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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;GDJMSP, post: 1950475, member: 112&quot;]Trey - your question about the strength of the loupe has already been answered.</p><p><br /></p><p>As for hairlines, hairlines are nothing more than very light scratches and they can be caused by almost anything. Wiping a coin with a cloth, any cloth no matter how soft, or wiping it with anything else, (even your finger) will leave hairlines on the coin. But hairlines from a coin being wiped almost always appear as patches of hairlines as opposed to 1 or 2, or 3 or 4, in a given area. Laying a coin down on a flat surface or even a cloth can cause hairlines. A coin sliding around inside a coin cabinet, or inside a coin flip, or putting it into or taking it out of a coin flip or a coin envelope can cause hairlines. A coin being in a coin album can cause hairlines. Quite literally, touching the surface of the coin with anything, or allowing it touch anything, coupled with any movement, can cause hairlines.</p><p><br /></p><p>And yes, hairlines do affect the grade of a coin in a negative manner. But as with just about anything else that affects the grade of the coin it is a matter of severity. Finding hairlines on a coin is not at all unusual. Many, if not most coins, even MS, have a few hairlines on them, some more than a few, especially older coins. That is because the longer a coin has been around the more likely it is to have been roughly handled by one or more of its owners (thus causing hairlines) at some point in its life. </p><p><br /></p><p>But hairlines in and of themselves do not render a coin ungradedable (unless they are from a harsh cleaning). They are kind of like contact marks. The more marks you have, and the more severe marks are, and the location of the marks on the coin, all affect the grade in a negative way, and some more than others. Same thing with hairlines.</p><p><br /></p><p>Hairlines are 1 of the 4 primary grading criteria - quality of luster, contact marks, and eye appeal being the other 3 primaries. Planchet quality, quality of strike, how well centered the the coin is, and die quality are secondary grading criteria. All 8 of these things come into play when grading an MS coin. The final and 9th grading criteria is wear, again the severity of which establishes the circulated grade of the coin.</p><p><br /></p><p>So when you consider all of that yes hairlines are important when determining the grade of a coin, but they are no more and no less important than the other 3 primary grading criteria. All of which can be exaggerated by the use of too much magnification when grading a coin.</p><p><br /></p><p>As one of the others noted above, magnification should only be used in grading when your naked eyes see something that might be a problem and make you think it deserves a closer look. Other than that, magnification is not only not needed, its use is not advised when grading a coin.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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