Serious Question (about grading)

4 different grades yes but I would call them Well Circulated (aka Below Average), Average Circulated, Lightly Circulated (aka Above Average) and Uncirculated.

You will no longer need to rely so much on the confusing Sheldon scale to determine its value to you.

I've posted my scale on this forum before. Let me see if I can find it...

 

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They're doing plenty of business as is. The big problems with switching to a 100 point scale and one that they are very aware of is that it doesn't change anything and would create more inaccuracies splitting hairs that fine, but more importantly it would kill the market. To much uncertainty and to much value would be lost since every coin would have to be regraded and turn out who knows what, way to many people would say I'm done and dumb their collection. It won't happen, the push back would be to severe.

It has been rather large and world coin submissions within the US are swamped right now if turn around times are any indicator.

 

Ok found my post with my new/proposed grading scale...

https://www.cointalk.com/threads/is-this-not-absurd.243968/#post-1882079

 

Me I'm the opposite. I mean there's hairs to be split. Is a coin a low end ms 65 or a high end. And I like ngcs * designation for eye appeal. I wish pcgs did this as well. As lately my opinion has swung back to them doing a better job than pcgs. Tho they both suck at times. I like cac too because there's a ton of crap that gets graded. Especially coins with surface problems. And a market acceptable old dip is not the same as as a strict original either. There's a lot of gray areas in coin grading

 

I do too or that they would come up with their own version of that.

I also which we could get rid of the AT/NT stuff too since it's nothing but educated guesses. Just grade the toning and maybe put a descriptor on it like "dark", "rainbow" or maybe an eye appeal rating and let the market decide what they do and don't like.

 

Thanks for posting your grading scale idea. That would have probably worked really well in the 1950's. One older book in my library deals with grading standards and failed ideas. Unfortunately, your system missed the original publication.

I have never heard anyone call the Sheldon Scale confusing until now so there must be others (the 80%'ers?) besides you who feel that way. Long ago, I learned Sheldon's scale formed the basis for the technical grading system developed in the 1970's. It was also very easy to teach to a rank beginner such as myself at one time.

Finally, I don't put values on coin's based on their grade as there is much more to it. One professional grading seminar instructor defined grading (as best I can remember) as: "A subjective observation made to asses the condition of preservation and relative ranking among similar objects." He then went on to point out that neither "coins" nor "value" was mentioned in his definition.

He wished (this will never happen ) that coins could be graded by a strict ANA Standard and then let the buyers and sellers put a value on them. Thus, an AU Brasher Doubloon, an AU 1870-S Half dime, or an AU 1804 Dollar could sell for $$$,$$$ yet no one could argue OR SLAB THEM as if they were truly Full Mint State to justify their worth.

 

I don't like the designations. I don't need someone else's opinion to help me determine that a coin is nice. The more stuff grading companies put on the label the more silly I think they whole grading thing is.

What would be next? Double **? For extra extra pretty! But then you would need triple *** after that. Or how 'bout ++***+*. That must be one really special coin lol. The whole thing is absurd. The main purpose of TPGs should be 1) to determine a coin is authentic or counterfeit 2) Give a general grade. No one should be told what they think is better or more valuable within the general grade. That's up to you!

 

Oh and please remember that grading companies created the registries and determine how many points or extra points are given for a particular grade or designation.

 

Now that IS a good idea!!

 

The reason I like a lot of the designations and the finer grades and the cac stickers is for sight unseen buying and selling especially for surfaces

 

And yet, with these high accuracy numbers, you still need "stickers" to grade the grading companies.

 

You are right. I didn't mean literally a scam as in dishonest. What I meant is that no value would be exchanged for regrading because it isn't remotely necessary..

 

This would be a lot less important if the price level were more normal and the price spreads narrower. The US price level is an outlier and in deep outer space.

It isn't a real problem with the coins I buy because the insanity of TPG pricing has yet to fully infect the series I collect, except higher grade South Africa. It is "progressing" on some but not all of them.

Except when I have attended shows (on rare occasions), I buy all of my coins "sight unseen", from images and on occasion with no image at all. Many are graded but not all. I have a small stash of pillars and a few other coins which I have bought in the last several years which are not. I make mistakes on occasion but it is much less costly.

 

So there we have gone full circle and it would be nice to know what percent of these coins are properly graded so we can buy them sight-unseen with some degree of certainty.

 

Never going yo happen. You can buy bullion as bullion unseen, but as soon as you get to subjective numismatic grading....

 

Said no? PCGS was the one that proposed it. The market said no. PCGS would probably still like to switch to it for the very reason that it would mean the thirty million coins they have already graded would have to be regraded (and paid for) again.

The ANA used the same adjective system that had been around since the 1940's and just stuck Sheldon'a price multiplier numbers to them (numbers which had been abandoned by the EAC community seven years earlier because they didn't work. The ONLY advantage the numbers provided was to let a novice know what order the adjectives belonged in. (which is only needed to know if the "Good's AG, G, and VG are better or worse then the Fine's F VF and XF)

Another problem with the numbers is they imply a mathematical precision to grading which just doesn't exist. There is no machine (at least none since PCGS scraped their Expert system) that you can plug your coin into that will scanning it, make measurements and counts, apply formulas, do some number crunching and spit out that your coin is a MS-64.875 (Which they would round up to 65, today to 64+). PCGS scraped the system for two reasons, one the human graders too frequently disagreed with the machine grades (the machine can grade precisely and consistantly), and two every time you put the same coin back into the machine you got the same answer. It would eliminate crackouts and resubmissions. A significant source of income.

 

I voted for Slexit in 1999.

 

Yea that would be ludicrous. We've all seen high grade coins that look like they have turd sludge on them. Yuck man.

Oh yea... well I vote for Sexit every year.

 

A professional coin grader I know tells his beginning class that the perfect coin grading system should have two qualities:

1. It should be simple to understand and easy to use. In that way, your grandmother could pick up a grading book and grade a coin she was given.

2. It should be precise. That way a coin would be graded exactly the same over time as long as it remained in its original condition.

The PCGS "Expert" was flawed. Nevertheless, it appears that it was precise. I suspect the graders disagreed more often than not with the machine due to "pricing" the coin. The "Expert" did not price coins it graded them.

 

It sort of graded them. A computer can be coded to grade the wear, but no amount of coding could ever really code eye appeal in. Unless we want to say eye appeal should have no impact on a grade which many people would disagree with computer grading won't be possible.