It is a mystery to me. What is the most effective way to learn how to grade coins? It looks awfully subjective. How consistent are various graders? Is coin grading a repeatable process? Wine tasting has elaborate protocols, with published grading tables and background information on the Internet. Is there something like that for coin grading? :rolling:
It's easy. Just send your coins to one of those back room grading companies you see on ebay. They will come back MS70 or PR70 every time!!!
The best way I think is to read everything you can on the topic...and then look at as many coins as you can...on the internet...in hand...and at dealers.... They say that the graders at the grading Co's are about 75%-85% right all the time...there is that 15% time when they are wrong. Also pick what coins you are week on and look at as many as you can of that type...I'm not good with any type but gold is my week point. Speedy
There are no SET standerds but the ones most people go by are... Photograde ANA Guide And Hands On In the real hard truth...Market grading is an art only learned by hands on grading. The only guide that really uses the Market Grading that is in use today is the newest ANA Grading Guide.... That is why I suggeset reading all you can...that way you don't use 1 way...you mix all of the good ways and come to the point where you grade A OK. Speedy
This is really interesting. My impression of the posters around here is that most seem to be much smarter and more educated than posters on other websites. People ramble on ad nauseum about fine points of history and economics. That's why I hang around. I find this stuff interesting. But, no code book for coin grading? Coin grading is one of the fundamental elements of coin collecting. No empirical system? Engineers and scientists attempt to quantify everything. Even flakey old winemakers attempt to quantify wine tasting, which is unbelievably subjective. Attempting to select the best wine makes about as much sense as arrempting to pick the most beautiful woman. At some point, somewhere near the middle of the bell curve, they simply are not better, just different. Kiss
I have found photograde to be the overall best guide to grading for me, but it's only good up to AU coins. Beyond that point I have only purchased coins slabbed by one of the four top TPGs, and hope for the best.
Yes there are grading standards, well known ones. But there is no single grading standard that everybody uses. You see, NGC has their own set of grading standards, as does PCGS, ANACS and ICG. NGC and PCGS have published their standards in book form. To the best of my knowledge ANACS & ICG have not. Then there are the independent grading standards also published in book form - Brown & Dunn, Photgrade, The ANA Grading Standards, Grading US Coins and a couple more that I can't remember the titles of right now. Coin World is also coming out with their own book of grading standards. All in all - they are all very similar to each other, but different on some points. As already stated, the best thing I can recommend is to read all of them - study them - and create your own comprehensive set of standards that encompasses the entire spectrum. Then study the coins in person. But you have to look at thousands & thousands to get really good at it. After enough practice, you can pretty well predict how any of the TPG's will grade a given coin. And once you can do that - you're all set. For your grading will be about as consistent as anybody's in today's world.
One conclusion I draw from this discussion is that some of the huge price differences between grades are not warranted based on the lack of precision in grading.
Truer words never spoken. Although I'm getting pretty familiar with the codified standards like Photograde et. al., I tend to purely market grade for coins in which I'm interested, as evidenced by real-world results like Heritage and Teletrade auctions and Ebay sales. The grade/worth of your coin relates more to what it would bring at retail, rather than what specific grade someone would assign to it. Frankly, I think the only way a hard set of standards would work is if all coins wore and marked identically. Since this isn't the case, any and all grading has to be subjective and therefore prone to the personal involvement of the grader. I use the following 10-point personal grading system (lowest to highest): 1) It's round. Must be a coin. 2) Somebody wore 10 cents' worth off this quarter. 3) Golly, that one's been around the block a time or two. 4) Somebody caught it before it got too awful badly circulated. 5) Hmmm. Decent. This might be a keeper, especially if it's rare. 6) I like it. Only spent once or twice. 7) Never in a pocket, but its' bagmates sure had their way with it. 8) This one gave better than it got. 9) I can see this pretty in my collection. 10) OhmyGod! The reflection! I'm blinded!
How are you going to standardize it? There is so much variation of which a coin can go through, not to mention that many coins are struck and wear differently. Ruben
Like a rock! Minerals and rocks have a lot more physical and chemical variation than coins. Geologists, and their specialized scientific cousins, mineralogists, have elaborate, standardized, systems to identify and describe minerals and rocks. Almost any physical object exhibits these features. Standardize them. Size and Dimension - obvious coin features that are measured today. Weight- obvious again Color - color charts could be prepared, with dozens of subtle variations for color standardization. Coloration may indicate where the coin spent most of its existence. Structure - bends, dents, strike features, etc. Measure and note. Texture- fine-grained textures, pock marks, dings, polish marks, etc. This is a big one for coin people. You probably should measure and standardize coin-relief features; coin edges, bass reliefs, letters, etc. At least discuss these features in empirical terms. Quantify. Chemical Composition - This could, and probably is, being used to identify fake coins and report metallurgical contents of modern coins. Metal alloys, especially ancient alloys, are a combination of several metals. The afghans talk about their seven-metal jewelry. The alloys have several metals becasue the ancient metallurgists had great difficulty removing unwanted elements like zinc. I suspect that old coins probably have chemical "signatures", even by coin batchs and dates. I would not be surprised if some modern coins have elemental "tracers". Weathering and Alteration - Most circulated coins have tinges of silver, and or, basemetal alteration products. The different colors and texutures indicate the presence of different metal oxides, chlorides, carbonates, and other metallic salts. Forensic science, including forensic geology, rely upon very subtle variations in features to make very critical and repeatable observations possible. I sure that you coin people can think of other features worth standardizing.
