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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Hobo, post: 314195, member: 11521&quot;]No, I don&#039;t. And I am not ashamed to admit it. Although I have collected coins for 44 years (not an active collector that entire time) and I have taken courses in coin grading and counterfeit detection I know that I don&#039;t have near the experience that the TPG graders have. For one thing, they have had much more training than I have. And they may authenticate and grade a couple of hundred coins a day where I don&#039;t get to see nearly that many coins.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>One important thing that has not been touched on yet in this thread is the difference between <b>Technical Grading</b> and <b>Market Grading</b>. I remember back about 1970 or so I bought the Photograde book so it would help me to be better able to grade coins. The grading guides (ANA, Brown &amp; Dunn, etc.) up until about the advent of Third Party Grading Services all stressed Technical Grading. No matter how beat up a coin was, if it had no circulation wear it was uncirculated. And if a coin had circulation wear - no matter how little - it was circulated. </p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Now we are in the era of Market Grading. Market Grading is not as concerned with how a coin <i>technically</i> grades; it assigns a grade for a coin based on how a coin will be priced compared to other coins. Now a circulated coin can be graded MS. A very attractive coin with very light circulation wear, great luster and only a few marks can grade higher than a strictly uncirculated example with poor luster and lots of bag marks. The circulated coin may grade MS-62 vs. MS-60 for the other coin BECAUSE it is a more attractive coin and will command a higher price than the unattractive uncirculated coin. By Market Grading reasoning, a coin that will sell for more money than an MS-60 coin should have a higher grade than MS-60. (Never mind that it is circulated. It is worth more so it gets a higher grade.)</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>I am an engineer. I have had numerous math courses. To me, 2 + 2 = 4. There is no other correct answer. Any other answer is wrong. That is why I have trouble with Market Grading. In my mind either a coin is circulated or it is uncirculated. But with Market Grading that really attractive circulated coin can be graded &quot;Uncirculated&quot;. No matter how good I am at Technical Grading I may never master Market Grading.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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