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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;dougsmit, post: 3351298, member: 19463&quot;]Today that is true but before the era of fully photos for every coin we had something that I fear has been lost.&nbsp; There was a time that many coins offered for sale unillustrated were offered by a seller known to his customers as someone who did not sell problem coins.&nbsp; Rather than taking consignments including junk or splitting up hoards of, for example, 10,000 low end Lycians, these dealers offered coins that they could sell as VF and I would expect to be happy with the coin.&nbsp; If the coin was very rare and possibly an exception to normal expectations, there would be an apologetic additional description that would serve as fair warning.&nbsp; I guess we still have that from our slab friends who should not complain about the appearance of an EF 1/5, 1/5.&nbsp; Of course this is much more a problem with auctions than with list sales.&nbsp; In the past, I recall calling (using the voice feature of the telephone) and asking if the dealer thought I would be happy with the coin.&nbsp; This was as if we had a rating for eye appeal as well as strike and surface.&nbsp; There was a somewhat major dealer that I patronized in the 1990&#039;s that I knew for having poor taste in style.&nbsp; Fortunately his lists included more photos than most.&nbsp; Today, I know a couple dealers whose taste in style is such that I would feel comfortable buying from based solely on the fact that they were willing to sell the coin but they are less common (and much more expensive) than they were back in the old days.&nbsp; Today, dealers really need to have photo skills or hire someone who does.&nbsp; We no longer like surprises.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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