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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;GDJMSP, post: 1554996, member: 112&quot;]Think about it - what makes a coin hard to grade ? Various people will give various answers, but usually what drives their answer, the cause of their answer, is a lack of experience with that particular coin. But once you have the experience, with all coins, what then makes a coin hard to grade ?</p><p><br /></p><p>To answer that you have to define what criteria you use to grade a specific coin. There are 5 primary criteria - contact marks, hairlines, quality of luster, eye appeal, and wear. There are other criteria that must be considered also if you are going to grade properly, but as a general rule few people actually do consider them. Those things are - planchet quality, quality of strike, and how well centered the coin is.</p><p><br /></p><p>Now with each and every coin you grade all of these things can a different degree of importance. Example, with circ coins, in the lower circ grades quality of luster has no bearing because lower grade circ coins have no luster. As a general rule a coin of VF35 and below has no luster. But any coin XF40 and above should have at least some luster or it&#039;s really not XF. Anyway, you get the idea.</p><p><br /></p><p>So, what makes a coin hard to grade ? Simple answer to that is the design of the coin. Example, it&#039;s the design of the coin that makes the incuse gold hard to grade. So what coin has a design that makes it harder to grade than other coins ? Answer - the Washington quarter. The Washington quarter has a lack of design. There are virtually no fine details in the design of that coin. There are no fine lines in the hair or bust, there are no fine details in the feathers. All of the design details on that coin and rounded and smoothed thus making it very hard, harder than any other coin, to discern subtle differences between 1 coin and another.</p><p><br /></p><p>With all other coins there fine, intricate details in the design that you can look at to detect subtle differences of the various criteria or signs of wear. But the Washington has none. That is what makes the Washington quarter the hardest coin there is to grade.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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