Despite my friends insistence that I stay away from the grading aspect of the hobby, I'm deeply entrenched. I find it very interesting, and important from a financial point of view. Question 1: While comparing a RAW Morgan and a PCGS MS-63 Morgan, with the naked eye the two coins look identical. I found under 8x power there are a number of marks on the cheek/face of the RAW coin - I would say a few more than the PCGS coin. Do I account for these small marks in the grade? Where do you 'draw the line' so to speak? Even the graded coins have small little marks on them... Question 2: Is there a good book that explains the objective instructions on how to grade? i.e. point loss for this, point add for that, etc.
Think of a 'mark' or a 'hit' on a coin as a blemish. Something struck the coin and left a mark. It may have been another coin that hit the coin. When coins are struck they come out of the coin press and fall into a hopper. Other coins fall on top of those coins and cause marks. The coins are poured onto a conveyor (more coin-to-coin contact) and end up in a bag with other coins. The bags are tossed around as they are stored and delivered. Lots and lots of opportunity for coins to rub against and hit other coins and leave marks on other coins. It sounds like your raw Morgan would grade MS-63 or maybe MS-62; certainly no higher than 63. (You said the raw coin has more marks than the slabbed MS-63.) Grading is a way to assign a numerical grade to describe a coin's condition. Slabbed coins are not free from marks. Far from it. Slabbed coins were raw before they were slabbed. Somebody decided to pay a TPG to authenticate and grade the coin so the TPG looks at the coin, makes sure it is authenticate (not counterfeit, not altered, etc.) and grades it. They then place the coin in a slab with an insert that identifies the coin and states its grade. Grading is much more complicated than this but generaly speaking (for uncirculated coins) the more marks on a coin the lower the grade. From the ANA Grading Standards: The Official American Numismatic Association Grading Standards for United States Coins. (6th Edition)
Kevin - like Hobo I suggest you study and learn to use the ANA grading standards. But if you want to examine a point system for grading, then this is the only one that know of - http://www.coingrading.com/ Personally, what I have always is best is for collectors to study all of the books and articles written on grading that they can find. And there are a lot of them. Most of them deal only with specific coins or a specific series of coins. And they will help you greatly when it comes time to fine tune your grading skills for those specific coins. But the books like the ANA standards, the PCGS standards, Halperin's book (linked above), and even the older grading books like Brown & Dunn and the first edition of the ANA standards - all of these will help you learn the basic tenents of grading.
No, because it would have to take into account, and quantitatively, rate every possible size, shape, number and location of mark. That is why all the grading books, once you start to get into the MS coins become vague and start using imprecise qualifiers. Few, more, slight, less etc. In most guides you could take the written description of each of the different levels, write each one on a slip of paper, toss the slips in the air and then put perfect with no marks at one end (MS-70), and "the best thing you can say about it is there is no actual wear" (MS-60) and put the other nine slips in any order and it would still fit pretty good. (yes, that is an exaggeration but it is not too far off)
It's pretty amazing that there are any MS-65 and higher business strike Morgans in existence given all the possible contact with other coins.
A little depressing I must say... I once saw a dealer at a coin show 'count' different 'hits' on the front and back of a coin and then count back from 70 to get the grade... I thought some formula like this existed. So it truly is subjective from MS60 to MS70... I don't feel good right now
