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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;brg5658, post: 1320218, member: 29751&quot;]Doug, I can only attest to the standards for the Sacagawea dollars, as that is the only set I seriously collect in that timeframe.&nbsp; In 2000 when the Sac Dollars were first released, there was a rash of early graded MS69 dollars graded by NGC.&nbsp; Indeed, there were 75 graded within the first couple years of release, and that population has only moved by one coin since that time.&nbsp; Among serious collectors of the series, it is well known that these NGC graded 2000 coins were overgraded by post-2000 standards.&nbsp; This is usually chalked up to the fact that 2000 was the first year of the series and, thus, standards were &quot;in flux&quot; for the first few months.&nbsp; I mean, how do you know nit-pick the difference between an MS68 and MS69 coin for a coin that you haven&#039;t seen before?</p><p><br /></p><p>Now onto the 2005 Satin Finish issue.&nbsp; It may very well be that some (or even most) of the mint sets were of low quality.&nbsp; But those which were cherry picked for superb coins were exceptional.&nbsp; I have to simply disagree with you that the &quot;standards&quot; changed.&nbsp; I have looked at hundreds of Satin Finish SAC dollars, and 80-90% of the MS69 Satin Finish coins from PCGS and NGC are correctly graded.&nbsp; I say &quot;correctly graded&quot; <i><u>in my opinion</u></i>, having been more familiar with this series than any other, and having seen thousands of graded examples over the years.</p><p><br /></p><p>Another thing that may &quot;skew&quot; the perception a bit of what happened in&nbsp; 2005 is the sheer number of graded coins for the Satin Finish series.&nbsp;&nbsp; The Satin Finish was new, and thus in 2005, for the SAC dollars, there&nbsp; were more Satin Finish coins graded in that year alone than have been&nbsp; graded in all subsequent years (2006-2010).&nbsp; There were a total of 7,678&nbsp; SF 2005 SAC $1 graded by NGC -- and there were only 4,171 graded SACs for the regular strike issues for years 2001-2004 combined prior to the 2005 release.&nbsp; The vast number graded means that even if a handful of those grade MS69, then the market will be inundated with them.&nbsp; That is the case today, and you can pick up an MS69 graded 2005-P Satin Finish SAC dollar for around $20.</p><p><br /></p><p>So, in summary, it may be that the &quot;general quality&quot; of the 2005 and later Satin Finish mint sets were disappointing, but the coins that were good were <i><u><b>exceptionally</b></u></i> good.&nbsp; And, those which were exceptional were the ones sent in for grading.&nbsp; Thus, in my opinion it is not a &quot;change in grading standards&quot; but a &quot;perception of change in grading standards&quot;.&nbsp; My argument is further supported in that the non-Satin Finish coins for the SAC series from the time-frame 2005-2010 continue to be exceedingly sparse in grades higher than MS67.&nbsp; For the SAC series, these non-Satin coins were available by direct ship from the US Mint, and were struck and subsequently handled quite differently from the SF Mint Set coins.&nbsp; And, the grades reflect this.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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