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Message:: [QUOTE="GDJMSP, post: 447475, member: 112"]To my knowledge they haven't. But - if you read their standards it is easy to see why there is no need for them to change their standards. It is because of the way they are written - and that has always been one of the main problems for me with the PCGS standards. Example - With MS grades for specific coins, they don't really list standards. They provide about 3/4 of a page that describes marks, luster, strike and eye appeal. But they give absolutely no definition or description of how those attributes apply to individual grades. Then they will provide a picture page, sometimes several pages, for some coins and none at all for most, that will list short 1 or 2 sentence descriptions. Like with Peace dollars, for MS66 they say - "obv - Only light scuffs are note on the face and in the left field. rev - A few light scuffs and marks are noted mainly on the eagle" Or for MS65 they say - "obv - a light mark on the neck and lightly scuffed fileds are seen. rev - Scuffs and marks are often just as common on Peace dollar reverses, found on the rays and tail feathers." That's it, no more no less. And for Peace dollars they only do that for MS62 thru MS66. There is no mention whatsoever for the other MS grades. Now in the beginning of their standards book they do provide generic definitions and descriptions for the various grades from MS70 all the way to PO-1. But you cannot grade all of the widely varied and indivually unique series of US coins based on 1 generic description that is supoosed to cover all of them. But PCGS does it. And with the ciruclated grades, it gets even worse. Example - again, I will use Peace dollars. VF20/35 - "With wear to VF20/35, much of the hair detail is lost. The lower grade VF coins may have only the deepest hair strands with slight detail, while the higher grade VF coins may show half or more of the hair. Strike, of course, will affect the amount of hair detail remaining. All of the major hair groups, except the ones exactly where the ear would be should still be outlined, though quite flat. The reverse will some feather detail stil lpresent on well struck coins, but on poorly struck coins and lower grade VF coins there may only be slight detail in th eneck and tail feathers with the wing feathers worn smooth. The PEACE inscription on the rock should still be sharp, though the rock will not have much wear on the top part. Individual letters of some inscriptions may be weak from localized strike weakness or filled dies and should not affect the grade." Now out of that description we are supposed to be able to determine the differences between 4 different grades - VF20, VF25, VF30, VF35. As you can see, there are no specifics for each grade - merely vague generalities. And if you read the book yourself, you will easily see that it gets much, much more vague with other coin series. So it is that vagueness with both the MS and circ standards that allows PCGS to pretty much do whatever they want when it comes to grading a coin. They can be off by as many as 4 grades and still say that they followed their standards for those grades. So they have no need to change them - ever. They have all the built in latitude, (wiggle room), that they could ever want. So if you ever wonder why PCGS is so inconsistent - just take a look at their grading standards. There is no way they could ever be consistent with generic and vague standards like those. And that is in a nutshell why I have always preferred to follow the ANA standards. At least with them you have specific and detailed descriptions for each and every grade from the top to the bottom. And they are individualized for each specific series.[/QUOTE]

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