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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;IdesOfMarch01, post: 3553406, member: 39084&quot;]Do collectors of U.S. coins buy solely, or even primarily, based on a coin&#039;s grade, even if the collector himself cannot visually differentiate the grades among coins of a similar type?&nbsp; This post would seem to imply that the answer is yes.&nbsp; Why would a true collector buy a coin solely for its grade if the coin itself had <i>no other </i>additional appeal to him/her and the collector couldn&#039;t even tell the difference from a similar coin?</p><p><br /></p><p>With regard to the slabbing and grading of ancients: has any serious collector on this site <i>ever</i> chosen a particular ancient coin in preference to others of a similar type <i>solely</i> based on NGC&#039;s or any other grading service&#039;s <i>grade</i>?&nbsp; I&#039;m not talking about features such as authenticity, or tooling, or evaluation of porosity, etc., but solely about the &quot;strike&quot; and &quot;surface&quot; grades placed on that coin.&nbsp; If so, can you post pictures of all the coins that were under consideration (including the one chosen) and include the grade that was assigned to the various candidates that you evaluated?&nbsp; Maybe this would provide some insight into why you believe grades matter on ancient coins.</p><p><br /></p><p>In the case of non-ancient coins, it would appear that higher grade = higher value and for most of these collectors, that&#039;s what they&#039;re pursuing in their coins.&nbsp; From my perspective, they&#039;re primarily investors, not collectors.</p><p><br /></p><p>In the case of ancient coins, authenticity, non-evidence of tooling, non-porosity, etc. are equally important to a coin in F condition as for an EF coin.&nbsp; Once these criteria are determined, it&#039;s usually easy to make a personal determination about which coin appeals to your particular collecting interests (and fits within your budget).&nbsp; I can&#039;t imagine why a third party&#039;s opinion about a coin&#039;s surface or strike would make any difference to someone who&#039;s primarily a <i>collector</i> rather than an <i>investor</i>.&nbsp; If you <i>can&#039;t</i> see the difference visually, why does it matter (other than value)?&nbsp; If you <i>can</i> see the difference visually, why wouldn&#039;t you just pick the coin that appealed to you more?[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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