Message:

<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Jaelus, post: 7858995, member: 46237&quot;]Not exactly. It&#039;s a different quality scale altogether than what we have now.</p><p><br /></p><p>So right now we have 1-58 circulated coins based on wear, 60-70 quality scale only for MS coins.</p><p><br /></p><p>Ok, so the circulated coins at the top of the circulated scale have too broad a distribution in quality to be accurately graded if they are all given AU58, so the TPGs grade circulated coins on the 60-70 quality scale through various exceptions where wear is completely ignored or market grading where it isn&#039;t ignored but the coin is graded higher commensurate with value. The problem here is that <i>MS</i> prefix before 60-70. You can have the numeric quality grade 60-70 be accurate for an AU coin, but the MS prefix is the problem because it is completely inaccurate.</p><p><br /></p><p>The obvious solution is to decouple the MS prefix from 60-70 coins so that AU coins that warrant grading on the quality scale instead of the wear scale aren&#039;t labelled as MS. If we include AU or MS as a designation, the information is still there, but it is provided accurately.</p><p><br /></p><p>Let me give you an example from my own collection:</p><p><br /></p><p><b>US 25C 1876</b></p><p><b>NGC MS61</b></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1354417[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>Here&#039;s a beautiful seated quarter from my collection. It is a &quot;conservative&quot; AU58 because it has just the slightest touch of rub. The fields are beautiful, the luster is beautiful especially on the reverse, and the toning is very pleasing.</p><p><br /></p><p>Now if this was graded AU58 it would be problematic because that grade doesn&#039;t convey much useful information about this coin, especially for a sight unseen or internet transaction. AU58 would just tell you that the coin has a touch of wear, but it would also tell you nothing about 99.8% of the surfaces.</p><p><br /></p><p>So they attempted to market grade the coin on the 60-70 quality scale so that for sight unseen/internet transactions it could be priced more in line with the actual quality of the coin. Ok sure, but calling it <i>MS</i>61 implies that it is uncirculated, when it is not. It also implies that the fields should be very baggy, which they are not. So really we&#039;ve gone from one terribly uninformative grade (AU58) to a terribly misleading grade (MS61). It&#039;s not really an improvement, especially because quality wise this coin is really a 64, as in if those tiny areas of rub were instead hits or some other similarly sized detractor, that&#039;s what the grade would be. But they typically don&#039;t want to market grade coins with a touch of wear that high because with the MS prefix they are calling the coin uncirculated and they have a grade guarantee to stand behind. So essentially these market graded coins are usually capped at MS62. This doesn&#039;t let them grade high enough when it is warranted though, such as on this coin.</p><p><br /></p><p>Under the scale I am proposing this coin would be graded <b>Q64 AU</b>. The Q64 grade tells you that it is a 64 on the quality scale, and the AU designation also tells you that it has a touch of circulation wear. It doesn&#039;t have the problem of an uninformative grade like AU58 has. It doesn&#039;t have the problem of calling it an uncirculated coin with an MS grade when it is not, and it doesn&#039;t have the problem of giving it a grade of 61 that suggests it is an uncirculated dog when it is a gorgeous coin, and it doesn&#039;t have the problem of capping the grade at 62 when it should be higher.</p><p><br /></p><p>Look, conservative grading works but has significant shortcomings when it is adapted to sight unseen or internet sales. Market grading is a solution to these problems, but it produces fictitious grades that attempt to correct pricing but provide bad information about the coin&#039;s preservation state. I would say that is even <i>worse</i> in some ways than conservative grading. The problem with market grading is that the idea behind it is great, but they didn&#039;t fix the problems with the grading scale when they implemented it. All problems with market grading stem from the use of what is necessarily a conservative grading scale. So let&#039;s fix it.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

Your name or email address:

Do you already have an account?

• No, create an account now.
• Yes, my password is:
• Forgot your password?

Stay logged in