I could see it going MS 65 (especially based on what I've seen lately), but I'm personally not a fan of losing the Battle Creek designation (which would happen if cracked...I'd be more doubtful of getting a 65 via cross over to PCGS or regrade/reconsideration vs sending raw).
I actually really like the way you explained it. I feel like every grading standard is a little arbitrary but with this explanation there's some actual method to the madness! Fantastic Morgan too. Love it
I'm sorry but you are mistaken. We are talking specifically about the N.C.I. Grading approach. Halprin admits that his choice of the weight ratio is arbitrary and just to keep things simple. In his opinion, the surface preservation is twice as important as any other aspect. So be it...it's his approach. That does not, however, make it any less arbitrary. And you must misunderstand his formula. The N.C.I. formula did not assign "grades" for each of the four corresponding aspects, weight them, then sum them up. Each aspect of grading was given "points" ranging from 1 to 5..that's it! Not grades 60-70...points...1 to 5. After the points were given, the surface preservation points were given a multiple of two. Then all points were added together. That gave you a total possibility from 5 to 25 points for a coin. The coin was then "graded" based upon the following (and, yes...arbitrary) scale: 5 to 10.49 = 60 10.5 to 12.49 = 61 12.5 to 13.99 = 62 14 to 16.99 = 63 17 to 18.99 = 64 19 to 20.99 = 65 21 to 22.49 = 66 22.5 to 25 = 67 And even the process above is still only a simplification of the entire process which also includes determining the severity and location of imperfections (ranging from location multipliers of 4x, 2x, 1x, .5x, .25x against the severity determination to get your 1 to 5 points for surface preservation) and use of intermediate points for strike and lustre (like 3.6 or 2.89...arbitrarily used, of course). In premise, the approach has merits, but as put in practice by N.C.I., I would have to disagree.
I'm not mistaken and I didn't misunderstand anything. I said it is "basically the same system", which it is.
You might argue with individual weighting... but the concept of a quantitative method (and thus an objective, repeatable way) of grading was noble if doomed to fail.
Keep that slab. I find it interesting. Maybe not a lot around. I like the the double grading. Old School. Right members
One reason is that an objective, repeatable method of grading would result in no more upgrade attempts on coins--a large portion of submissions. Another reason is that such a method could not be readily adjusted to meet a changing coin market. TPGs would actually have to grade coins, not price them as they do today.
Upgrade attempts are not even remotely close to a large portion of submissions. Moderns, Morgans and Saints are by far the three most graded things, world coins have increased exponentially in the last decade as well. Upgrade attempts wouldn't even crack the top 10 of largest portion of submissions
NCI was a strange company. Steve Ivy formed Heritage in 1976, and was joined by Jim Halperin in 1982. In the mid 80's Jim Halperin created NCI grading service. Exactly when he created it is a bit open to question. Some references say 1986. Jim's book The NCI Grading Guide says it was started in 1985. The first NCI certificate is copyrighted and dated in 1984. Then there is the question of NCI's relationship to Heritage. Heritage says there is no connection between them and NCI. Yet NCI was formed by one of their current partners, In the mid to late 80's Heritage listed a LOT of NCI graded coins on their fixed price lists, and other than on the first grading certificate NCI's address was listed as 311 Market St. Dallas, TX. Which was, surprise surprise, the Heritage building. So was there a connection? Heritage says no, I suspect yes. Another question is when did the close their doors? On this I am unsure. I know they were open til at least 1990, and I know they were closed by 1992. Exactly when they closed down I can't say. While they were in operation they used 8 different generations of photocertificate, and one hard plastic slab. I know the slab was used in conjunction with generations 7 and 8, and may have been used on its own at the end of the companies run (but if it was I would expect a change in the verbiage on the back of the slab. You can't require the presence of the certificate to qualify for the grading guarantee if you aren't issuing certificates. Another problem is trying to determine the emission order of certificate generations 2 through 8. In my book I tried to order them the best I could based on the earliest and latest dates seen on the certificates. But ALL the date ranges overlap. I seems like they must have ordered certificate styles in different batches whenever they got low and then just grabbed whatever certificate was handy. For example most of the NCI 6 certificates are dated 1987 and 88, and the copyright is also 1987. But the earliest NCI 6 certificate is dated 3/5/86! That is before the earliest NCI 2 certificate I've seen. I'm not sure how you can issue a certificate almost a year before the copyright date on the certificate. Another odd thing. Although supposedly they started in 1985, and I have a certificate dated in 1984, I have never seen an NCI certificate dated in 1985. In the late 80's NCI was looked down upon among the dealers I knew and worked with. It was ranked below that of Accugrade. and was considered a joke. But after they closed their doors, for about a decade and a half the Coin Dealers Newsletter hade a table in each issue that ranked the grading services and what their coins would be "worth" as a percentage of the CDN prices. PCGS was always rated highest, but NCI was rated very high as well, often as #2! So there seemed to be a real disconnect between how the dealers at the shows saw NCI and how the Graysheet saw them. Plus the fact they were still being listed more than a decade after they closed even though you seldom saw them (They were never that common even when they were in operation) was odd.
@Conder101 - interestingly NCI is listed on the 1st page of the GreySheet all the way through the end of 1992 as one of the four grading companies... That changes in January 1993 when PCI and INS are added (making six) and the boxes made much smaller - just a location. Which is the same at least through the end of 1994!
Just found this thread while researching a recent pick-up. Looks better in hand, though it does fall short of the assigned grade. I found it interesting.
We were just chatting on the other thread. NCI had their own grading standards and a book on them. Still used the Sheldon numbers, but the meanings are a little different.