5 for your coin would not be the same level of detail as 5/5 for, say, an Owl tet, or even a completely different Antoninus Pius tet.
I'm aware of that . If I applied the same standard of the coin pictured below to the Vespasian as the surface on the as would rate 0/5.
Grading is very much a matter of opinion and really does not lend itself well to only five levels for strike and surface. No one cares about my opinion but pay good money for the opinions of the NGC graders. In general, I believe they are overly hard on surface issues including light scratches and patchy porosity which causes 2/5 and 1/5 to contain a wide variation of things that I would prefer to separate from the coins that have extremely poor surfaces. I consider the Constantine reasonable at 2/5 which would suggest the Vespasian should be lower but there are coin so much worse when it comes to surface it hardly seems right to call these coins even 2/5. When we come to opinion, someone has to decide the relative merit of patchy versus overall porosity versus several fine scratches versus a single heavy scratch versus a dozen other things that can happen to a coin in ~2000 years. Certainly owners of coins will tend to think their coin ranks higher than those belonging to people trying to sell them another coin like it. I bought the coin below from a dealer who had removed it from its NGC slab where it was rated 2/5 for surface and he felt that most people would be more bothered by the 2/5 label and note "lt. grafito" than they would by the scratches. In the defense of NGC's standards, light marks can be harder to see on a coin in a plastic slab so it is probably better that they are careful to note marks of this level rather than have them discovered only after someone bought the coin. My theory is that anyone spending money on a coin should ignore what NGC or the seller thought about the coin and decide on their own whether they want a coin with this 'situation'. I bought the Otho because the marks made it more affordable and I wanted an Otho. I would not buy a Constantine or Vespasian 2/5 unless the coin had some other redeeming merit (rare type, great eye appeal etc.). For example, the Sikyon stater below (not graded so I do not know what NGC would say) could not be surface graded over 2/5 because of the graffiti on both sides in the form of the Greek letter Phi (Φ). The one on the reverse is not light; the one on the obverse is very light but there (in exergue). If this coin were in a slab, the obverse mark might be hard to see. Does that mean it should be ignored? In this case, I preferred the coin with the Φ which I saw before I bought it and fantasized was the initial of an ancient owner (can not prove that!). I did not see the obverse mark until I got home (show lighting is not always the best) but it does nothing to make me not want the coin. That is, like all grading, just an opinion but it alone should make this coin no better than the 2/5 of the Otho. Would the heavy reverse mark drop this coin to 1/5 along with coins attacked by a chain saw? Opinion --- and nothing more.
An interesting discussion - I like hearing different philosophies of grading and collecting. Back when I collected mostly world crowns, etc., I think I developed a fairly handy feel for, say, VG/F/VF/XF. The higher MS65 type of thing didn't interest me and so I ignored it. Ancients are so much different for me. I think NCG is smart to do strike/surface grading the way they do - it makes more sense to me than a basic "VF" or whatever. But I don't slab, so I don't really pay much attention. My first "world coin" grading instinct says the OP is F. But indeed, the details visible make it probably more a VF with problems. What is strange is how in the past few years ancient coins have extinguished my interest in grading. I even find myself enthusing over damage! This is a terrible investment strategy, but I really get turned on by some really awful coins these days. So I am going to used this thread as an excuse to share a recent penny dreadful, a half follis of Justinian I. Even the bottom-feeders of eBay (except me) passed it by. But as soon as I got it out of the envelope I was thrilled with it - first of all because it is HUGE for a half follis. Anyway, here it is, in all its glorious awfulness, five dollars worth of Byzantine crud: Justinian I Æ Half Follis Year 18 (544-545 A.D.) Cyzicus Mint DN IVSTINIANVS PP AVG, helmeted, cuirassed bust facing, holding cross on globe and shield, cross to right / Large K; cross above, ANNO left, XЧI/II right, Y/Z below. SB 208; DOC 187a; MIBE 121. (9.10 grams / 29 x 27 mm) Notes: “The K on the reverse doubles as the denomination mark (20 nummi = half follis) and the initial letter of the mint mark KYZ” Classical Numismatic Group, Inc. Electronic Auction 303, Lot 446 29.05.2013 Before the alarms sound, the green stuff is rock-hard and does not appear to be bronze disease. You can see where efforts were made to clean it, but I prefer the green to the rust-colored pits/roughness. What's the grade? The strike on the reverse is a 4/5, I think - but I am biased. The overall awfulness of it would make NCG reject it, I'd think - with a "fragile" or "ineligible" label to boot. I would agree with that assessment, but I still like the coin. Do I seek an upgrade? Well, I'd take one if it came along in my price range, but I'd still like this one. Where else can you find Justininan with a green goatee?
I'm sorry about your confusion; since I didn't have a Vespasian as or photo of one at my fingertips I used another bronze of similar wear with a much better surface for the comparison. Common sense has to be used in grading a coin regardless of what standard you use. Doug Smith brought up some good points. Often an NGC graded coin can be misleading with their Surface & Strike numbers. If a collector sees a surface grading of 2/5 on a coin like my Constantine follis he might instantly back off thinking the coin is a bad investment. I removed it from the slab, since I thought the 2/5 rating was absurd. The porosity on the reverse of that coin isn't serious. Some coins should be slabbed & some shouldn't. I wouldn't waste the money getting that Vespasian as slabbed.
I almost always ignore grades for ancient coins (whether letter grades or NGC-type grades), and decide whether to buy a coin based purely on its eye appeal to me personally, with historical importance also a factor. (I don't pay much attention to rarity, except that if I'm deciding which of two coins I like I'm going to buy, I'll choose the rare one, all else being equal, because the type is less likely to come up for sale again anytime soon. But I don't care if a coin is rare if I think it's ugly.) Sometimes I judge on a curve -- for example, I'm much more tolerant of the crude and/or worn appearance of a Roman Alexandrian tetradrachm of the 2nd Century AD then I am of a Roman Imperial denarius from the same period. Although the appearance of the Alexandrian coin still has to appeal to me. After all, the vast majority of coins sold on VCoins are supposedly Very Fine, despite the huge variation in appearance, so that grade doesn't tell me very much. A decent photo is much more informative. And once I buy a coin, I don't even include the dealer's grade in my description of the coin for my personal catalog.
Ah, I see. In that case, I agree 100%. 2/5 is not what comes to mind when I look at that coin. It's nice, and would fit in many peoples' collections. I'll go you one better: I pretty much ignore grades on all coins. As long as I like it, I'm in. Modern coins get judged more harshly than ancient coins, just because they're machine-made products, but I'm basically a magpie when it comes to anything numismatic. I do record the grades and keep the tags, though. They're important if you go to sell, after all.
I do keep copies of the dealer's description (including grade and price), the invoice, the tags/ inserts, etc., both on my hard drive and in 3-ring binders. I just don't usually include the grade or price in the coin descriptions in my personal catalog, because I don't consider them to be important information when I describe a coin (here or elsewhere), as long as I accompany the description with a photo.
