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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Vess1, post: 661549, member: 13650&quot;]Each individual series is unique in it&#039;s own way. I think many beginners, including myself at first, thought that everything could be compared as the same when grading. Like it was some universal judgement. But each series has it&#039;s own unique design, high points, wear characteristics and sometimes weakness of strike. </p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>For example, most Peace dollars have a very weakly struck reverse. Most new people to the hobby would probably think it was wear. But you still have to identify wear on the weakly struck reverse! I can&#039;t say that I can very well myself. Then, some years are better or worse than others within that series as far as strike is concerend. Unless you specialize in that series, most people probably can&#039;t grade Peace dollars very well on their own without consulting a book.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Sometimes grades are adjusted simply over where the coin was produced and what year. The Philadelphia mint has always been the premium, you could say the mother mint to the branch mints. The branch mints had to get dies from Philly in the old days which was a time consuming process. And when they finally were produced, they only were sent what was needed. Usually not much for extras. </p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>So many of the branch mints ended up using some very rough dies (that were affected by higher humidity in the south which lead to some rusting) to produce some series towards the end. Most of them couldn&#039;t de-commission dies very easily because there weren&#039;t back ups to replace the worn ones with. While Philadelphia could pretty much get new ones whenever they wanted because they produced them. </p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Buffalo nickels are strongly gaged by how pronounced the cheek bone is on the obverse and how well defined the horn and tail remains on the reverse. Next, you look at what, if any luster remains. Original luster plays a big roll once you get past EF on most stuff.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>The ANA 6th edition has helped me out quite a bit, in addition to simply looking at so many of some series. I feel I could do halfway decent grading Morgans up to MS65 now just from how many slabbed ones I&#039;ve viewed or own. I&#039;ve only been back at this for a year but have focused my time pretty heavily on the hobby and reading.</p><p>After a while you get to know what&#039;s acceptable as the grades go up. There&#039;s a lot to learn, I can tell you that.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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