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Message:: [QUOTE="GDJMSP, post: 64886, member: 112"]No it's not that. It's sounds complicated - but it really isn't. It's known as market grading. It's been discussed here before several times. There are 2 basic factors - price and changing grade standards. Now price we all understand, but with market grading what most don't understand is that price is not only determined by grade - to a degree price determines grade. So the more prices go up for coins of a given grade - the more the grade can go up as well. It all goes back to Sheldon's original system when a coin of a given value was said to be X grade because of that value. But it has much less of an impact than market acceptability. The other factor is that the grading companies, coin dealers and many collectors will assign a coin a grade based on what the market will accept. In other words - if they say this coin is AU55 - and everybody just says OK I agree - then it's AU55. But a few years ago everybody may have said the very same coin was only AU50 or EF45. That's what they mean by gradeflation. It's just like inflation - grades go up for the same item just like prices do.[/QUOTE]