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Message:: [QUOTE="cannoncoins, post: 1743993, member: 28659"]Correct me if I'm wrong here, but aren't the historical origins of "technical grading" and "market grading" essentially one and the same?     With the rise of the collector market in the early 20th century, there was a growing call for a standardized grading systems with more meaning and specificity than the "Good" "Fine" "Uncirculated" "Proof" categories that predominated in the late 19th and early 20th Century.  Enter William Sheldon, Numismatic legend, who developed the 70 point Sheldon Scale for grading Large Cents.  The original intent of the scale was as a standardized method for calculating the value  of large cents via multiplication.  As I recall, there was a base value applied to particular coins, and then they were multiplied by whatever their grade number was, meaning that if you had some large cent worth 15 cents when it was barely identifiable (Basal-1), then if you had it in G4 it was worth 15cents X4= 60 cents, if you had it in MS-60 it was worth 15cents X60= 9 dollars.  Certain characteristics were associated with each grade.    The system broke down, of course, because markets change and there are certain coins where the difference between EF and MS is much larger than for others; Sheldon liked to classify things, and like his attempt to classify humans into categories of endomorphs, mesomorphs, and ectomorphs based on their physical characteristics (with particular intelligence levels and other traits associated with each category) trying to make predictions based on mass groupings of things with widely varied origins tends to fall apart.      The coin market goes through fads- toned, blazing white, proof, uncirculated; also things like "eye appeal", that in addition to "color" also tends to include sharpness (and with very old coins, positioning) of strike.     This is further complicated by the fact that with the advent of grading agencies and the advance of technology, it is now MUCH more possible than ever before to look at the comparison group of coins for a particular year/mint/set of dies; I hope that grading agencies will make more of these than the "top 5" available to collectors in the future (imagine being able to see a high def photograph of every coin for a particular year and mint that had been graded OR rejected by NGC and PCGS; that would be relatively easy to do if it was something that the agencies prioritized).  Additionally, it is now possible in many new ways to look at the surface of coins to determine "originality;" if the market ever turns towards originality and away from "dipped" coins (or those altered in other "non-abrasive" ways), the technology is there.  If grading is reduced to a) amount of wear and b) number and length of abrasions (and maybe even something like "reflective capacity" if you wanted) you could program a computer to scan it and issue a definitive grade, and one day even make that technology available to the public.  In any case, the market will still decide what it wants, and if someone is willing to pay 10,000 for a particular F-12 then that is what they F-12 is worth.    Whatever a grade from a grading agency means, the methodology should be widely publicized, standardized in SOME way, and free.  If grades are simply an attempt to reflect "market value," that will always fail as market values shift.  If a coin is upgraded from MS-63 to MS-65 because it has been "lightly dipped" white, or because it has beautiful toning that makes up for surface marks, then those grades will have little meaning when market values shift.  Similarly, if for the case of the 1926 S Buffalo you describe, all F-15's get upgraded to VF30's, and all VF-30's become EF45's and all borderline EF's become AU's and THEN someone discovers a bunch of 26Ss with full horns, well, the market will change but you have a lot of mis-graded coins.  I don't know if the die's used makes that scenario impossible, but similar things happened the the hoards of uncirculated Morgans were discovered.  If we do reach a point when there is enough centralized knowledge about the dies used and the actual coins still in existence makes it possible to have grades for each year and mint (maybe even each die!) possible, then that's great, but that information should also be publicly available and free.    The real recent historical need for grades, and for professional agencies, is for so-called "blind transactions" where coins are being bought by people who can't see them (or see them well) AND to facilitate exchange between investors who don't know enough about coins to grade them/determine originality themselves.  I think the first problem will disappear with technology- people already usually want to see coins even if they know the grade.  The latter sector won't go away, and it's part of what keeps coin collecting exciting for a lot of people- the idea that because this is "inexact" and "no one really knows," that AU-58 coin (graded by a service as such or not) might ACTUALLY be an MS something, and an MS-63 (graded by a service or not) might ACTUALLY be an MS-65.  There's not a huge margin of error, but there's a lot of money to be made in that margin.  It can make collecting a bit like gambling, and grading agencies a bit like casinos (I say this as a long-time patron or both).    I work in assessment, primarily in higher education, and I can tell you that anytime you try to categorize something subjective (an English paper rather than a math problem set) there are going to be margins (students with a B+, one point away from an "A", kids with an A-, one point away from a B), and those students in those margins are going to want to know why (and if they are below, they are going to push for the extra point!).  Teachers also tend to have issues with "eye appeal"- how nice the handwriting is, or the spelling is , or the vocabulary is, or how long the response is rather than how correct and complete the answers are).  The best practice I have seen in this area is the use of rubrics, publicly available and clearly explained, that delineate levels across multiple categories (weighting some more than others, if necessary) and use the results across all of those categories to arrive at a grade.  My guess is that most graders are doing something like this mentally, or aspire to, but don't make make those standards clear and explainable in a meaningful way.  [/QUOTE]

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