I am probably a bit late for some of you, but not all nicks are created equally. Two identical coins with the same identical nicks could easily get two different grades merely due to the location of the nicks. In the pictures below, nicks in the red area are the most serious, then orange, yellow, green and then blue. The rims for all coins I see are blue (least critical) while the faces of all coins are red - the most critical. I wish I could give you a factor to go by, but Official Guide to Coin Grading and Counterfeit Detection does not present that information. Here are just a couple examples from their book.
The important thing to gather from this is: Marks in the prime focal areas are much worse than the same marks elsewhere. Your eye may be immediately drawn to a mark on Liberty's cheek but the same mark hidden in Liberty's hair or in the eagle's feathers is not nearly as noticeable.
Those are great picture! Another good source for similar drawings with primes areas, refer to the ANA Grading Standards book. ---- What's up Merc! Hey I thought you weren't going to get in heavy after your last bout of coin addiction LOL It's a tough habit to break for sure. What ever you do, don't touch currency! OMG I am broke every month buying this stuff! I rather have coins or currency with numismatic value in my safe any day over some deprecating federal reserve notes in my savings account!
I know he got those images from the PCGS book, but I believe they were originally lifted from the NCI Grading guide.
Good info! Speaking of rim nicks, what's your opinion of this one? Would it grade cleanly? If yes, what grade? Lance.
Not really my area, buy my guess is yes, they would grade it. Without the nick, I would say AU-53. With it, 50 or maybe 45.
LOL...memorable coin! It's a petite head, lg letters, N4...a difficult coin. I bought it at a recent Heritage auction, and intended to crack it and put it in my Dansco or raw large cents. This is it before the crack. There's more to the story but I'm not sure anyone is interested. Lance.
I defer to you coin experts, but it seems that some nicks really are nicks. Other "nicks," however, may be planchet defects. It also seems that older coins are more likely to get a "pass." (See below at 9:00) Thoughts? guy
I cannot tell from your pictures if that is a planchet flaw or a nick. As for your older coins getting a pass, you might want to watch http://www.cointalk.com/t190668/. BTW, no one has yet guessed 65. All the rest are taken.
Wish the picture was better for the farthing, but from what I see it does look like a planchet flaw. The 1843 large cent though is NOT a planchet flaw.
Dick, Is there a chance that you can change the orange or red to a like a purple/blue/pink? I am colorblind and having difficulty separating the colors..I "think" I can tell them apart but don't want to guess. Also thanks for taking the time to right this up..very useful knowledge to have!
I do not think so. When I selected a color, too many of the shadows also showed as the same color. Just talking about the Lincoln, Abe's face, the date, and the wheat lines are the most serious and only the rims are blue or the least serious. I think you should be able to pick out the rest.
Thanks for posting that great graphic - very helpful. If only the grading services were consistent about that. I have two Morgans with scratches on the wings that that were graded pretty harshly and I've seen others with hits in worse places - like in one I'm thinking of with the same date and mint, with a chunk taken out of the date, that graded cleanly. Go figure.
