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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;AncientJoe, post: 3346539, member: 44357&quot;]Indeed... grading for ancient coins only makes sense if pictures aren&#039;t available. Otherwise, even a poor picture is the best way to show the grade. All of the unique attributes/facets of a coin cannot be distilled down into F/VF/EF. It&#039;s very possible to have a coin be mint state while looking VF if the strike is poor.</p><p><br /></p><p>By this metric, if the quality of an auction house is indicated by their conservative grading, then shouldn&#039;t every auction house label each coin as &quot;Poor&quot;? Then every coin would exceed expectations.</p><p><br /></p><p>On a related topic, I was having a conversation at NYINC with a dealer who said that he&#039;s &quot;seen NGC&#039;s grading of ancients recently become more conservative by about a half a point&quot;. I&#039;m normally very mild mannered but I ranted at him, saying that is absurd and explaining all of the reasons it doesn&#039;t matter. I really hope this isn&#039;t the direction the world is taking...</p><p><br /></p><p>And, further indicating the subjectivity of grading, here&#039;s an example from a recent auction:</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]886170[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]886171[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p>The coin certainly didn&#039;t change, and they referenced the previous sale. Maybe they fat-fingered the grade the first time around but I don&#039;t think anyone actually cared. I was the buyer from the first sale and sold it in the second (taking a loss - I&#039;ve upgraded it recently). </p><p><br /></p><p>Honestly, I didn&#039;t even notice the grade until I was reading the catalog during the auction. There would be no chance I would complain to CNG that the coin I bought wasn&#039;t the grade they referenced. They could have labeled the coin Choice MS, FDC, VF, EF, Poor... I would have bid the same amount and it would have sold for the same amount.</p><p><br /></p><p>Ancients are not US (or world) coins.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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