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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;dougsmit, post: 4123284, member: 19463&quot;]This is a nice coin, very nice, but I would really like to know what FSR called it 30 years ago.&nbsp; I did not save my lists from back then; I wonder if Frank did.&nbsp; In 1990 terms, I would grade the coin as VF+ due to the weakness in the hair and lack of crisp ear separation.&nbsp; It would be EF today but, opposite of those of who collect, coins have improved over the last 30 years.&nbsp; Mine is only 20 years old and fine but was $200 so I suspect $400 was close in 1990.</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1068525[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>The big grading change over the years has been the NGC ancients introduction of &#039;wear only&#039; letter grading.&nbsp; The coin below has hair detail and ear separation of a VF but abysmal surfaces.&nbsp; Thirty years ago it would have been downgraded to F or maybe VG but today I would expect it to get a higher letter than my green one.&nbsp; If you paid extra for the full service slab, it would surely get a 1/5 for surface but the coin is well struck and less worn.&nbsp; I keep telling myself that I should give this thing an accession number but I have been ashamed of it for over 30 years and do not even have record of where I got it.&nbsp; I only kept it because I wanted the rarer legend (of which, on this thread, only one has been shown by bcuda).</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1068526[/ATTACH]</p><p>Thirty years ago, I was very hard on coins with poor surfaces.&nbsp; Wear did not bother me (and still does not).&nbsp; The value of the Sev beauty was and is more a matter of eye appeal than technical grading, IMHO.&nbsp; I may have bid on that coin 30 years ago but I know I would not have bid enough on a Caligula then to be competitive. 1990, by chance, was the year I spent $400 on a coin for the first time and still regret that purchase.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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