A Better Way to Grade - We don't need the grading companies anymore

A 1960s SCAN-O-MATIC lighted coin viewer with grading guide...ah, when life was simpler.

It's a very easy device to use:

• Select the proper size coin tube and drop in your coins.

• Pull/Push the coin slide to pick up a coin and position it under the magnifier, and push/pull the slide to flip the coin over to view the other side.

• Pull out the coin slide to remove the viewed coin and retrieve the next coin for viewing

 

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And, every time you drop in a coin, the edge of it hits the coin below and reduces the grade by one point.

Chris

 

Cool piece of history though.......

 

And note, there's no numbers! Purely old school and innocent. No 'hair splitting', just general grading.

I, myself, experienced future shock when I re-entered the hobby in the early 2000's........

 

Ah, the good ol' days. I remember a dealer in NYC. Every coin he bought from you it had scratches on it. But every time he sold a coin, they were bag marks.

 

I think that practice is still in use by some, even today.

 

Divining, inquiring, agreeing minds prevail.......

 

So why didn't you answer my phone call in Orlando?

 

David Lange wrote about this cool device in this month's Numistmatist, cool post.

 

I was browsing through ebay and found the scan-o-matic thing. Do you believe it has a bid of $45.00 on it? I just love it when a dealer would try to sell you a coin that had a 2" long scratch in it and tell you it's only a light bag mark.

 

From what i read, evidently there's a bit of a market for them. Especilly with the box, and there were different colors too.

 

mine is yellow.

 

Isn't it the same as looking through a loupe and comparing your coin to NGC's pictures in their grading guide? Or using Bower's book?