Dynamics of Coin Forum Grading

and comments like this made the thread worthwhile for me... roflmao

 

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GDJMSP is right of course. That is exactly the way you SHOULD go about grading a coin.

When I grade a coin, I try and grade it as a potential buyer would.

 

LOL! :thumb: :thumb: Was yor previous job before GEC at SGS?

Phoenix

 

What people SHOULD do and what they ACTUALLY do are very different. IF you sell coins do you grade them as a potential buyer?
It's a game but if the potential buyer and potential seller are reasonable they'll meet somewhere in the middle. Seller makes money and buyer gets a "discount".
Not many dealers grade strictly "by the book" as it were. Especially on tougher coins.

 

I will grade Morgan dollars. I am a conservative grader and I practice grading all the time, especially uncirculated Morgans. I try especially hard to be objective. I like the fact many here are accurate graders.
I think the real issue in most cases is the photography of the coin and lighting that complicates grading accurately.

 

which is why I absolutely HATE to take someone else's word for grade. IMHO If a coin is a VF and it's a common date - it's a VF - if it's a key date, it's STILL a VF! I don't have any room in my world for market grading as it appears to me to just be another way of trying to put lipstick on a pig to make you want to date her. Grading standards for a series are the grading standards. They don't change because a coin was weakly struck in a given year, there just are NO examples that are well struck.

merely my 2¢

 

uh oh.. did I step in a landmine Doug?

Market grading to me is a standing liberty quarter that is just barely missing the outer line at the breast to make the shield complete being called a Fine just because it is a 1927-S. I am referring to when a Buffalo nickel that is well struck but with a just barely incomplete horn being graded an XF because it is a 1926-S. Basically I am referring to the relaxing of standards on certain coins simply because they aren't known to exist in that condition, or are extremely difficult to find. Many will say that coins don't exist with (an example here) a full horn for a 1926-S, and this just miss has all the detail of an XF, so it is XF. MY opinion is: if it doesn't have ALL of the XF details it is NOT XF, it is wishful thinking.

Maybe I am speaking out of turn here, but I have seen countless people relax grading standards on coins for myriad reasons, giving the coin the grade that it really just barely misses, and calling it market grading. If I am misusing this term, I apologise in advance. The market shouldn't determine the grade, the coin should. Grading is a technical thing and a coin is exactly what it is.

 

If I offer a grade I remove myself from the buyer seller and just give as accurate a grade as possible...I will go by the book in value. I see people who grade low assuming a coin is in worse shape than it is reported ALWAYS (and they are the people looking to get gold for silver prices). I think a buyer will always try to low ball, seller will want the most they can get...

I go by what I am told or see in photos when I assess the condition of a coin...nothing more or less...most coins I would do this for (other than ones I am shopping) I wont be buying so its easy to remove my own wish to buy every coin cheap and just give my honest opinion.

 

Ben:
Congrats on #5,000!
As for grading, I agree, some folks will find a problem with an 1894 S Barber Dime in PCGS 66!

I try to be impartial, but sometimes the pictures can be misleading.

 

my father taught me to grade and told me to always be a conservative grader - you will find things you missed once the coin is home and under your light. i look at each coin as though i was looking to buy it and go from there.


-Steve