I feel silly for asking but I have been looking at several wheat cents on Ebay. I have seen everything from grades of F 12 BN, with brown designations up to AU. My question is why designate lower grades brown? Surely there are no RB or RD designations lower than MS, so is there a point in the color designation that I am missing for these lower graded cents? Furthermore, what decides a lower grade cent to be brown vs just achieving a normal grade? Thanks!
Just to check I looked at a few TPG XF Lincoln cents on eBay. The only cents with a color designation that I noticed were all graded by NGC. The other 3 (TPG's) didn't show a color after the grade. I do agree that it makes no sense to have a color listed after the grade if it's below AU.
NGC puts color designations on some circulated cents. I could see doing that down to Choice AU-55, but it's silly to give color designations for any grade lower than that. A copper coin with much, if any circulation, is not going to stay red or red and brown. The only way it would have red color is if it has been cleaned. The for record I have never seen an NGC graded "AU-58 R&B." Has anyone else? They have all been Brown.
I've never seen any coin graded below 60 designated as RD or RB. This would make the BN designation on circulated copper superfluous, even if more descriptive and showing complete orthogonality between grade and designation for copper. I imagine that there are AU58RB coins somewhere, as there is no reason there couldn't be. NGC has graded AU coins with a PL designation when warranted.
Thanks for the replies, guys. I was simply curious...seemed a little nonsensical to me, but just wanted to make sure there wasn't something I was missing. Thanks again!
