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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;dougsmit, post: 1309428, member: 19463&quot;]David Vagi&#039;s grading system applies two numbers to the end of the standard US grade letters.&nbsp; One is for strike and one for surface.&nbsp; By doing this he is able to describe a coin by the wear using the letters and by the strike using the number.&nbsp; Lets look at a coin I feel might prove enlightening:</p><p>[ATTACH]147287.vB[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>Do you see wear or a bad strike?&nbsp; If the problem is strike you might call this coin a VF 13 (assuming surface quality 3) but if it is wear the coin can be no better than F due to the lack of laurel wreath detail.&nbsp; Notice how there is a lot of hair detail on the head up to a point where it all of a sudden becomes flat and lacking in all detail.&nbsp; To me this poorly struck coin can be no better than F but it looks rather different than a coin worn to fine like the one below:</p><p>[ATTACH]147290.vB[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>I&#039;d call this one F 44 by his system but I can not bring myself to allow that first coin to be over F even though it may have no more wear than an EF.&nbsp; I don&#039;t care how or where the detail left but high grade coins need to have high grade details and inventing a system to allow uglier coins to be called VF serve no good purpose.&nbsp; I maintain that ancient coins need to be graded with a phrase or a paragraph depending on how odd the situation might be.&nbsp; US grading is for US coins that were all considered equal when struck (which we know is a lie since MS61 and MS69 vary 1000% in price).&nbsp; I always wondered why they failed to distinguish a very well struck EF from one that never was well struck.&nbsp; After all when does a Jefferson nickel with full steps get enough wear that you can no longer see the steps?&nbsp; Immediately at AU or later???</p><p><br /></p><p>Years ago I proposed a two added value system but, unlike Mr. Vagi, I did not rate strike and surface.&nbsp; Instead I preferred to rate Conditions of Manufacture and Conditions of Preservation.&nbsp; The first rates how a coin looked the day it dropped from the dies (strike, centering etc.) while the second addressed things that happened later (patina, corrosion, damage).&nbsp; I never saw great value in a number system since that would require me to assign a value to various competing factors like a great patina over underlying abrasions or well struck but off center so I still need a few words to describe a coin after the VF.&nbsp; The factors I found worth noting were on my pages linked from this one:</p><p><a href="http://www.forumancientcoins.com/dougsmith/grade.html" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.forumancientcoins.com/dougsmith/grade.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.forumancientcoins.com/dougsmith/grade.html</a></p><p><br /></p><p>On several occasions I wanted to develop and propose a number system to evaluate degrees of desirability (a 91 would have been a perfect coin when made but suffered every possible indignity since while a 19 was a mess the day it was made and never got any worse???).&nbsp; I never found one I could support fairly across the board so I always dropped back to using a word add on to an overall impression grade based on how attractive a coin might be.&nbsp;&nbsp; This is a minor disagreement with Mr. Vagi compared to the one I have about his putting ancients in slabs.</p><p><br /></p><p>I did not read the article.&nbsp; My ANA membership lapsed about 48 years ago when I stopped collecting US.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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