First of all the numbers don't MEAN anything. In most fields a number implies a measurement. This is bigger or better than that because we can get out the handy dandy measuring device, measure both of them and see which has the better numbers. In coin grading the number isn't a number, it is a name. Good is a name. Fine is a name, AU is a name. All the current system is is that now every grade has two names. Instead of using numbers you could have used letters Good-D, VG-E, Fine-F, Fine-G, Very Fine-H and so on. So why did the specific numbers we use for names today get picked? Well back in the 40's Dr Sheldon realized that for some time the price of a 1794 cent in Good tended to bring 4 times what that same cent brought in a barely identifiable Poor. And a 1794 cent in Fine brought 3 times what one in Good brought or 12 times what a Poor one did. And of course there were similar numbers for all the other grades all some multiple of the value of a Poor coin and fixed ratios to each other. Now this was just developed for the 1794 large cents, but he saw that it also fit pretty good for the rest of the early date large cents. There was NEVER any intent for it to try and extend to any other series because the ratios didn't work. He thought he had discovered some "natural law" for the determination of the values of early large cents. What he had actually discovered was the ratios between the different grades based on the demand levels at that time. But the numbers didn't mean ANYTHING until after you had graded the coin using the standard adjective grades already in use at the time. The Sheldon system was a method of determining price AFTER the coin had been graded. But as more collectors entered the early large cent market there was more demand for th better condition coins and the old ratios no longer worked. By the time the second edition of Dr Shelon's boo on large cents came out he had to include a whole list of "rules and corrections" to apply to the ratios to tweak them and make them work again. And within a year those rules no longer worked because the ratios kept changing. In the early copper community we kept trying to tweak the rules, and adjust the price levels for the Poor-1 coins to try and get the simple ratios to work again. In 1972 the copper community finally came to our senses, realized it would never work and we scrapped the whole idea of the numbers. Then in 1977 the ANA came out with their Official Grading Guide and stuck those original Sheldon numbers onto the adjective grades. Why? No good reason. They said it was because people were familiar with the Sheldon Grading numbers. Really? Nobody used them. Paramount had been using them for awhile but no one else. Heck we didn't even use them in the copper community because they had no real use. But now newbies see those numbers and seem to think they imply some kind of precision to the grading. Nope, make a guess at what you think the grade is and then stick a number on it.
And not only do we have 70 pts. but on MS coins we have low for the grade C. Solid for the grade B. and High for the grade A. Plus PQ , and stars . rzage
Probably not, and odds are fairly good that if you gave the coin to that grader next week he wouldn't either. Even the professionals at the services only have about a 75 to 80% consistency rate.
That applies to all the grades, not just the MS grades. It's just talked about more with the MS grades.
And I would say that 75-80% of professional graders would call it a 66. Remember tex, when a TPG grades a coin, it's not just 1 person doing it. Four different graders all have to agree on the grade that is assigned.
