Thread ATS about "rampant gradeflation"

Lehigh, you want to profile people based on stereotypes, why don't you go back to your poker room? I had enough of you.

 

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If the Sheldon scale were entirely based on condition then I would agree with you. It is, however, essentially two linked grading scales. One scale is for uncirculated coins (60-70) which are all mint state. This entire range of grades describes only one state of preservation, with the steps being one point each that essentially define the attractiveness (level of marks, toning, strike) of the mint state coin. The second scale is for circulated coins (1-58) that describes the amount of wear on the coin, and is typically represented in steps of 2, 3, or 5 points per step.

As this is the case, the first thing one must do when grading coins is determine if the coin should be graded on the uncirculated scale, or on the circulated scale. As such, it is essential to understand the source of marks, friction or otherwise, on a coin to determine if they came from circulation or not. Understanding this requires an expertise in the series at hand to be able to determine based on apparent evidence, what the source of a mark is.

Let me ask you this. If you owned the above MS66 coin that you regard as an AU, and it comes time to sell it, do you stick to your guns and ask for an AU price? What if the only interested buyer thinks the way you do, that it is AU, and they offer you an AU price? Do you take their offer, or do you admit that the market is right?

 

This is not gradeflation. This is grade roulette. I understand the point of sending a coin back if you feel it's not the right grade. But not sending a coin back 20 times, hoping that someone fixes the mistake and grades it higher...If there ever was a mistake in the grade.

I know one point or two points higher on the grade changes the value by thousands of dollars. But I'll tell you one thing, if I were to buy one of those MS 66/67 FBL now, I'd send it to get re-graded before the purchase to see if the standards changed again. Because you know it's going to change over and over again.

 

Granted, there were coin collectors back then in the 1920's and 1930's -- but not that many. Certainly, not collecting Saints ($20 was a TON of money back then for most people) and maybe not even Silver Dollars ($1 was alot of money back then, like putting aside $20 bills today).

Saint comes off the presses....goes into a bag (maybe if you had pull you got it straight off the mint press, dunno) or a special felt tray (pull, again)....then you probably touch it with your hands, put it in a felt bag (paper bag ?)....take it home...and then put it in an album (did they have them back then ?) or keep it in the felt bag or some other jewelry thing.

Question: Did the coin 'circulate' ?

Not commercially, by my standards...but it touched human hands a few times, maybe even jingled around in a pocket...if the guy got more than 1, maybe the coins banged together in a felt (or paper) pouch...nobody is touching the coin on the sides (probably) and DEFINITELY nobody has gloves on (hospitals didn't even have them all the time).

A gold Saint-Gauden going straight from the Mint to a coin collector's collection 100 years ago came into alot more contact than a gold coin today going from West Point to our collections.

 

The MS 66 Saint shown has what I would say is a tiny luster break on 1 high point. When I am talking about high point friction that makes a coin AU (or ought to) this is an example of what I mean: http://www.ebay.com/itm/1923-SAINT-...106?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2a405c30fa
So perhaps my definition of "high point friction" differs from others.

 

Evidently, the TPGs and most collectors disagree with you.

 

I can live with that.

 

Then, perhaps they are right, and you are wrong. No way that S. G. Is circulated.

 

If you recall, I said that I was willing to live with the mistakes that would be inevitable as a result of allowing for roll friction. This is one of those mistakes. IMO, this coin certainly belongs in an AU holder.



High point friction from roll friction needs to limited to the absolute high points, the breast and knee. This coin has wear all over the place: breast, knee, torso, right leg, drapery, face, hand, torch, fields. Heck, even the eagle shows signs of wear.

If I am going to support the TPG practice of market grading Saints with respect to friction, then it is required that I criticize their mistakes in the process. This coin belongs in an AU holder. That said, there is a huge difference between this coin and the MS66 Wells Fargo hoard example that I posted earlier. This coin looks much more like the AU58 example I posted earlier and again contrasts the difference in quality between an AU Saint and a MS Saint with high point friction.

 

Please tell me that you are not defending the E-Bay Saint that he linked, and that you are talking about the MS66 Wells Fargo coin. Please!