You're barking up the wrong tree here guys. The standards already exist, as I've stated, several of them do. That's not the problem. The problem is getting everyone to agree to use the same set of standards. The key word in that sentence is everyone. Now I'd be willing to bet, most of those reading this think that means the different grading companies. But it doesn't - it means all of US ! You see, we, the collectors, are the problem. You think I'm wrong ? Just ask a simple question to find out. Ask - which grading company is the best ? You'll get about 10 different answers. Because, depending on the person answering, they think this company or that company is the best because of the standards they use. You want to have one universal set of grading standards - that's easy. Just get all of the collectors to stand together as one and agree on which set of standards to use. Until then - forget it.
What Speedy says is true, but remember this is only true for American coins many foreign countries use different grading standards and ancient and shipwrecked coins are also graded differently. There are many charts and guides published on the web. I enven have a multi country referene to grading on my web site under the tab "grading" The more time you spend studying the individual type of coin(s) you are interested in the better you will become. I keep a grading "cheat sheet" posted in the area I work on my coins. I think grading is always a case of :headbang:
I dunno Richard, at one point in time I would likely have agreed with you. But no longer. I just decided to put my mind to it, expend the time and effort required - and learned how to grade properly, by any standard. It can be done - you just have to do it.
I don't understand why you would do that B]Size and Dimension[/B] - I already know or can find this out. Weight- same goes here. Color - color charts could be prepared, with dozens of subtle variations for color standardization. Coloration may indicate where the coin spent most of its existence. Isn't it true that if you had multiple variations of a color, two people might disagree on the exact match? Structure - bends, dents, strike features, etc. Measure and note. Yup, you could do this. Texture- fine-grained textures, pock marks, dings, polish marks, etc. This is a big one for coin people. You probably should measure and standardize coin-relief features; coin edges, bass reliefs, letters, etc. At least discuss these features in empirical terms. Quantify. I think this is already done. When you're describing a coin, you should list any major defects in it. You could measure the exact length and width of a scratch or ding, to the 1/100th of an inch, but most people don't have the ability to do that. Chemical Composition - This could, and probably is, being used to identify fake coins and report metallurgical contents of modern coins. Metal alloys, especially ancient alloys, are a combination of several metals. The afghans talk about their seven-metal jewelry. The alloys have several metals becasue the ancient metallurgists had great difficulty removing unwanted elements like zinc. I suspect that old coins probably have chemical "signatures", even by coin batchs and dates. I would not be surprised if some modern coins have elemental "tracers". You're right - there probably are trace elements and metals in the coins, but no one seems to care about the trace elements, they just care what the purity of gold or silver is. 90%, 80%, or 40% seem to cut it. It really wouldn't matter to me if it was 40.019732% silver. Weathering and Alteration - Most circulated coins have tinges of silver, and or, basemetal alteration products. The different colors and texutures indicate the presence of different metal oxides, chlorides, carbonates, and other metallic salts. I'm not knocking your ideas, I guess my point is that you could do all of this, but most of it wouldn't matter. If it was important to coin collectors, they would have done it by now. What kind of a scale would you use to measure eye appeal? Whos eye would you use? I didn't know what you meant by "emperical terms" so I looked it up. One of the definitions was "capable of being verified or disproved by observation or experiment " but ironically the other one was "relying on experience or observation alone often without due regard for system and theory". Likewise, you could develop all of those same types of things to evaluate a car. But when it was time to buy a new car, would you care about trace elements in the engine block? Would you care what size, to the exact demensions, are the dings from the hail damage, or would a general statement of "very light hail damage" suffice? You could give the PMS numbers of the paint, but 'banana yellow' is more descriptive to most people who buy or drive a car than PMS 214 (or whatever descriptor they use for colors). You'd still want to see the damage before you bought it. The determining factor would be does the engine run well, how ugly does the damage make the car look? Do you like the color?
Throughout the world scientists and engineers make and document observations like this, and it is never magic, and seldom very subjective. Color charts and scales are indeed precise. Plus, color blind people have no business assessing hues and subtle variations. It is apparent to me after reading some of the responses here why the coin world has no unified grading system. The population of collectors of merit have to agree on things, not withstanding, that there is a grading problem. Everybody seems to be satisfied with the various grading systems, so by definition, there is no problem. I am almost apologetically surprised by the lack of grading consistency and the subjectiveness of observations. Coin collecting is truly art appreciation.
But coins are pieces of art The most important for me is : do I like it ? (I don't collect modern, so the grading is different Cucumbor
Very true - but who is it that will decide that this color in this specific spot on a coin means this and that color in the very same spot means something else ? Do you see what I mean ? No matter how you go about it, at some point subjectivity is the defining factor. Computer grading of coins has been tried several times - and failed for the very reason I describe above. For there is just no way to remove subjectivity from coin grading - even with a computer. For a computer can only do what somebody programs it to do. And who decides what that is ? You are quite correct, to a degree. But not everybody is satisfied. There are a great many out there who would like to see changes and reform within the grading system - among them, me. I have long written about the subject and espoused the benefits such reform would bring to the hobby.
