I have a 20c piece that should be BU, but has a very slight scracth on the OBV. You have to have a bright light and loop to see it, it runs form one side across the arm. How do you take off for this? Would be an AU+, or could it still be considered BU. For pricing, would it just be eye appeal between AU and BU? It is a hairline scratch. Here is the photo from the listing, but the scratch is not even as bad as this looks because the surface of the coin is almost proof like.
How deep is the scratch? Is it a gouge in the metal, or is it very light? Must have clear photos of both sides.
This is one of those weird situations where the better the coin is, generally, the more viciously a tiny scratch affects its desirability.
This is the flaw in the grading system to my eyes anyway. That piece is deserving of a BU designation to my eyes. I own quite a few dramatically eye appealing pieces that have a minor flaw that I picked up at a bargain. Unfortunately for the OP, yes I am afraid that minor scratch does affect the desirability and resaleability (is that a word?) of that piece. And is exactly the sort of piece that I love.
It is one of the "biggies" due to the mistake US numismitists made like 180 years ago. Coins should only be judged based upon a percentage of "perfect" details left on it. US numismatists tried to say "uncirculated" coins are superior to those with wear, even though an "uncirculated" coins could have MUCH less details on it than an AU or XF coin because of scratches, dings, soft strike, etc. Now, under this scenario, what do you consider a scratch? The coin technically is uncirculated, or do you consider a scratch "wear"? If it is similar to "wear", how bad is that "wear" versus normal wear? The arguments go round and round, basically due to how US grading was set up erroneously to begin with.
Scratches are not considered wear, and will not knock down the grade from Uncirculated to AU. However, they will lower the Unc. grade because of the scratch (lowest possible unc grade is 60), and no further, as a 58 means the coin is circulated. Or they will give the coin a Unc Details grade if the scratch is severe and warrants a details grade.
I think a light scratch on an old silver coin can still straight grade. But any kind of deep gouge or very long scratch is going to be details. This still isn't a great photo of both sides. And I assume since it is the seller's photo the scratch is going to look much worse head on, and this tilted angle is an attempt to hide the severity of the scratch.
You don't take anything off for it. What you have to do is understand that scratches are considered damage, and if a coin is damaged then it is ungradeable - it has no grade, cannot be graded. This is one of the bedrock rules of grading. The answer to this is more subjective, but it is connected to the OP's question as well. For before you can call it a scratch you first have to determine that it is a scratch. Perhaps a better way to put it would be to say that it qualifies as being a scratch. It's a matter of severity. In numismatics scratch has a very definitive meaning. To be qualify as being a scratch you have to judge the size, the length, depth, and breadth of the scratch. But it's even more involved than that for you also have to do that based on the size of the coin in question. The larger the coin the larger the scratch has to be for it to be called a scratch, the smaller the coin the smaller the scratch has to be. And to some degree location can also play a part just as it does with contact marks. And, the number of scratches is also involved in those cases where there is more than one. These are the things involved when judging the severity of a scratch/es. For example, on the OP's coin there are 2 horizontal scratches as well a vertical scratch. The upper horizontal scratch is too small to say the coin is scratched, IF it were the only one there. The lower horizontal scratch, and the vertical scratch, both by themselves alone, are big enough to qualify as being scratches and thus render the coin ungradeable. And if all three combined are considered, well there is no longer any room for doubt - the coin is definitely scratched. Now rather obviously this is my opinion, but it based on experience, and I have no doubt at all that any TPG would agree. The flip side of this is when a scratch or scratches are not deemed severe enough to be called scratches. When that is the case then they are treated the same as contact marks and they deduct from the grade accordingly based on size, quantity and location.
Doug..... Just so that I understand correctly.... I can submit a worn flat piece and have it come back with say a VG10 grade...... On the other hand I can submit a spectacular eye appealing piece with a scratch (the OP’s coin) and it is rendered ungradable?
Sometimes yes, other times no - at least as far as the TPGs are concerned. But if one follows long established grading standards, it never matters - scratched is scratched regardless of what the coin is, or its condition. Ya see, the TPGs are extremely inconsistent when it comes to the rules of grading. Take large cents for example, the truly vast majority of them are damaged, by corrosion mostly, but scratches, gouges, etc etc as well. And yet the TPGs routinely give them clean grades. When were it any other coin they would not be cleanly graded at all. Same kinda thing applies to scratches. If a coin is scarce enough, valuable enough, or from a given pedigree, the TPGs throw the rules of grading out the window and give clean grades. The do this much in the same way as treat wear on coins. They know for an absolute fact that a coin has wear on it, yet they grade it MS anyway. And they use the excuse, and I say excuse because that's all it is, that it's not really wear because caused by this or by that. Pretending of course that they can even tell the difference ! Wear is wear, regardless of what causes it, and it is absolutely impossible to distinguish what caused the wear to begin with ! But yet they do it anyway.
