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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;SuperDave, post: 2877300, member: 1892&quot;]It&#039;s near-impossible to impart a visual skill on a written basis. Grading is experiential, not textbook. You can, to an extent, describe the various circulated grades - in issue-specific manner - by defining features which will or will not still be present, but Mint State coins grade <b>by comparison to each other</b> and not feature landmarks since they all still have all the features. Start with a look at the PCGS Grading Standards page:</p><p><br /></p><p><a href="https://www.pcgs.com/grades" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.pcgs.com/grades" rel="nofollow">https://www.pcgs.com/grades</a></p><p><br /></p><p>It&#039;s not flawless, but it&#039;s a good foundation especially for Morgans. The place where the written interaction becomes useful is in the discussion of <i>multiple specific coins over time</i>, so you can form a larger body of knowledge and experience.</p><p><br /></p><p>I see your three coins (your images are quite worthy <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie1" alt=":)" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /> ) as MS62 for the 1884, MS63 for the 1882 and I tend to agree with C-B-D that the 1883 has a shot at MS65. The specific reason for this is the dark color of the mark on the cheek; experience tells me that darkness indicates a lesser visual imposition than the marks visible on the other coins, which are deep enough to directly reflect light back to the lens and are therefore &quot;brighter&quot; in the images. That &quot;dark&quot; mark isn&#039;t of sufficient depth to reflect light, and is likely more just a disturbance of the original Mint &quot;frost&quot; (a potentially misleading term since a coin doesn&#039;t have to be particularly &quot;frosty&quot; to retain the finish the die initially imparted to it).</p><p><br /></p><p>Like the overwhelming majority of Morgans, these three are all obverse-limited with very nice reverses. Morgans have the huge expanse of cheek and broad fields on the obverse, which tend to accentuate marks which can be hidden (and to an extent prevented) by the complex details on the reverse.</p><p><br /></p><p>There. That&#039;s the first written interaction on the road to learning to grade. <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie1" alt=":)" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" />[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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