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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;davidh, post: 421185, member: 15062&quot;]Well, No.&nbsp; But &quot;direct testomy&quot; doesn&#039;t enter into the question and has no real meaning in the question of AU vs UNC.</p><p><br /></p><p>If there is a shiny penny in a restaurant&#039;s cash register, it either came directly from a FRB roll (in which case it is Uncirculated), or from another customer (in which case it is Circulated).&nbsp; The difference here is moot as long as the coin is in the register tray.&nbsp; However, as soon as that coin is handed to a customer in change by the cashier, it becomes Circulated from that point on.&nbsp; Circulated means that the coin has been &quot;Placed into circulation&quot;.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>Think of a new car sitting a dealer&#039;s showroom.&nbsp; Now, let&#039;s say you go to that dealer and sign a paper transferring ownership of that new (Uncirculated) car to you.&nbsp; At that instant, the car becomes a used (Circulated) car.&nbsp; It may have zero miles on it but you can not re-transfer ownership of it as a new car, even though it may be identical in all aspects to another (new) car in the dealer&#039;s showroom.</p><p><br /></p><p>The Uncirculated coin becomes Circulated as soon as someone takes possession of it in regular commerce.&nbsp; If a new FRB 2008 penny is used in commercial trade along side a worn out 1995-D penny, then they are both circulated.</p><p><br /></p><p>Now, I understand that coins showing <u>NO</u> wear, but showing nicks and scratches (&quot;bag marks&quot;) may be described and traded as Uncirculated or MS-xx.&nbsp; But when other coins showing evidence of handling, such as fingerprints, or scratches, scrapes or gouges not attributable to &quot;bag marks&quot;, are described as Uncirculated, then the terminology has gone off the tracks and is meaningless.</p><p><br /></p><p>We can disagree on details but I think there is no question but that there are Uncirculated coins and there are Circulated coins.&nbsp; Something, somewhere, happens to transition them from one stage to the next.&nbsp; Again, refer to step #7 in the list I gave before.&nbsp; You may disagree with that assessment but, as I asked before, at which step do <u>you</u> consider the coin to have passed into the Circulated relm?</p><p><br /></p><p>My original post in this thread asked whether the descriptive grades have any real meaning any more.&nbsp; I feel they are meaningless and if grading is to be done (of course it should) then it should be on an absolute scale from 0 (nothing more than a smooth disc of metal once having been a coin - a reversion to a &quot;blank planchet&quot;) to 70 (the current equivalent of a 100% original untouched coin).&nbsp; This might lead to some subjective grading, but that&#039;s what we have now anyway (what&#039;s the real difference between an MS-62 and an MS-63?, or between VG and F, or VF and EF? ).[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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