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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;dougsmit, post: 2289176, member: 19463&quot;]One good thing we may have overlooked is that slabs keep the newby buyers of nice coins from scrubbing them into Proofs.&nbsp; My problem with the concept is not someone paying for an opinion of an unknown expert (Does David Vagi look at them all?) but that they expect the next buyer to reimburse them for that opinion.&nbsp; On a $5000 coin the extra $50 may not be a big deal but the number of $20 coins in plastic that cost more than they did is ridiculous.&nbsp; A $20 coin with the blessing of someone I do not know is worth exactly $20 to me.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Back in 1997 when I started my Grading pages I settled on dividing &#039;situations&#039; into two parts.&nbsp; I called things that happened to the coin at the mint &quot;Conditions of Manufacture&quot; and things that happened after &quot;Conditions of Preservation&quot;.&nbsp; My first draft included a scale from 0-9 for each so a really nice coin might be EF99 while an equally unworn coin mis-struck and corroded would be EF11.&nbsp; The problem was that my set of photos illustrated many things that could affect these numbers and I could not settle on a way to, for example, relate a patchy patina and porous surface.&nbsp; Either could make a coin a level 5 for Preservation but some people would prefer one and others the other.&nbsp; It made no difference since I was not trying to sell containerized coins but just to point out that terms like VF and EF did not mean a lot with ancients.&nbsp;&nbsp; Below are four coins in the aVF range but with different surfaces.&nbsp; Which is an 8 and which is a 2 might be more opinion than fact but the crack on the Domna would definitely make it low on its Manufacture number completely unrelated to its Preservation.</p><p><img src="http://www.forumancientcoins.com/dougsmith/g68.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /><img src="http://www.forumancientcoins.com/dougsmith/golive.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /><img src="http://www.forumancientcoins.com/dougsmith/gporous.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /><img src="http://www.forumancientcoins.com/dougsmith/g71.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p>Similarly compare the Manufacture situations of the Domna above and three below (the adjustment scratches on the horse are pre strike and very common on that type).&nbsp; How do you relate such variations in a single digit?</p><p><img src="http://www.forumancientcoins.com/dougsmith/goffc.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></p><p><img src="http://www.forumancientcoins.com/dougsmith/gflanfile.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /><img src="http://www.forumancientcoins.com/dougsmith/g16.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>NGC two numbers seem very much like mine but, I believe, poorly named.&nbsp; There are many things in Manufacture besides Strike and many things in Preservation beyond Surfaces.&nbsp; That is partially why I was thinking 1-9 keeping 0 for things not describable in simple terms.&nbsp;&nbsp; Why they decided to use a five scale rather than ten, I&#039;ll never understand.&nbsp; Certainly VF 5/5, 3/5 tells me more than just VF but it hardly prepares me to buy sight unseen.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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