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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;GDJMSP, post: 1933442, member: 112&quot;]Contact marks ? When did I ever say anything about contact marks ? Or do you think that contact marks and wear are the same thing ? </p><p><br /></p><p>I certainly don&#039;t, and neither does anybody else that I ever heard of, and that includes PCGS. I am talking about wear, plain old fashioned wear. Breaks in the luster, flat spots, smooth spots, areas on the high points that are the result of the coin rubbing against something that has left the top layer of metal worn down. Luster forms microscopic ridges on a coin. And when a coin has wear those ridges are worn down flat. That is wear. Contact marks are not wear. </p><p><br /></p><p>And no Dave, coins don&#039;t need to be a 70 to be MS based on my standards Dave. Oh and just so we are clear, they are not my standards, they are ANA standards. They set them, they established them, long before the TPGs came along, I merely follow them. And those standards are pretty simple on one point, that being that to be graded MS a coin can have no wear. Wear, even light wear on only the high points, automatically designates a coin as being AU. And there are no exceptions.</p><p><br /></p><p>And that is specifically the point that PCGS disagrees with in their grading standards when it comes to Saints. PCGS says, and I quote - <u>the only Saints that do not have broken luster on the high points are the counterfeits.</u>&nbsp; That statement, that standard, that qualification, allows PCGS to ignore wear on any Saint and grade it as being MS. And they follow it.</p><p><br /></p><p>Now you kind of claim that they might do this because gold is a soft metal. Well, if that were the case then why does PCGS not apply this same standard to other gold coins ? All other US gold coins have the same fineness of gold, it&#039;s the same gold and it&#039;s just as soft. And yet PCGS makes no such claim, follows no such standard, makes no such exception when grading other gold coins. They only list that exception for Saints. Why do you suppose that is ? The answer is so obvious it is pathetic, it is so they can grade coins with wear as being MS. </p><p><br /></p><p>And yet I am wrong and they are right ?</p><p><br /></p><p>The only thing they are right about is that they can set and follow whatever standard they wish. And if you wish to follow them, agree with them, that&#039;s your choice. If the market wishes to follow them and agree with them, that is their choice as well. </p><p><br /></p><p>But to do so you, and the market, must acknowledge one thing. PCGS does not deny that the coins have wear on them, they simply state that it does not matter that they have wear on them, that the coins are MS in spite of the fact that they have wear on them.</p><p><br /></p><p>And I&#039;m the one who has no common sense ?[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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