Who makes the Grading Standards?

Liberty Nickels, Sheild Nickels, or a carefully selected U.S. type set

Liberty Nickels, Sheild Nickels, or a carefully selected U.S. type set all in Original AU-58 with the eye appeal of mint state.

 

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I have to disagree with this - TPG's employees are human beings who grade based on their own opinions, experience, training, etc., and a lot of them are younger than you think and have a lot less experience than many of us here. However, I agree that TPG's should never apply "grade fixing" simply due to the date or rarity of a coin. A grade should be given as consistently as possible for all years. I also believe there should be "specialists" who grade each series - I think there would be more consistency and accuracy if this occurred.

As many of you already know, grading has changed, or evolved, over the years and Doug is from the "old school" grading standards, if there are such standards, when grading was more strict, so his opinions on grading, whether you want to call them "better" or "correct" (those terms are also subjective), will be different from any generation that learned to grade in the last decade or so. However, if I had to buy a coin blindly or sight unseen, I would rather buy a raw coin from Doug with his assigned grade any day than buy one in a TPG holder just because the holder said that coin was a certain grade.

And I don't think you can say that the graders at TPG's are necessarily "wrong" or "incorrect" (though I certainly feel that they are somtimes!!!) just because you disagree with the grade they assigned to a coin. Again, it's just another human being's opinion - and yes, they work for a company that has to back up their opinion, so you'd think it should be more accurate, and from the world's embracement and success of certain TPG's, their opinion is given a lot of weight. But that doesn't mean we have to agree with it.

Grading is never black and white - that's why no one has been able to invent computerized grading - there are too many variables that are not black and white but are more based on an individual's own ideas of what's attractive, how he/she interprets certain descriptive words and the percentage within those descriptions (80% red = RD designation on copper or only 20% red = BN; or 20% rims remaining = VG, rather than 60% rims = F). How does a grader interpret or scientifically measure the quantity of color or the percentage of wear? (The questions are rhetorical, I'm not asking for answers.)

FYI, and for what it's worth, I've been writing an "article" on subjectivity in grading and will post it in a separate thread here soon. But it's been interesting reading all the thoughts in this thread.

 

ANA 6th Edition page 14 "Slabbed coins and other Changes:

"Now relegated to a footnote in the annals of numismatic history is grading by computer. In 1990 this was the sensation of the hobby. Early that year PCGS unveiled a laser-controlled computer which assigned numerical grades to Mint State silver dollars. ANACS and Compu-Grade announced they were also developing computer grading, and at least two or three others stated that they were investing large sums in such devices. However, it seems that people could not be replaced by computers, and today most collectors are not aware of this one-time innovation."

 

Interesting. Computer grading. Wow. I would opt for that.

 

I agree. That's the way diamonds are graded. Coins could also be graded in that manner.

I think "eye appeal" should not be assigned a grade; that should be left up to the observer. Of course, all the other factors funnel into Eye Appeal, but different folks have different priorities and thus different weight to the various factors ESPECIALLY problems.

 

I should have said that no one has been able to get computerized grading to be successful. David Hall talked about how PCGS tried computer grading at the last counterfeit detection seminar at the PCGS show in Las Vegas. But they also determined that it is not possible to replace human grading with computers. Technical grading is fine up to a certain point, but it is not everything in determining the quality of a coin. Luster, color, brightness, evenness of toning, satin or glossy toning - all this cannot be quantified by a computer. IMO, human interpretation is necessary in grading coins.

 

enter the old adage, buy the coin not the holder.