JA didn’t sticker it, so now I must sell it …

Me too. However I'd be much more inclined to trust a CAC sticker than a PCGS grade blindly. Just my thoughts.

I like this part.. Lol!

 

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I think Jaelus hit the nail on the head. My opinion, which anyone reading this may not share, is that I believe that numerical grading is a sham, an attempt to impose the illusion of precision on an inherently subjective process. I would rather just see categories of MS, AU, XF etc and within those A,B,C categories or something similar. Then let taste and the market decide value. NIce to dream.

 

You got to look beyond the sticker and the grade. The coin inside is what you are buying. DON'T FORGET THAT!

 

grading is not linear, fwiw

 

When you have to explain to someone why a coin with a lower grade is a nicer and more valuable coin than one with a significantly higher grade, that's a strong indicator that your grading scale doesn't work.

 

Consider it two scales, one for circulated coins and another for uncirculated. That‘s really a very basic and easy to grasp concept.

 

@Evan Saltis
I don't trust either I always go by my grading knowledge gained over the years.

 

Yep. It's one thing to say "this coin is an AU 58, but it's so nice I'm willing to pay MS64 money for it", and another thing entirely to represent an AU58 as a MS64.

 

Except that it's not two scales. It doesnt go from 58 to another independently numbered scale. It goes up to 60, etc. Try talking to anyone who grades other types of collectibles and explain this system and they will think you are insane.

The problem is the obsession with wear. Impairments are impairments. There is no difference between wear, a bag mark, a hit, etc. Any damage to the coin regardless of the source should have an equal impact in reducing the grade commensurate with its severity. Wear is not special to the point where it needs its own scale. The more impairment a coin has from any source, the lower the grade. It's really a very basic and easy to grasp concept.

Surface damage is surface damage. Wear is not special.

When I learned to identify problem coins, I had an epiphany when I realized I didnt have to identify what had happened to the coin. I just had to realize that there was the absence of an original look. Likewise I realized this carried over to grading. The source of a surface impairment on an original coin doesn't matter. The absolute truth of this statement is important to grasp. Market grading acknowledges this truth, but doesn't go far enough. Coins are frequently capped as to how high graders will go into MS on a technically AU coin, and the AU and MS prefixes themselves haven't been dropped yet. They are vestigial impedements to the full realization of market grading.

A tiny impairment should have a tiny impact on reducing the grade. This is common sense. But old timers look at a coin and say well this tiny impairment is a bag mark so the coin goes from a 70 to a 68, but on this other coin well this equally tiny impairment is wear so the coin goes down from a 70 to a 58. It's an indefensible practice that is on its way out.

 

That is circular logic. Identifying wear is only important because you feel the need to define the boundary between circulated and uncirculated. Except that you don't need to do this to grade coins.

This is the obsession with wear that I'm talking about.

In a wear-agnostic grading system, there is a holistic condition continuum from 1 to 70 where the source of impairment is not factored in. As such, the need to identify wear is obsolete as denoting whether or not circulation has occured is irrelevant to the scale. You can have uncirculated coins in the 50s and circulated coins in the high 60s. The scale only needs to indicate the relative quality.

We all understand that coins with wear can frequently be higher quality than coins without wear. Follow me here, what that above statement means is that wear cannot be used to denote quality in a grading scale.

Now the question you need to answer for yourself is if the purpose of a grade is to identify the quality of a coin for the market, or if the purpose of a grade is to identify the state of the coin. But if your purpose is to identify the state of the coin, I ask to what end? Is that really useful, or are you simply doing it because that's how it's always been done?

 

grades are just paid opinions that either you or some wanted on a coin, yeah grading is not perfect sometimes don't get the grade or whatever we wanted but that is how the real world works sometimes you win, other times you lose

 

Maybe not. A grading system is on coin condition, not aesthetics. Condition can be measured somewhat dispassionately with objective criteria. Aesthetics can not. The creep of aesthetic judgements into the coin grade is a huge problem for the grading company. Most, if not all, AU58s should look better in the hand than MS coins, because they have fewer defects.

 

But you don't actually believe that. You know as well as I do that the TPGs will readily grade circulated coins up to MS62 and sometimes higher (an example of which is the entire point of this thread). You also know I'm sure that in early US coins where they are more forgiving of minor problems they will net grade technically uncirculated coins as low as AU55, even though AU55 requires unaided detection of visible wear. There are other specific examples of this, such as how high point wear is frequently disregarded altogether on Saints, etc.

Ok so you know despite the TPGs not publishing their standards that this has, in fact, changed, and that grading has moved away from valuing a hard line between circulated and uncirculated. My point is that where grading has moved to is this bastardization between technical grading and wear-agnostic quality grading. It doesn't really make people in either camp happy (evidenced again by the example given by the op in this thread).

I just want to see it continue on to the logical evolution where grade prefixes can be dropped altogether, and issues can simply be noted on the slab like they do with banknotes.

 

Why? I talk to baseball card collectors all the time and they don't think it is insane.

 

Baseball card grading has a concept of near mint, mint, and gem mint, but it is a linear quality scale. I'm not saying they won't understand it. It is that you can't really explain the value of a system that arbitrarily caps higher quality coins at 58 and arbitrarily floors lower quality coins at 60. It was a good concept to try, but in practice the TPGs quickly realized its limitations and the value in letting that go.

 

But you do need to delineate uncirculated from circulated with coins. Theres a difference, a difference collectors and buyers want and has been there in grading forever now.

If a coin shows any signs of wear it should not make MS or grade above 58. Doesn't matter if its minor, circulation wear is circulation wear and it's no longer "uncirculated" if you can detect circulation wear.

PCGS should buy the grossly overgraded coin from the collector and take it off the market.
It's not simply a 63 that slid to 64, it's a circulated coin that they graded mid uncirculated and that's not a product of market grading, It isn't a 58 they graded as a 60.

The way the grading scale works is up to 60 are for circulated grades, 60 and above are for uncirculated grades. Its always been like that and uncirculated coins always commanded a premium because they were more desirable to collectors. Its ingrained in the hobby. If you buy a 58 or lower you know going into it it's not uncirculated, and if you buy 60 and above it is uncirculated. Sure there are nicer AUs the MS 60 and even higher, but those AUs are circulated and will never be uncirculated again.

And TPGs provide a service, a person pays for an opinion on the grade. They are fallible they make mistakes. Even professionals make errors.

 

Right. BUT their main defect is that they show a sign or signs of circulation. They aren't uncirculated coins anymore and never will be again.

 

That is not the point, that you made, nor that I made. Baseball collectors don't grade coins like that. They think coin grading is rational and not insane. There is problems with grading, but it is not like you say. Other collectables aren't intended for wide circulation.