While rummaging through a box of old books I found several old coin books. Several are 1960's Whitman Publishing books, but one was an excerpt from 'The Numismatist' May, June, July 1956. It discusses how to establish fixed rules for attaining clear cut definitions of coin grades with lines of demarcation between the classes of the NEW science of coin grading. The Sheldon Scale of grades 1-70 was just established eight years earlier. It's very interesting to read that things we take as standard knowledge now in the hobby, were being set during this period. The book discusses the differences of circulated coins to uncirculated coins; "AU" or ""BU". The high points of the coins are indicated on the photos as the markers for attributing the coin as circulated. Of course the coins discussed are 'older' coins now. The Lincoln memorial cent or Kennedy half dollar didn't exist yet. The biggest reason given for this discussion and creating a strict line of demarcation between the two was not for the coin dealer or advanced numismatist, but for the novice collector. They were looking out for the beginners!
Nice find ya got there. I recently was given the 1972 -17 th Edition of Photograde published by Bowers and Marena by James R. Ruddy. It shows a photo of a different coin for each grade as it goes thru eight grades from good thru very fine. And so much more. Lot of good info in there for just 202 pages.
Yea. The book I referenced was also directed at the general public novice beginner too. I think they did a fine job of keeping in line with their goal. I bet it brought a lot of new people into the coin collecting arena because it showed they too could learn to grade coins . Perhaps it gave them the confidence to get into collecting.
Oh there was all kinds of discussions about grading going on in the 50's. But what a lot of folks don't realize is that those discussions had been going on since about 1898. And even then it was among the ANA, founded in 1891, members that it was being discussed. And this is discussed in some older copies of the Numismatist that I have from 1915,'16, '18, and '19. As for the Sheldon Scale, while the general idea of the Sheldon Scale was eventually adopted, for the 1st time in 1958 by Brown & Dunn - https://www.pcgs.com/news/part-four-martin-brown-and-john-dunn-1958-the-first - the Sheldon grading system itself was not adopted as that applied to large cents only. But yeah, it was Sheldon who gave everybody the basic idea of a numerical grading system. It was not until 1977 that the ANA expanded on the work of Brown & Dunn and published the 1st edition of their grading standards. And in that edition there were only 3 MS grades - 60, 65, and 70. In the years that followed the MS grades of 63 and 67 were added in the 2nd edition. But it was not until 1986 that the ANA invented and switched over from the technical grading system to the market grading system - which included all the MS grades from 60 to 70. That 3rd edition was published in 1987. And it's no coincidence that PCGS and NGC were founded those same 2 years as the men who started both companies, contributed to that 3rd edition. Today, they are on their 7th edition which was published in 2013 I think it was. But other than 2 specific circulated grades, 1 each for 1 specific coin, one a Buffalo nickel the other an IHC, it remains the same as it was in 1987.
Thanks for sharing, really nice books with proberly still good info. I was wondering how clear are the pictures in the AU OR BU Book? Do you think it is helpful? THANKS FOR ANY HELP.
The pictures are small and grainy. They show you were to look on the coin, but detail on the coin picture is not really visible. The book is an interesting read, but better references are out there. PCGS Photograde website is good and has great photos. NGC also has descriptions of grades.
The photos in Photograde, if you're talking about the book, not PCGS Photograde online, are of poor quality. They were what you might expect 35 or 40 years ago. Photograde (the book), at least the versions I've seen and owned, also used the same photos for different grades. Not particularly useful, IMHO.