 

Noooo!! The Wells Fargo coin , of course. Sorry for the misunderstanding. The WF coin is gorgeous.

 

Thank the Lord!

 

The other one is clearly AU, not due to cabinet friction, or storage friction, but for the light contact marks in the fields, that show wear.

 

Sorry......Doxology overcame me.....probably removed in the morning. Not ISIS though..........

 

That was awful, had to put Beethoven on just to wash that from my mind!

 

I posted this one because there is clearly rub and loss of luster all over Liberty's body and substantially on the eagle as well. There might be some loss of luster in the left obv field but that could be lighting as well.

 

This is another problem with LITERAL grading standards where even if you have the ANA and the TPGs who devised the standards pre-1986, I don't think they could agree on what they meant then or how it should be applied today. Or if they did by some chance agree....you'd have some coin collectors today who say they are wrong.

Because....if MS is the state at which a coin leaves the mint, it could have marks, blemishes, bag marks, etc.....right ?

 

But Eddie, don't MS grades already ALLOW for some wear as long as it's not circulation wear (however we define it)?

If a coin could not have ANY wear and still be considered Mint State....there could be only 1 Mint State grade, right ? No degrees of Mint State. MS-70 or otherwise we go straight down to AU-58.

Let's assume that the ANA and TPGs did not write the rules with outliers in mind. By that, I mean that a 'circulated' coin is one that actually circulates and doesn't go from the Philly Mint to my hand and then to a candy store where it sits in the back of the coin register for a year with much less 'wear' than a coin that sits in a bag in the Philly Mint and gets banged around weekly as it's shuffled around the building.

Let's also assume the a circulated coin shows LOTS of wear on ALL high, medium, and even low points. There are degrees, but let's assume it's a circulated coin in the normal sense: wear on all high points, wear on some medium points, luster/shine mostly or all gone. So it's not like a silver quarter that almost is smooth but it's begun the process in a small way.

Let's also assume that bag marks and high-wear are pretty much what happens when you sit in a Mint bag. Let's not assume the outlier that a coin in such a bag can, over time, get more overall damage and wear than a normally circulated coin.

Let's also assume that a CIRCULATED coin shows wear all over....and thus, most if not all of the luster/shine would be gone...a condition NOT seen on Mint State coins with minor wear and the majority of their luster/shine in Gem Quality MS-65 or above.

If you take my assumptions above...and apply the ANA Standards AS THEY WERE INTENDED....you come up with what I think is this logical conclusion: all the 'experts' at that time wrote grading standards that could be written in 2-3 pages rather than the Encyclopedia World Book because they assumed that all of the conditions that give a coin a demerit -- wear, loss of shine/luster, bag marks, dings, scratches, etc. -- would increase at a CONSTANT LINEAR RATE that did not allow for outliers.

• They didn't assume a circulated coin would have all or most or even some shine and luster
• They didn't assume a Mint State coin would have NO wear on high points.
• They didn't assume that ANY wear would mean you go from Mint State (presumably only MS-70) all the way down to AU.

Here's how Wikepedia summarizes the various Mint States, presumably from the ANA and PCGS (I went to Barnes & Noble to get the ANA book tonight but they didn't have it so I'm using this as my proxy):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheldon_coin_grading_scale#Uncirculated_grades

Note the specific number of contact marks/blemishes allowed as you move down from MS-70.

I share the concerns of some here about loose grading standards, market grading, and grading on a curve. But I think the LITERAL and RIGID application of an interpretation of the ANA standards and TPGs procedures would result in a radically re-designed grading system that would have more unhappy people than we do today.

Let's Fight The Real Enemy: counterfeit coins and counterfeit slabs !!!

 

Eddie, don't forget that gold is much softer than other metals and will more easily show wear or bag marks and other uncirculated damage than coins of a different composition.

I can respect that. And there's nothing wrong with it. I just think that most coin collectors are a bit more flexible and so too are the TPGs (and maybe the standards, too, if we go with intent vs. literal).

Does't mean we're right and you're wrong or vice-versa. Our pricing sheet is called the Gray Sheet and maybe this should be called the Gray Area.