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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;GDJMSP, post: 3799447, member: 112&quot;]Things are getting a bit complicated here. No, I didn&#039;t say that in this thread, but I&#039;ve said a lot in many other threads, which is what I can only assume John is referring to. </p><p><br /></p><p>First I think we have to define some things - technical grade, eye appeal, and cleaning - because these things mean different things to different people. So for everybody to understand each other correctly everybody has to know what the other person is talking about when he uses any of those terms.</p><p><br /></p><p>For me, technical grade has very defined and specific meaning. Technical grading is what existed before the ANA changed their grading standards in 1986. Technical grading is based on marks (of any and all kinds including scratches, hairlines, contact marks, bag marks, dents, dings, gouges etc etc), wear, (or the lack of it), strike and that&#039;s it. Back then, (in 1986) the ANA threw technical grading out the window and adopted a new grading system that included things like quality of luster and eye appeal for coins that did not even exist in technical grading. So if I&#039;m talking about technical grading that has to be understood. If somebody else is talking about technical grading that may, or may not be the case.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>(In point of fact those 2 things, eye appeal and quality of luster, became the most important grading criteria of all the grading criteria in ANA grading. The TPGs adopted this same basic system, but changed the other individual grading criteria (marks, scratches, wear, quality of strike, etc etc) to suit their own needs.)</p><p><br /></p><p>Eye appeal, this is one of those things that is going to be different for everybody because everybody has different taste. So what I think may be a high degree of eye appeal - you may not see that way at all. You may even think the coin has very little eye appeal while I think it has a lot of it. And eye appeal applies to MS and circ coins alike.</p><p><br /></p><p>Then we have cleaning. To me there&#039;s cleaning and harsh cleaning - two entirely different things. Cleaning is fine, good even in some cases. Harsh cleaning is bad in every case. But when a lot of people say &quot;cleaning&quot; what they really mean is harsh cleaning. So one has to know precisely what any individual means when he/she uses the word &quot;cleaning&quot; - if you wish to understand, and understand correctly, what he&#039;s talking about. </p><p><br /></p><p>So, if I&#039;m looking at a coin and I want to decide if I want to buy it or not - there is only 1 criteria - <u>I have to like the coin !</u> And I can like it for all kinds of different reasons. The coin can be MS or it can be circulated. It can be toned or untoned. It can even be harshly cleaned - and I may still like it, and buy it ! But, if it&#039;s a coin that I don&#039;t like, and again for any reason, then I aint gonna buy it. </p><p><br /></p><p>There&#039;s all kinds of factors, reasons, for me liking or not liking a coin. Everything about it applies - design, cost, color, wear, marks, scarcity, and yes even grade (but my grade, not anybody else&#039;s) - all of that and whole lot more determines if I like a coin or not.</p><p><br /></p><p>So in a way John you&#039;re right when you say - he goes for the technical grade over the eye appeal. But, at times you could also be wrong because it all depends on the individual coin. Sometimes eye appeal makes all the difference in the world to me when deciding if I like a coin or not. And sometimes it doesn&#039;t.</p><p><br /></p><p>To help illustrate that I&#039;ll post pics of 3 coins.</p><p><br /></p><p>This one, has a good bit of wear, I&#039;d grade it a high VF, decent eye appeal, problem free, and cost me about $30 - but I bought it because I liked it.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1014642[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]1014643[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>This one, had no wear, was graded MS64 back when the grades actually meant something (and I agreed with), and had just tons of eye appeal and I absolutely loved it ! If memory serves it cost me about $1800.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1014644[/ATTACH] </p><p>[ATTACH=full]1014645[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>This one, it was harshly cleaned. But it was somewhat scarce, had good eye appeal, MS details, and cost me $800. A problem free example was double to triple that at the time. Bottom line I liked it so I bought it.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1014649[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1014650[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>And there ya have it, pretty much the gamut of the scale covered from one end to the other. But that&#039;s me, everybody else could easy be different.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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