Hello all, Here are some general questions I have regarding grading and how people describe their coins (on ebay and such). Please excuse my ignorance. 1. Would an uncirculated or BU coin automatically be at least a MS60? 2. What does GEM mean? 3. What does Choice mean? 4. How can people afford to sell a PCGS slabbed coin (like a Kennedy half or state quarter) for less than say $25. Doesn't it cost more than that to get it graded? 5. Would PCGS or NGC grade a coin that has been cleaned and just mark it as cleaned with a grade? Or is it body bagged as genuine only? I am trying to find some good candidates from my collection to get graded. I want to go through the process on some "lesser value" ones before I send in the rare ones. I have thousands of modern coins, and I think the only coins I have that is possibly MS63+ are german coins from 1874. :headbang: Thanks for any help
1) MS60 is the lowest uncirculated grade, MS70 is the highest 2) Gem is MS65 3) Choice is MS63 4) See Leadfoots post below 5) See Leadfoots post below
4) With bulk submissions the cost to slab a coin can go below $25. What's going on, likely, is the coin didn't make the higher grade that the submitter expected, so they're dumping the coin.
Perfect, thank you guys! One question though regarding Gem or Choice. So if someone is selling a coin and labels it "gem", but it isnt in a slab, they are basically just giving their opinion that it is MS65?
Correct. If a coin is unslabbed, also called raw, then the grade is the opinion of the person selling it. But slabbed coin grades are the opinion of the person working there's opinion, but is usually more accurate. Some people crack open slabs and resubmit them in hopes of getting a higher grade. And from what I've read, some offname grading services overgrade regularly.
