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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;IdesOfMarch01, post: 2328701, member: 39084&quot;]This is a fairly perceptive observation about grading, which can&#039;t be fully appreciated by most of us (including me) who didn&#039;t collect ancients prior to the advent of the Internet and high-quality digital photography.&nbsp; But as for current ancient coin collecting, I find I&#039;m mostly in agreement with Doug&#039;s observation:</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Even so, digital photography still is not a panacea and surely not a substitute for actually viewing the coin in person -- witness the myriad posts on this site from collectors who are constantly re-shooting their coins to highlight features and subtleties that weren&#039;t apparent before they actually received the coin.</p><p><br /></p><p>At least for ancients, I&#039;m not sure that any grading system will be of much value to a collector who has a few years of experience behind him/her.&nbsp; I frequently look at the grades assigned by auction houses and disagree with those grades, which are almost always too high.&nbsp; And ultimately, those grades aren&#039;t a factor in my decision to purchase a coin since there are so many other factors applying to ancients that don&#039;t apply to machine-struck coins.</p><p><br /></p><p>My own particular Claudius sestertius might be an example of this:</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]471834[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p>CLAUDIUS&nbsp; 10 B.C. - 54 A.D.</p><p>AE Sestertius (29.21 g.)&nbsp; Rome 41 - 54 A.D.&nbsp; RIC 99</p><p>TI CLAVDIVS CAESAR AVG P M TR P IMP Laureate head right.&nbsp; Rev. SPES - AVGVSTA&nbsp; Spes, draped, advancing left, flower in right hand, raising skirt with left, S C in exergue.&nbsp; Ex. Luc Girard.</p><p><br /></p><p>It was only after I completed my 12 Caesars collection in gold and silver that I decided to extend into AEs.&nbsp; Unfortunately, I missed this bargain at the NAC auction in 2010 where it went for <i>less</i> than the estimate, since at that time I hadn&#039;t started collecting AEs.&nbsp; Luckily, my dealer had obtained it and had it in his inventory at the time I started my AE collection.</p><p><br /></p><p>In hand the patina is entirely natural, with little or no smoothing, and less splotchy than the picture makes it appear.&nbsp; The reverse is quite detailed with the transparency on Spes&#039;s gown very well done.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>Despite the grade assigned by NAC (&quot;Wonderful untouched light green patina somewhat broken, otherwise extremely fine&quot;), this coin was overlooked by the bidders, or maybe, as SWK notes in his original post, AEs were simply overlooked in general at that time in favor of aurei and denarii.&nbsp; Maybe this coin would not have been overlooked had the grade been entirely omitted?[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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