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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;DonnaML, post: 8121784, member: 110350&quot;]It&#039;s always nice to have a Sear Certificate; this is one of three coins I own that came with one. Interestingly, despite what I think is great eye appeal on the P. Nerva (#2), Sear only graded it as a &quot;good F; flan flaw on edge of reverse not affecting the type.” Which is probably a reasonably accurate grade by traditional standards, even though I would guess that 90% of the dealers on VCoins and MA-Shops*, and of auction houses, would describe the coin as being at least Very Fine. It&#039;s yet another example of how completely irrelevant letter grades -- whether from dealers or even from NGC -- are to my decisions to buy ancient coins. As I&#039;ve said a million times, it&#039;s all about the photographs, and whether I like the way a coin looks; I&#039;m absolutely fine with those dealers who don&#039;t even bother assigning a grade to their coins.</p><p><br /></p><p>*I think the worst culprits in terms of &quot;optimistic&quot; grading are, for whatever reason, certain dealers in France and elsewhere in Continental Europe who are apparently not aware that there&#039;s such a thing as a grade less than VF, and rarely meet a coin that they&#039;re not willing to call EF or even AU. I don&#039;t mean to single out CGB pejoratively, because I think they&#039;re a reputable dealer and I&#039;ve bought a lot of coins from them, but I always just ignore their grades. For example, in reviewing new RR listings on MA-Shops today, I came across this coin, which, believe it or not, they grade as AU:</p><p><br /></p><p><img src="https://img.ma-shops.com/cgb/pic/brm_716690.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Just look at all that fine detail on the obverse and reverse! Not.</p><p><br /></p><p>I wonder how they&#039;d grade my P. Nerva.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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