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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;GDJMSP, post: 3502783, member: 112&quot;]Again, this line of thinking is what I see as a large part of the problem. And I&#039;m not trying to pick on you here, I&#039;m merely trying to point something out. </p><p><br /></p><p>It&#039;s as if people, on both sides of this issue, are stuck on the idea that market grading and technical grading are both 2 different grading systems currently <u><b>in use</b></u>. That is NOT the case ! There is <u>only 1</u> grading system in use, and there has only been 1 grading system in use since 1986. That grading system is market grading ! And for the record, I&#039;m a strong advocate for market grading - and always have been !</p><p><br /></p><p>But what it seems that people can&#039;t get through their heads is that technical grading is a part, a big part of market grading. Technical grading is fully 50% of market grading. You cannot have one without the other. </p><p><br /></p><p>What you are talking about is over-grading, plain and simple. It&#039;s not about using a different grading system, it&#039;s simply grading coins higher than they deserve to be graded - based on established grading criteria. But the grading system itself, it is still the same grading system that is always been - market grading.</p><p><br /></p><p>People need to understand something, it&#039;s not about just calling AU coins MS. It&#039;s also calling VF coins XF, and G coins VG, and VG coins F, and XF coins AU, etc etc. But all of it, every bit of it, is still market grading.</p><p><br /></p><p>Lemme see if I can put this a different way. Prior to 2004 the TPGs graded the vast majority of all coins correctly, in other words based on established grading criteria. But prior to 2004 they were using market grading. </p><p><br /></p><p>After 2004, they&#039;re still using market grading, but they changed the grading criteria, they loosened the grading criteria, they made them more lenient. But before and after, they were still using the same grading system - market grading. As I said, it&#039;s the only system that has been used since 1986.</p><p><br /></p><p>Everything I&#039;m saying here, it&#039;s the same thing that Mike is saying here - </p><p><br /></p><p><i>&quot;<u>As the students become experienced, they will need to decide for themselves just how much friction they will tolerate on an “uncirculated” coin before it becomes their personal AU.</u>&nbsp; It is something we all do. When a dealer seeks my opinion on a coin, I’ll often tell him it is an AU; yet I would sell it as an “MS-something” and sleep like a baby because that’s the commercial grading system.&nbsp; Easy right?&nbsp; Examine a coin, like a Morgan dollar for example, look at the eagle’s breast and the hair over the ear and if it has full luster it is MS if not it’s AU.&quot;</i></p><p><br /></p><p>In his last line, he&#039;s giving us his personal definition. And it&#039;s a definition I agree with, but I would word it slightly differently. I would say a break in the luster anywhere on the coin relegates that coin as AU, not MS. And that&#039;s the way it was prior to 2004. And every bit of it was market grading.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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