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Message:: [QUOTE="Jaelus, post: 7856886, member: 46237"]Yes, but keep in mind, everything I am referring to and proposing is about AU58-MS coins. So while I am talking about wear on coins, in this context, I am only talking about AU58. I don't have any problem with how coins are graded up to AU55, nor am I proposing a change to grading any circulated coins below AU58. I apologize if this point was not clear. Yes, "one of the", as in you're taking hits into account, but you're not grading all coins including circulated coins based on the number and severity of hits exclusively. You didn't get my point here, but it's because this was a poor analogy on my part. What I was trying to say is that  a balanced approach to grading is important. One should weigh all factors that influence the state of a coin, commensurate with their severity (I'll get back to this). Well, I'm not exactly saying that. Follow me here, because this is an important point. "Undergraded" implies that the grade should be higher than it is, but that first requires a grading system for context. That I would grade many AU58s relatively higher than many currently graded MS60-MS61 coins now if we were to switch to an ideal grading system, does not mean I think those AU58s are currently undergraded. Having said that, I absolutely believe that eye appeal (as a combination of many factors) is much more important than friction wear. That AU58 coins frequently sell for more than low MS coins seems to validate that the market believes this to a degree as well, at least where the friction wear is extremely minor. You might be surprised to know that I have cracked out, crossed over, and resubmitted coins that I intended to reside in my personal collection for the purpose of obtaining a lower grade, when I felt they were overgraded. I have no desire to have coins in slabs with fictitious grades in my collection. I would say my grading is actually conservative. We all know AU58 is an insufficient grade to describe the gradations of quality seen in AU58 coins in the same way that it is insufficient to describe MS coins as simply being MS60 if no grade steps were above it. After all, you can give an MS70 a touch of high point rub from contact with a velvet pad and you could do the same to a real dog of an MS60. Both of those coins would then be inadequately described with the same grade of AU58. If you view the point of TPG grading to be to identify the quality and market value of a coin, the AU/MS boundary in the Sheldon scale simply doesn't work very well. As I said above, it's important to weigh all factors that influence the state of a coin, commensurate with their severity. When high point rub accounting for 0.2% of the surface of the coin gets it knocked down 7 steps, that's not a penalization commensurate with the severity of the issue. That's a heavy bias to the grade against wear over other surface issues. Fundamentally wear is damage to the surfaces that occurs in a predictable manner. But in terms of eye appeal it is no more or less important than any other surface detriment (again, the context is AU58 coins). I believe in an ideal grading system where any detractor (including wear) should penalize the grade commensurate with its severity, and not one where wear is weighted with 20 times the importance of other surface issues. The market believes this so much that they make up exceptions for ignoring high point wear altogether to be able to grade AU coins as MS and say they are mint state! I just want a system where the very important need behind that can be met without calling coins mint state when they are not.[/QUOTE]

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