Guess The Grade $10 Libs

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Yes, agreed. But coin books as well as the NGC online price guide show higher values for the lower MS grades than for AU55/58, right? That's what I don't understand... e.g $5 1911-S gold/NGC: AU58 = $720, MS60 = $860 (wow!)

 

Well I was assuming things like outright damage were excluded Doug. I was considering more wear versus non-wear issues like soft strike, bag marks, etc. To me I look at the coin holistically. I am a coin collector, so I appreciate the beauty of the coin and want the best one possible. In that light, I am looking for a coin with the most details on it that are supposed to be there. I really do not care if 10% of the details are missing because of wear, bag marks, soft strike, worn dies, etc. I know what a perfect coin could be, and judge a coin based upon how "imperfect" it is because of these things.

What I meant about "wear is worst damage" is wear AUTOMATICALLY reduces the grade by over 10 points. No bag mark, soft strike, defective flan, worn dies, or other things AUTOMATICALLY deduct over 10 points. That is the error, to say a little wear will be punished much more severely than any other defect. It would be like grading coins like a car, and saying only a car with less than 20,000 miles can be in the "like new" category, and any car with more miles than that at best can be labelled "fair". Well, maybe some rental car shows up with 19,000 miles, been rode hard and put away wet, but none of that matters because BY DEFINITION that car MUST have a higher "grade" than any car with 20,001 miles even if driven on Sundays by a little old lady. Making some arbitrary cutoff that ONLY miles is the consideration between those relative grades is silly, right? Put a beat to hell, ugly, tore up MS 60 Morgan next to a pretty, very slightly worn Morgan and please explain to me why BY DEFINITION the nasty coin MUST be a higher grade.

Its just stupid and about time we fixed this bad decision made in the 1800's. Just go to a numerical grading system and forget about any definition of "uncirculated" versus "circulated". Its irrelevant. Total details remaining is the only sane criteria to judge by.

 

Maybe, maybe not Doug. I used to be able to buy three or four pretty AU capped bust halves for the price of one that would grade 62, (ok maybe 63 or 64 nowadays). Yes, many collectors used to join me in liking AU coins as a grade but many have always paid premiums for a "BU" coin, regardless of how marked up and ugly it was. This was simply due to their idea that "BU" is by definition better.

 

Because folks want uncs.

Besides who would pay more for a 58 than a 60?

That is why I go for 58's.
And always have, you save a ton, and they look nicer-- I call them AU-63's.

 

Also don't forget not all 58s are created equal . Some will have just as many bag marks as a 60 or a 61 . AU-64s are the ones with nice luster and a min. of marks and are thus worth a premium . I do agree with medoraman that if a coin is poorly struck it is inferior to a strongly struck coin regardless where it was minted .

 

I don't know if that's actually true. MS61 coins sell for higher prices than AU58 coins almost exclusively. Coins with no wear are typically considered more desirable than coins with wear..even if they are baggy. I don't understand it personally...but that is certainly what I have seen.

 

I vastly prefer the AU58 coins to the MS61 coins because I think they have nicer eye appeal. But, I don't agree that they are worth more. This hobby has established that the top defining grade criteria for a coin (not the only one, but the top) is wear. If a coin has no wear it is "better" than a coin with wear, even if the eye appeal is worse. I don't think this is a plastic collecting issue...it's just an oddity of this hobby. I think this is one of those cases where we are just going to disagree, lol.

I personally like AU58 much better...but my biggest concern is eye appeal over wear. Which I think it great, I get the coin I think looks better for a lower price.

 

I know prices for 60-61 were always higher than high AU coins even before the tpgs . This was before the 70 pt. scale really came into use . There were Unc , ChUnc and then GemUnc , only the smart collectors paid the much smaller differences between the different MS grades . I think this is why people will pay more for a 60 than a really nice 58 .

 

Did the grades ever get posted?

 

Still waiting Mark .

 

Still in process. I will update when they come back.

 

Ahhh - thought you already had them back and sold by now.

 

Still not back yet huh?

 

Nope...

 

agreed, and a big saving

 

Way late to the guessing game, but 58 / 64.

 

Surely by now???

 

It's September... those coins should be back.