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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Conder101, post: 701520, member: 66&quot;]First of all the numbers don&#039;t MEAN anything.&nbsp; In most fields a number implies a measurement.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; In coin grading the number isn&#039;t a number, it is a name.&nbsp; Good is a name. Fine is a name, AU is a name.&nbsp; All the current system is is that now every grade has two names.&nbsp; Instead of using numbers you could have used letters Good-D, VG-E, Fine-F, Fine-G, Very Fine-H and so on.</p><p><br /></p><p>So why did the specific numbers we use for names today get picked?&nbsp; Well back in the 40&#039;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.&nbsp; And a 1794 cent in Fine brought 3 times what one in Good brought or 12 times what a Poor one did.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; There was NEVER any intent for it to try and extend to any other series because the ratios didn&#039;t work.&nbsp; He thought he had discovered some &quot;natural law&quot; for the determination of the values of early large cents.&nbsp; What he had actually discovered was the ratios between the different grades based on the demand levels at that time.&nbsp; But the numbers didn&#039;t mean ANYTHING until after you had graded the coin using the standard adjective grades already in use at the time.&nbsp; The Sheldon system was a method of determining price AFTER the coin had been graded. </p><p><br /></p><p>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.&nbsp; By the time the second edition of Dr Shelon&#039;s boo on large cents came out he had to include a whole list of &quot;rules and corrections&quot; to apply to the ratios to tweak them and make them work again.&nbsp; And within a year those rules no longer worked because the ratios kept changing.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; In 1972 the copper community finally came to our senses, realized it would never work and we scrapped the whole idea of the numbers.</p><p><br /></p><p>Then in 1977 the ANA came out with their Official Grading Guide and stuck those original Sheldon numbers onto the adjective grades.&nbsp; Why?&nbsp; No good reason.&nbsp; They said it was because people were familiar with the Sheldon Grading numbers.&nbsp; Really?&nbsp; Nobody used them.&nbsp; Paramount had been using them for awhile but no one else.&nbsp; Heck we didn&#039;t even use them in the copper community because they had no real use.&nbsp; But now newbies see those numbers and seem to think they imply some kind of precision to the grading.&nbsp; Nope, make a guess at what you think the grade is and then stick a number on it.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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