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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;IdesOfMarch01, post: 2527499, member: 39084&quot;]Thanks for the good wishes.</p><p><br /></p><p>While I understand and even appreciate NGC&#039;s grading system -- it&#039;s clearly a competent effort to create an objective and quantifiable rating for ancients -- most ancient coins are so inconsistently struck that it&#039;s almost always necessary to view the coin in hand,&nbsp; (optimally) out of a slab, to really judge whether the coin is the one you want as a collector.</p><p><br /></p><p>For example, the Hadrian&#039;s surface was indeed slightly matte, as compared to other aurei, but not as dull as the Heritage picture seemed to indicate, and was still fairly reflective in natural sunlight.&nbsp; I think my dealer noticed this (a plus) when he examined it in person.</p><p><br /></p><p>Another issue with ancient coins that&#039;s difficult to quantify in a rating is the centering.&nbsp; For example, suppose (on another coin) the obverse centering is a little off and the strike gets less than a 5/5 rating.&nbsp; If the emperor&#039;s name is still fully on the obverse, that&#039;s a lot more acceptable than if the part of the legend that&#039;s off the flan loses the emperor&#039;s name.&nbsp; So in this instance, abstractly comparing the strike rating for two different coins won&#039;t substitute for the need to evaluate each coin directly.</p><p><br /></p><p>Understand that I&#039;m not casting aspersions on NGC&#039;s rating system for ancients -- I&#039;m just saying that in my experience, there are so many variables affecting these handstruck coins that it&#039;s probably not possible to quantify all of these variables accurately.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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