The Official CoinTalk Grading Experiment 4

I see where you are going, but I can’t say that I agree. TPG range of error is quite narrow, if they err at all. For a coin graded MS 65, a range from 64 to 66 would be far more valid an opinion. Just looking at the coin for 5 seconds, one could ascertain that it was neither AU 58, nor MS 68. See where this is going now? Shouldn’t we be focusing on a reasonable grade for a coin, as opposed to a wild guess, that is way out of anything reasonable?

 

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Yeah, I disagree too. Everybody is entitled to their opinion on this coin. I think AU58 is a reasonable guess. Just because you believe AU58 is a bad guess doesn’t mean the votes should be ignored. Let’s stop it here please.

 

OK.....now I gotta take a look.....

 

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but wildly out of range guesses do not help to develop precision in coin grading. We want to be as accurate as possible, do we not?

 

'63 at a five second glance....no wa way an AU.....baggy a bit, but well defined and the strike is superb. The third party guys could have gone higher, but I'll rest my decision.

 

Many of us feel that 66 and 67 are wildly out of range. In fact the majority voted middle of the road @ 40%.

Any arguement further is just trying to impose your opinion.

 

We're four coins into this experiment. If people use each coin as an opportunity to learn just a little more about how to use Heritage's pictures to grade coins, then we should see the mean of our grades come closer to the PCGS grade, and the standard deviation also come down.

The AU58 grade is a pesky grade from the standpoint of rating our grading. Arguably, 58 is a nicer coin than 61, and maybe even 62, so perhaps it should go there for the purposes of computing our stats. As I illustrated elsewhere, this does affect the scores somewhat, but it's probably not necessary to do this. The presentation of our accuracy at the end of the experiment along with an explanation of how AU58 tends to work should be sufficient to show that it can be difficult to tell AU58 from a nice uncirculated coin from a Heritage picture alone. This is something we should already know. We may also discover whether or not we get better at telling AU58 from MSsomething using Heritage pictures, but there may not be enough coins in the study to really show this.

 

It’s reasonable if there is wear on the coin. There isn’t any. And the surface preservation of this coin is lightyears away from MS-60/1/2/3 just comparing hundreds of coins graded at those levels. That’s my objective view of this.

Any of those who were in the coin business before 1980, would this have graded MS-63 (“Choice BU”) or MS-65 (“Gem BU”)? If the former, one could argue that some of the responders were reverting to the more-conservative pre-TPG days. @Insider @GDJMSP

 

The coin ACTUALLY graded MS66, how on Earth could MS67 be a ridiculously high grade?

 

It is “ridiculously high” if the coin doesn’t make the MS-66 grade in the first place. Collectors need to get away from the mindset that the grades the TPGs put on coins are always correct. If they were, CAC would not have gotten any traction in the market.

 

The coin is a solid MS66, you are just salty that you were wrong and that I blew your example out of the water.

 

That is your opinion, and you are entitled to have one. When I look at the close-up photo of that coin, there is no way that I could ever grade it MS-66. That is my opinion, and I am also entitled to have one. If you think you have “blown me out of the water,” on this issue, you are delusional.

 

Do yourself a favor, take 5 Heritage photos of MS64 1885-S Morgan Dollars and compare them to this coin. You will find that this coin is far superior and that only really applies to surface preservation and ignores luster which is impossible to judge from HA photos.

Nobody is saying that you can’t have your own standards for grading, but it is plainly obvious that your standards are much different (more conservative) than those employed by the TPGs, and they control the market.

As for blowing it out of the water, I thoroughly debunked the example you used. That MS65+ has obvious luster grazes, and they are visible on the beauty shots despite the photographer’s effort to hide them.

So if you want to claim that this coin is not an MS66 based on your standards, then okay, but you haven’t even come close to showing that the coin is incorrectly graded by current TPG standards.

 

@TypeCoin971793
@Morgandude11
@Lehigh96

It’s not about who’s right or wrong. It doesn’t matter if PCGS assigned the correct grade or not. Jason wanted to see how good the CoinTalk community is at grading and the community is larger than you. There simply are no “wrong” votes.

 

We get it. The wild inconsistencies are related to individual subjectivity, and a bias against TPG grading. Some folks grade excessively low. Others grade excessively high. Some grade their coin high, and anybody else’s is AU 58, even if a TPG gave it a high grade. How good is the Cointalk community at grading? Only as good as individual’s subjective biases in grading happens to be. On any GTG, for an obvious gem coin, there will normally be a range from AU 58 to MS 68, based on an individual’s personal bias towards grading.

 

Being new to Heritage "GLAMOUR" pics, I am learning that luster breaks look a lot hits on the coins they photograph. I can easily understand the AU, to low MS picks for this one especially.
Combine the less than stellar pics with the modern more lenient grading standards, and you will no doubt get lower grade guesses from many collectors that are more accustomed to higher grading standards. I'm surprised @GDJMSP didn't guess 55 or less.
As mentioned earlier, those with experience interpreting this auction house's style of photography, have the advantage. IMHO.

 

There aren’t any “wild inconsistencies” and no “wild guesses” either. Technically it’s an AU58, if you don’t believe me, then please read Doug’s post above. If PCGS applies market grading, fine with me. Even I said MS64 while mentioning that the coin clearly shows wear. Just don’t tell us that we’re all wrong and/or our votes should be disregarded.

 

Then, your standards are ludicrous. An obvious gem coin is AU 58, because YOU see wear? That is the very definition of bias, and you just don’t comprehend that. TPGs may have changed their standards, but grading what YOU think is an AU coin as MS66? Nah, not a realistic statement.