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Message:: [QUOTE="SuperDave, post: 2374401, member: 1892"]That kind of ....let's call it "subtraction from originality"....is, as your words indicate, not easy to differentiate. It_is, however, in sum easier to differentiate from what happens to the coin against the inside of your pocket, the cloth of your money purse or Mint bag, the felt floor of your "cabinet" (I'm not a fan of the concept of "cabinet wear," for the record), or your thumbs rubbing against it. That's where things get difficult, when something not hard and metallic moves against the coin. It does different things to the surface of a coin than banging against another coin does, and you see that manifested in "baggy," marked-up coins grading MS60-61. It's usually not difficult for an experienced eye to determine that only hard metallic stuff has ever hit the coin - bag collisions don't round the hair above the ear of a Morgan, or smooth the eagle's breast and legs. And generally, experience can help you realize that some of those marks could only have happened in circulation, and therefore whether you see what you'd call "circulation wear" or not, the coin simply had to have circulated. It's fabric, and fingers and finger oils which create the "rub" which makes grading so subjective. The fact that we cannot and will not ever agree precisely on the definition for certain grading terms like "rub" also kind of hinders the process, but not much because even with "rub" defined we'll still disagree on whether it's there or not. And that kind of "rub" does not exclusively happen during what we'd normally call circulation. You seem bent upon trying to impose a set of hard-and-fast rules upon grading, which - in the sole point of universal agreement of (almost) all numismatists - is too subjective to always follow a specific set of rules. This will only frustrate you in the long run.[/QUOTE]

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