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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;GDJMSP, post: 1882209, member: 112&quot;]There&#039;s 2 different issues being mentioned in the last several posts, but they are both separate issues that have nothing to do with each other. Now maybe I&#039;m wrong, but it sounds like some are attributing them to be the same issue, when they aren&#039;t. I&#039;m sure many already know that, but for those that don&#039;t and in the interest of clarity, I wanted to point it out.</p><p><br /></p><p>1 - Certain date/mint combinations of coins, and that means all coins not just Morgans, are known for pretty much the entire mintage having been weakly struck. Those specific coins are graded based on a different set of standards, a more lenient set of standards, when it comes to quality of strike than other coins of the same series. In other words a coin from the weakly struck date/mint combination, if all other grading criteria are equal, might be graded as MS65, while a coin of the same year but a different mint might be graded MS64. But the quality of strike on the MS64 coin is much better than that on the MS65 coin.</p><p><br /></p><p>Now some folks would look at those 2 coins and say how could that possibly be ? The MS64 coin clearly is superior because it has a much better strike, and everything else is equal. So there&#039;s no way that coin could be an MS65, it should be an MS63 at best.</p><p><br /></p><p>Some folks think it&#039;s due to the TPGs that this happens, but it isn&#039;t. That policy of grading known weakly struck date/mint combinations more leniently than others of the same series was established long before the TPGs ever came into existence. It was even established long before the ANA published their first set of grading standards in the 1977. And it was agreed that that&#039;s how it should be in order to equal things out. It goes clear back to the very roots of grading established in 1915. And if you think about it that&#039;s how it should be. The MS65 coin is graded as an MS65 because for the given date/mint combination, the quality of strike that it has is that of an MS65. In other words it&#039;s a bit better than most other coins from that same date/mint combination. The fact that it&#039;s not as good as other date/mint combinations from the same series has nothing to do with it.</p><p><br /></p><p>2 - Special treatment.&nbsp; The TPGs have taken it upon themselves to grade coins of a given scarcity more leniently than they would grade coins of the same series that are not as scarce. They also grade coins with well known pedigrees (coins from notable collections) more leniently than they do other coins from the same series but without the pedigree. And they grade coins of higher value more leniently than other coins from the same series. But scarcity, pedigrees, and value are not and never have been grading criteria. But yet the TPGs treat them as if they are.</p><p><br /></p><p>What Joe mentioned, a beat up coin getting the DMPL designation while a cleaner, non DMPL coin of the same date/mint got the same grade as the DMPL coin is a good example of this. The DMPL coin was graded more leniently purely because it is a DMPL - more scarce, and more valuable than the other coin of the same date/mint.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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