About 5 years ago I began collecting different currency notes. Some of those notes came ungraded. I wanted to grade them so I looked up grading terms. Unlike coins, I've seen grading terms I am not familiar with. What is VCN and GN? Are the notes graded on a scale up to 70? Are there other measuring guages other than the usual F,VF,G,Unc? etc?
Very Choice New and I do not know about the other one?? There is a grade of "G" Good...but the "N" behind it makes no sense to me...LOL Below "Good" is Fair and Poor but those are not considered collecting Grades! RickieB
I was thinking VCN meant Very Choice Note and Good Note but then they both pack a 64 or 65 grade. One note even had a VCN64 and another had a GN65. That didn't make any sense to me.
Any idea what the number brake is? 65-70 then 60-64? then 55-59? or what? Then what are the catagories and order of catagories fronting the scale of numbers? G, VG F,VF XF, VCN, GN? or what?
Well with the intervention of TPG Companies we now have several different designations such as EPQ used by PMG and PPQ used by PCGS range thru 63 and 64 desiginations Gem notes run the rack at Gem PPQ 65 thru 70 with very few 68,69 and 70 notes running around. The grading is defined by a guideline only and well you know the rest of the story!! Some of the common Grading standards: Uncirculated (Unc 60) About Uncirculated (AU, AU50, AU55, and AU58) Extremely Fine (EF, EF40, EF45) Very Fine (VF), VF 20, VF 25, VF30, VF35) Fine (F) F12, F15) Very Good VG VG8, and VG 10 Good (G) G-4 RickieB RickieB
Yeah, these are the codes I'm familiar with. So why the VCN and GN codes? unless they're something over unc60. Maybe VCN61-64 and GN 65-70?
Some currency graders prefer the term New rather than Uncirculated. You'll also see CU, Crisp Uncirculated, which is parallel to the coin term BU, Brilliant Uncirculated, in that the "C" and "B" don't actually mean much of anything.
But I've also seen CU being Choice Uncirculated? Which term is the proper (more correcter) term? Choice or Crisp? or is one better than the other? And then which is spelled more correcter or more corrector? :mouth: Life can be soooo confusing especially when you're already a bit confused about life. Lol.
Not sure if one term is more or less correct than the other, but in regards to banknotes it seems that CU is used to mean "crisp uncirculated" more often than "choice." Whether that makes it more correct is opinion I suppose but "crisp" is by far the more commonly used term, when you're talking about paper money. Grading standards very but usually "crisp" means at least 65 or better, though some will not call it crisp if there's any bends in the paper whatsoever. I usually don't bother researching grading standards as they're very subjective and I don't buy anything certified anyway (unless I'm reasonably worried about authenticity, but as I mostly collect world notes few bother to fake anyway, usually not worried about it). I grade my own notes based on my own standards just as a note to myself which notes are better than other ones.
Choice Crisp Uncirculated is usually abbreviated ChCU. It's the step below Gem Crisp Uncirculated (GCU), so it's about 63 or 64 on the TPGs' grading scales. Crisp Uncirculated (CU) is the low-end "just plain uncirculated" grade. Think 60 or 61 in TPG terminology. The presence or absence of the "Crisp" doesn't mean anything; Uncirculated notes are by definition crisp anyway. You can leave the "Crisp" out of any of the above examples without changing a thing. Likewise you can replace "Uncirculated" by "New" if you prefer. So the four terms Uncirculated, New, Crisp Uncirculated, and Crisp New all mean the same thing--a note that's uncirculated but not especially nice. If the note's nicer than that, stick "Choice" in front of whichever one you like best. Then "Very Choice", "Gem", and "Superb Gem" are the next few steps of even-betterness. And no, "even-betterness" is definitely *not* a word.
