Does anyone have current experience of the difference between grades given to coins in North America and in the UK? A few days ago, before joining Coin Talk, I surfed the Numismatic Resources pages here, and came across a pointer to a set of articles called "First Steps in Coin Collecting": http://www.oldandsold.com/articles02/article1077.shtml Reading them carefully, they seem to have been written by two people--a UK writer writing in about 1960, and a US writer writing in about 1964. The first article says: "English ratings of used coins tend to differ by a whole category, the standards for each grade being not quite so high. Thus a coin rated only `fine' by an American collector might be judged `very fine' by his English counterpart." Fair enough. It doesn't matter much that the two systems be different as long as each is consistent within itself. And it doesn't matter at all which of the systems is more conservative. The snag is that another reference--which I have lost --said that the UK system was the more conservative one. That too was some time ago. And as I gradually extend my collection of Canadian-struck sovereigns, it would be convenient to be able to use North American dealers; so I need to know how the gradings relate in 2009. Does anyone know? John
I'd say the first article has it backwards. The English grading is stricter an XF-45 coin would only be a gVF under the English system. And the English system does not have the AU grade (Or at least it used to be that way. As slabs become more prevalent in GB the AU grade may be taking hold. but what we would call an AU they call a gXF.
I've also read a while back that Americans are much more obsessed with the grading scale, especially when it comes to uncirculated coins. Just look at the pricing difference in many of the Morgan dollars comparing values of MS63 versus MS65 graded coins and you can see why that was said. I don't know which scale is more strict when it comes to circulated coins, however.
The systems are different than what the TPG's use, of that there is no doubt. But some of the differences are rather glaring. Using the European system for example, there is no accounting for a coin that has been harshly cleaned. In other words, a coin that would be body-bagged here, they don't even mention it because they don't care if it's been harshly cleaned. And often times, they think nothing of a coin that is damaged - depending on severity of course. But they let things pass that would not pass here. And some will say that we have more grades than they do. Well, not really. They just use adjectival grades where we use numbers. About the only difference comes into play in the MS grades, there we do have more than them, but just barely. But if you were to use ANA grading standards, you would find that there really is little difference. That is because ANA standards are more strict than those used by the TPG's.
My local coin dealer uses the ANA grading standards and it benefits me as a customer very much. A coin he grades VF is usually XF+ at some dealers at shows I've attended. I hope this guy never retires.
Thank you everyone. One of the perverse pleasures of asking experts a question is that they always say that the answer is more complicated than you thought. This would explain why the words used to describe the grades are so similar on either side of the Pond, even if the implementations are different ... and have changed over the last 50 years. When I was reading up CoinTalk's FAQ section I came across this post from 5 years ago: Is this still true? And would I be correct in inferring that, if I wanted to buy a UK-uncirculated Ottawa-struck sovereign from a North American dealer, I would be well served by a coin graded MS-63 or thereabouts by one of these services? Later, John
I daresay to opin not the quite, because by my estimation the piece at hand should impress you. Not someone sitting in a windowless institutional grading facility. Perhaps indeed I am an idealistic purist, I believe the coin should appeal to my discriminating tastes. Fortunately, such said, for my collection venue I have partaken primarily of British coins notably Scots - and they come from the UK, graded on what in my fair estimation are rather more conservative grading scales - particularly in the uncirculated realms. Surely there have been some doffing down of grades, by making something aVF, or aUnc etc. But there have been far little of this farcical numeric scaling that American collectors so favour.
Not really, but it is to some degree. Those 4 are still considered to be the top 4 grading companies by most. But in the past few years ANACS and ICG have changed hands (owners) and as a result their grading policies have suffered in my opinion and they are no longer as good as the used to be. NGC and PCGS are considered to be the best of the lot. But what Scottishmoney says is quite true, you want the coin to please you, regardless of what it says on the slab. You can however trust the TPG in regard to authenticity. But always question the grade based on your own opinion.
99.9% of the time you can trust the authenticity of the coin, the only notable exception were the micro-O Morgans, which were early 1930's counterfeits in silver, and very very well made. They fooled a lot of people, including the TPG's until the same die pattern was noticed on several different dates. I would love to find one of those in the original holder, they trade at quite a premium - as a very well made, and very well publicised forgery.
More likely turn of the century contemporary counterfeits. And interestingly enough recognized as fakes at the time. And NGC recognized the micro O as fakes several years before PCGS did.
But it wouldn't have been economically feasible given the equipment needed to fake them during the very early 1900's, the value of silver was higher during that time. During the Great Depression silver got down to somewhere in the neighbourhood of 33-34 cents an ounce.
Sure it would. Yes, silver was a little higher but it was still around 50 to 60 cents an oz so a silver dollar had 38 to 46 cents worth of silver in it. Plenty of margin for profit. Even if you only made a 30 cent profit per coin, 30 cents had significant purchasing power even during that period. And the press can very quickly crank out a LOT of those 30 cent profits. Even with a relatively slow press you could strike 1000 of them in less than an hour, and your profit would equal an average working mans salary for six to twelve months. And the reason I say they were turn of the century is because back shortly befor PCGS finally decided they were fake , I believe it was Ken Potter who turned up a newspaper article from around 1902 to 1904 that warned of quantities good quality counterfeit dollars made of good silver turning up and it mentions a couple of different dates. But it said that one of the key identifying features was that they had a O mintmark made from "a lower case O". That really sounds like the Micro O fakes.
