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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;GDJMSP, post: 490202, member: 112&quot;]While I understand the purpose of the thread and it is indeed educational, there are a few problems with it. Quality of strike can only be judged by comparing coins of the same mint and year. This is true of all denominations, not just Peace dollars. To compare a &#039;24-P with a &#039;22-D or a &#039;25-P is just not valid as the quality of strike varies too much for each. It is like comparing an apple to an orange - just can&#039;t be done.</p><p><br /></p><p>Yes you can say that as a general rule the P mint coins had the better strikes, then the D mint coins and with the S mint coins having the weakest strikes. But that is only a general rule as there are exceptions for each.</p><p><br /></p><p>Take that &#039;22-D for example. You tell us Paul that you think the coin is fully struck, but it isn&#039;t. Look at the long hair curl foremost to the cheek, it has a flatness and not much detail. And if you look closely you can see it has a pebbly like surface to it. This is a sign of a weak strike. Also on the reverse, the eagle&#039;s shoulders have the same pebbly surface, again a sign of a weak strike. This is typical for the &#039;22-D. And if you compare the &#039;25-P you will see very similar detail. It is in fact only marginally better than the &#039;22-D. So neither of those coins are fully struck.</p><p><br /></p><p>Yes, they both have a better strike than the 3 &#039;24-Ps you have pictured, but both of them are known to have better strikes than the &#039;24-P. </p><p><br /></p><p>It is your contention that the TPG&#039;s are ignoring quality of strike and that they don&#039;t make the same allowances for the other grading criteria like luster. But they do. Just like with quality of strike, the amount of luster that a coin has varies greatly according to date and mint. And the TPG&#039;s take this into account.</p><p><br /></p><p>The same is true with eye appeal and contact marks. Only with contact marks the allowances tend to change more based on the size of the coin than they do for date and mint. But there are even some cases where allowances for contact marks are made based on date and mint - take the S mint Morgans from &#039;79 thru &#039;81 for example. </p><p><br /></p><p>I admit that these are subtleties that can be and often are overlooked by many collectors for many are not even aware of them. But the graders at the TPG&#039;s are aware of them and they take them into account. This has a tendency to cause us, the collectors, to misunderstand assigned grades in many cases for we tend to lump a series all together when judging assigned grades.</p><p><br /></p><p>As has been said many times on this forum and many others, for us to judge our opinions as being better than that of the professionals can be a mistake for they may know something we don&#039;t.</p><p><br /></p><p>Now that may sound odd coming from me as I am known to be highly critical of the TPG&#039;s when it comes to assigned grades. But I am not different than anyone else - I make the same mistakes. And of course I follow a different set of standards than they do. But when I try to grade like them it&#039;s all too easy for me to fall into the trap just like anybpody else.</p><p><br /></p><p>All of this said, I do agree with you that the grades assigned to the coins you have pictured do not seem to make sense. I also agree that one or more of those coins is over-graded. But am I, or are we, basing that on all of the information and peculuarities for each of these coins ? Or are we just using part of it ?</p><p><br /></p><p>Excellent thread though :thumb:[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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