Ok, so I have a Belomo 10X loupe that I use frequently. I don't have bad eyes, but not great either and I appreciate the clarity and level of detail I can see with this piece. However, I have been looking at some low mint state and high AU seated quarters and can see hairlines on just about every single one. Now these are all graded pieces and from the mid to late 1800s. They are all PCGS, NGC, and ANACS coins, and many have come from some of the top reputable dealers, and at any rate none of the coins are in a 'Details' slab. I also know what die polish looks like and these hairlines clearly cross over the polish lines in an erratic fashion, meaning that some go left and others go right, and still others criss-cross directly over top of each other. I have also had a particular coin passed around a few experts to determine if it was eligible for an NGC buy back for the very reason that I was seeing hairlines and I was told that it was considered market acceptable even by the dealers and collectors of this field. I am having a disconnect here and trying to understand what's going on. Everyone but myself thinks these coins are OK, that the market supports the grade on the outside, and that these hairlines are I guess normal. So am I just using too strong of a magnification device? Is there leniency in the seated quarter denomination and these hairlines are so common that no one has a choice but to look past them? Or have they all been cleaned? I know without pictures this is pretty useless, but maybe somebody has experience with using a strong loupe or knows the history of seated quarters and why I see so many with hairlines in problem free holders. Another question I have is this. What creates hairlines in the fields of low mint state coins? Is cleaning the most likely answer there? Are they silently net graded because of that and that's why I am seeing hairlined coins?
I have slightly bad vision and this was what I initially purchased, no reason other than I thought I would be able to see the coins better. Maybe I'm seeing too much though
Gotta agree. A 3x5 magnification should be about normal for viewing coins, at least that's what I use.
As I understand it the TPG graders don't even used a loupe half the time. And when they think they need one it's in the 3x-5x range.
10X is too strong to grade coins . Like stated above 3-5 should be the max . When grading a coin they 1st look at the coin without any loupe and have a grade fixed in their mind . Only if they see something that they see troubling will they use stronger magnification . Also die polish lines can cross over each other or even be in circular motion as seen on the La Fayette dollar .
I would much rather see the lines if they were there with my 10X and decided if it was market acceptable than use a lesser lens and "not see them" there. My great grandma would take off her glasses when certain politicians came on TV. If she couldn't see them, they weren't there ! By Golly!
I started with a cheap Chinese made 10X and it worked fine , until I bought a Hastings Triplet from B&L , the difference was amazing in the details . They are also very reasonable . Some even prefer the expensive German lenses , but I found the Hastings Triplet to be in the same class , even for around $30 to over $100 .
I have the Belomo Triplet 10x loupe made in Belarus. Very nice for looking at details but I can't see it being any use for grading. Came with instructions but they are in Russian.
Here's a very serviceable B&L folding magnifier for $20. I prefer the double lens 4-9x. Lens is larger than on my BelOMO http://www.jpscorner.com/magnifiers-and-loupes.html It's not an Eschenbach, but adequate for most of my perusing.
I am near sighted and I can see details on a coin most people need a 10x glass to see. So I only use a 5x or 10x to look for die vareties or such.
Trey - your question about the strength of the loupe has already been answered. As for hairlines, hairlines are nothing more than very light scratches and they can be caused by almost anything. Wiping a coin with a cloth, any cloth no matter how soft, or wiping it with anything else, (even your finger) will leave hairlines on the coin. But hairlines from a coin being wiped almost always appear as patches of hairlines as opposed to 1 or 2, or 3 or 4, in a given area. Laying a coin down on a flat surface or even a cloth can cause hairlines. A coin sliding around inside a coin cabinet, or inside a coin flip, or putting it into or taking it out of a coin flip or a coin envelope can cause hairlines. A coin being in a coin album can cause hairlines. Quite literally, touching the surface of the coin with anything, or allowing it touch anything, coupled with any movement, can cause hairlines. And yes, hairlines do affect the grade of a coin in a negative manner. But as with just about anything else that affects the grade of the coin it is a matter of severity. Finding hairlines on a coin is not at all unusual. Many, if not most coins, even MS, have a few hairlines on them, some more than a few, especially older coins. That is because the longer a coin has been around the more likely it is to have been roughly handled by one or more of its owners (thus causing hairlines) at some point in its life. But hairlines in and of themselves do not render a coin ungradedable (unless they are from a harsh cleaning). They are kind of like contact marks. The more marks you have, and the more severe marks are, and the location of the marks on the coin, all affect the grade in a negative way, and some more than others. Same thing with hairlines. Hairlines are 1 of the 4 primary grading criteria - quality of luster, contact marks, and eye appeal being the other 3 primaries. Planchet quality, quality of strike, how well centered the the coin is, and die quality are secondary grading criteria. All 8 of these things come into play when grading an MS coin. The final and 9th grading criteria is wear, again the severity of which establishes the circulated grade of the coin. So when you consider all of that yes hairlines are important when determining the grade of a coin, but they are no more and no less important than the other 3 primary grading criteria. All of which can be exaggerated by the use of too much magnification when grading a coin. As one of the others noted above, magnification should only be used in grading when your naked eyes see something that might be a problem and make you think it deserves a closer look. Other than that, magnification is not only not needed, its use is not advised when grading a coin.
This is my conundrum. Do I want to willfully play ignorant and ignore the hairlines by using a lesser lens, or should I continue to use my lens and try to better understand what I am seeing. Btw, these are not die polish lines to my understanding. They VERY clearly appear at a different surface level to die polish. Also, I can see where all of the polish lines travel in a certain direction and then small spots of hairlined patches are just going wherever. I also can't see how this would be an anomaly from using higher magnification. Something happened to that coin to produce the hairlines that I am seeing, and if these are MS graded coins, what could it be? There's only two real answers to me and both go against what I thought it meant to be an MS coin. Old, light cleanings, which should put these coins in details holders. Or light circulation before the coin was pulled for a collection. Both seem plausible to me, or like I said my magnification is just too high and I'm gonna find flaws in everything but 69s and 70s.
Yes, both of those things are possible. But that's what I was trying to explain above, there are also many, many, other things that could have caused the hairlines.
You just have a way with conveying ideas Doug. I followed that quite nicely and it makes sense. I knew the answer was buried in the grading and possible natural nature of coins themselves. I had to reevaluate my thinking a bit because literally everyone I talked to, everyone who has seen the coins in hand, and the grading companies were all saying one thing, and my mind was seeing something else.
