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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Jaelus, post: 7856115, member: 46237&quot;]This is well said, however, it makes me consider another point, which is that differences on opinion as to what system of grading should be used are likely due at least in part to differences in what people consider the <i>purpose</i> of coin grading to be.</p><p><br /></p><p><b>Is the purpose of coin grading to describe the state of preservation of a coin, or is its purpose to describe the quality or market value of a coin?</b></p><p><br /></p><p>My opinion on TPG grading style is very much driven by my belief that the biggest value is obtained by the experts grading on quality and not preservation state.</p><p><br /></p><p>Let&#039;s say I have the coin in hand and I&#039;m buying or selling it. I can see the preservation state for myself, and so can the other party. In this scenario the grade really isn&#039;t all that helpful. I don&#039;t need to have paid an expert to tell me information I can readily see. People will say this coin is undergraded or this coin is overgraded and heads nod North-South and deals happen. Where do the real premiums come from? PLUS designation, STAR designation, CAC stickers, PL or DPL designation, UCAM/DCAM. Why? The market is obviously starved for expert opinions on a coin&#039;s <i>quality. </i>If that was not the case, these designations wouldn&#039;t have such a dramatic impact on pricing.</p><p><br /></p><p>Ok so let&#039;s talk about selling or buying coins online. It&#039;s not really the technical grade that is useful here. What is happening is that the buyer and seller are both trying to come up with a commonly understood <i>value</i> to facilitate an online transaction and they&#039;re using the grade as a tool to do that. The buyer is unable to inspect the coin in hand, so they use the grade on the slab to form an understanding that can be translated into value. The problem here is that due to relative quality of the coin, without market/quality grading, there can be two coins with the same technical grade that are wildly different in quality and price. So why not just pay an expert to evaluate the coin in hand and render a grade based on quality in the first place. It is what is actually useful here, unlike a technical grade.</p><p><br /></p><p>AU58 coins are way too difficult to buy and sell online, and it is a serious problem. Even as an advanced collector, when I see a listing for an AU58 it is frequently very difficult to price unless there are exceptional high-res images accompanying the listing due to the inherent difficulty of grading from photos on the internet. This is because an AU58 can have such a <i>wide spread</i> of quality that the grade is almost useless for determining value. Is the coin really just a step above a 55, or is it virtually a 67 with a touch of non-distracting rub? Having a technically correct but largely uninformative grade on a slab is a disservice to collectors. Someone paid for expert in-hand evaluation of the coin, and yet they are left with a grade that confounds pricing, which is a real shame. In some instances where the coin is stunning in hand despite a touch of rub, a 58 can be a death sentence to salability, removing it entirely from the market for collectors that only want MS coins.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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