The Sheldon Scale-AU

I am currently on the hunt for a particular coin and have decided my price range is AU. The coin of my current desire has a dramatic swing in value from AU58 to MS60. Hence my question. An AU58+ is about $100.00 more than an AU58. Why then would we not refer to that as AU59?

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

Not only that there are very few "+" marks below MS64.

I guess the Sheldon Scale didn't see the need for 1 point increments. Rounding up/down below the MS levels was/is probably good enough.

 

I think there is a lot of subjectivity in that scale. It typically goes from AU to UNC. There is a fine line between those 2. It is either ABOUT Uncirculated or it is Uncirculated. IMO

 

Randy, it's been discussed in other threads that many times with certain coins (Saints, MSDs) the AU58's look "better" than the low-60's MS. I guess this also involves technical vs. market grading....but if a coin has minimal wear (and I wonder if it is actual circulation wear or just heavy bag/handling wear) it can look much better than an UNC MS coin that takes a beating being moved around across the Atlantic Ocean in those $5,000 DE bags.

I see the same thing with currency: alot of the PMG58 bills look much better than some PMG 64's and below, mostly because of badly-centered margins. The 58 paper does have flaws -- might even have creases/folds -- but if they are TOUGH TO SEE the graders knock it down but you the owner can't see it (I know many times I can't ).

I posted a PMG40 Gold Certificate months ago and while it's tough to judge bills from pictures on the internet (probably tougher than coins), I had some veterans looking at it saying it graded high-50's and even up to PMG65. That's how good-looking the bill was and without being able to see it in-hand and then see the flaws (assuming they would be able to), it was the reason I bought it in the first place as opposed to a bill 20 point higher that you can see clearly has terrible margins (usually the #1 problem on bills).

 

Randy, how about AU 59.7? Just joking but since we started participating in the GTG and CAC threads, it has emphasized exactly how subjective grading actually is and must always be. Many of the great numismatists and lesser-lights have always said to "buy the coin, not the slab" and that remains great advice. You may have also noticed that some people that are selling coins will attempt to promote the slab grade as the final arbiter of price but those same people when buying coins will denigrate the slab grade and focus on the actual coin. Human nature, eh?

 

Ha! I know it is a joke. But does illustrate the point quite well..... Before I purchase a coin these days I try to do some homework first. And on the coin that I am on the hunt for has quite a price spread between AU and U..... And you are 110% correct. The coin in my avatar is an AU coin and absolutely is the most favored coin in my collection. I will buy AU coins like my avatar coin all day long.

 

Most of my coins look like they worked for a living, they have character. I prefer eye appeal to any perceived grade. But, I have no plans to ever sell any of my coins. And, of course, I would not buy or trade for a damaged coin unless it was the one that George Washington threw across the Potomac. Your Avatar is a fine looking coin.

 

Well thank-you, Inspector. That is a high honor.

 

Tradition, mostly. When Sheldon made the scale, he did not use every grade. There were jumps. He didn't use all the numbers in the UNC scale either, he only used 60, 65, and 70. Over time, more numbers got filled in, some numbers were used previously but not anymore (such as F-18).

For an extremely well presented account of the history of the grading scale, read this article by Tom Delorey. He was intimately involved in developing the current scale: https://coinweek.com/education/coin-grading/the-early-days-of-numerical-coin-grading/

 

Now that was a very informative article. Thanks, Physics.

 

Yeah, Sheldon's grading scale was devised solely to make his value algorithm produce the value numbers he was seeking. He wasn't really trying to create a grading scale, per se. It was an abomination like much of his medical theory. So as the article says, the Sheldon scale got adopted more or less by default. Just like evolution, we work with what we've got because the cost of starting from scratch is impossible.

 

A lot of AU58 coins have very slight wear preventing them from being a MS63 coin.

 

By "wear" -- we mean it actually circulated like at a coffee shop or something for some brief period of time, right ?

As opposed to never being used in commerce and just going back-and-forth in a mint bag and getting dozens of scrateches, dings, gouges, etc.

I still have trouble with this dichotomy.

 

For the old timey way it doesn't matter rub is rub. You could have slight friction on an otherwise 65 and it'd be limited to a 58 or more recently a 58+

For the newish evolving grading standards and particularly middle to younger aged collectors the slightest bit of high point rub won't limit a coin to AU 58 ranking them under coins that look like they were in a fight with a lawn mower and lost like MS 60s.

The system itself was flawed from the start stacking two scales on top of each other with a hard line that should have never existed. Fortunately that has been being corrected over the last several years and hopefully will continue too.

 

BB21, I wonder if Sheldon just ASSUMED that an uncirculated coin would have no wear ? Maybe he just never figured on wear, dings, friction from being in a bag (right off the mint press) and then being moved about to a European bank.

You should NEVER assume........

 

Sheldon was only working on the early coppers, primarily large cents. He wasn't in the least concerned about silver and gold as regards to his grading and value scale. He also wasn't, as I said in an earlier post, trying to create a grading scale. His grading scale was only invented to serve as a tool for his value algorithm for large cents. His grading scale was not intended to address, much less answer, any of the finely granulated questions that we obsess about today.

 

Really ? Interesting....So how did it become the system we have today ? I know it took off when the TPGs came around, I presume Sheldon was long since deceased.

Wonder what he would have thought about his scale being used lit it is today.

 

on the

The linked article explains most everything for the background of how the Sheldon grading scale came to be adopted. Thanks to @physics-fan3.14.

 

Thanks I'll read it tonight.

 

You won’t regret it. It makes a whole lot of the Sheldon grading system make sense.