I have a question about ANAC Details/Net slabs. I have an 1874-S quarter in one of these. It does not look obviously/blatantly cleaned, it is actually quite a nice coin in hand. However my question is another: how can ANACS assign a net grade to a 'details' coin? I thought details coin are worth whatever a potential buyer is willing to pay for it, in this case not the value of an EF40 but maybe VF20, or whatever. What are your thoughts?
Exactly. And that's what eventually made the old ANACS net grade system obsolete. They were, I believe, attempting to assign a value a coin could trade at, to account for the problems noted. So that quarter, for example, though AU details, was supposed to trade at EF40 price. It was a nice idea in theory, but not so feasible in reality. People would rather assign their own values to things like this. Some might not be so bothered by the cleaning, while for others, it might be a dealbreaker. This was in an era when a lot of sight-unseen trading still went on. Now, in the 21st century, with the Internet and photos and all that good stuff, there's no need for sight-unseen coin buying.
It doesn’t make sense to “net” an obviously MS coin, for example, at a VGF level. In my example, MS is MS regardless of cleaning or other damage. However it can be a “cleaned MS” or “damaged MS.” Trying to “net” a coin at an objectively lower grade is sort of unfair to an actual coin of that grade.
Even the top TPGs are net grading coins today w/o mentioning anything on the label. Examples of damaged/cleaned UNC coins which grade MS60/61 can be seen frequently. So in my opinion ANACS actually did a better job back in the 90s because problems were disclosed and mentioned on the label along with the net grade.
That is an older ANACS slab obviously. ANACS certified and/or slabbed problem coins LONG before the other services did, and they used net grading. You can find net grades coin on their old certificates as well. The label on the slab can also be considered and early example of "Market Grading", the label indicates that the coin has the sharpness/wear of an AU coin and that in their opinion it would sell at around an XF-40 price level. PCGS and NGC sometimes net grade as well they just don't tell you. We all know of coins which are straight graded but have slight problems, not enough to get them a details slab, but the grade on the holder has clearly been slightly reduced from what it would appear to be. These are coins that have been net graded but still straight graded.
Thank you, all, for your input. In this particular case, and given this is an older slab, is the EF40 value which ANCS gave this coin realistic in today's market? I am certainly not as experienced as some in determining whether a coin has been cleaned or not, but from what I can see, this is quite a nice coin, actually.
I’d say set it free. It could straight grade today and the holder does nothing to help it. Worth as much rawx
