When did the Sheldon Scale become the official industry standard?

I'm trying to do a bit of research on the history of grading, but I can't seem to find out the exact year that the Sheldon Scale officially became the accepted standard. All I know so far is that the Sheldon Scale has existed since 1949, but that it didn't become the 'industry standard' until sometime in the '80s. Could anyone help me pin it down to a more specific year, if one exists?

 

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no particular year exists.

becuase, it just quietly became accepted --

also, there was never an official announcement, just more & more folks started to use it.

 

To the best of my knowledge the Sheldon Scale is NOT the OFFICIAL industry standard.
It is just the most widely used grade notation.
As evidence of my opinion check out any of the trade publications and take note of the number of sellers still using adjectival grading (Choice BU, etc.)
Secondly, it's not even a standard.
As evidence of my opinion note the number of grading guides. They don't totally agree.
And further if you give the same coin to 10 different professionals you at best end up with a consensus, not an absolute.

I believe the Sheldon Scale is the best grading notation currently in use.
Everyone knows XF-40 means Extra Fine. To that extent it's a standard.
But not everyone agrees what the exact definition of Extra Fine is for each issue.
AND
I don't believe there ever will be an exact definition.
There are too many factors that have to be considered.
Extra Fine is a combination of objective and subjective considerations that MOST people will agree approximates the description in a grading guide.

 

Until computer assisted grading, "CAG" as I like to call it, is adopted, the "standard" will always be subjective.

Chris

 

It would be nice to say it was an official standard, but as we all know from experience one persons XF is anothers VF or AU. The grading standard has never and probably will never be perfected but it is the best we have and the sheldon scale gives the most accurate descriptions of the state of preservation even if some dealers still use their own grading standards on their coins.

 

would every u.s. tpg use sheldon scale if it wasnt our "standard"? this is like comparing windows to linux. nothing about windows is standard but it comes on any pc youre going to get in a store.

 

Sorry, it was too early in the AM. I should have specified that computers would grade the technical merits, hence the reason for calling it computer-assisted grading. Of course, we would still need warm bodies to judge the aesthetic merits of the coin.

Chris

 

I couldn't pass this up. Those of us with Mac's would disagree as we are lucky enough to get a computer that does not have Microsoft Windows.
FYI, I'm told that Apple has the dominant market share for computers costing over a couple of thousand dollars. But enough about religion....

Back to the Sheldon scale:
Thanks for the information on this thread. I am in the process of writing an article on the Sheldon Scale for the Numismatist and its relation to market pricing; this thread has been very helpful.

As far as standards, there are unofficial standards that come into being by common acceptance and official standards that are adopted by governing bodies (the U.S. Department of Commerce's National Institute for Standards and Testing) and professional organizations (e.g., IEEE 1394 aka firewire for high speed communication between computers and video cameras, etc.). Since the ANA has adopted the Sheldon Scale, I'd say it is an official standard.

 

It sure as hell doesnt come on any computer Ive ever buy.
You are shopping on the wrong side of the tracks son. (

 

Your personal anecdote seems a bit irrelevant to the point made and the context which it was being made in.

 

Since the ANA can be looked at as a recognized professional organization, (Charted by the US Congress), the ANA Grading Standards can be said to be an official industry standard. That doesn't mean that everyone is going to use it.

I also wish people would NOT call it "the Sheldon Grading Scale" because Sheldon NEVER created a grading scale. The "Sheldon Scale" actually described a price ratio relationship between the different grades AS THEY EXISTED AT THE TIME. (The numbers had NOTHING to do with the grades themselves. if you want to know why the numbers they used were chosen just ask and I'll be glad to explain it.) The grading "standards" already existed and you had to grade the coins accurately before you could apply the "Sheldon Scale" and the numbers were only intended to hold true for early date large cents. They had no relationship to and did not apply to any other series.

As to the the ANA and "Sheldon Scale" a bit of history.

The ANA began authenticating coins (not grading) in April 1972. At the time there were no "official" grading standards but the most commonly used reference were the standards published in James Ruddy's Photograde. Standards were set forth in the book for AG, G, VG,F, VF, XF and AU coins.

In May 1975 the ANA took the first steps towards producing an "Official" grading standard with the creation of a grading arbitration board to settle grading disputes between dealers and collctors. In July of that year a Grading Task Force was created to create the official set of standards for each grade. Work was done slowly with many starts and stops along the way.

In July of 1977 Glen Smedly was appointed to head the final editing of the grading guide and it went to press in November of that year. I do not know at what point in the process someone thought it would be a good idea to still the numbers used by EAC for the Early Large cents onto the grades in the official guide. There was absolutely no reason to. The numbers were not widely used by any firm other than Paramount, even for the large cents at the time. (Even EAC had pretty much given up on them and they only hung on due to tradition.) The numbers have absolutely no meaning other than an 8 is better than a 4, and a 12 is better than an 8 etc. The numbers are NOT REALLY NUMBERS they are NAMES for the grade. We had G, VG, Fine etc, now we had G-4, VG-8, and F-12. It's like having three guys Tom, Dick , and Harry. They are absolutely no different if you give their surnames as well Tom Smith, Dick Jones, and Harry Fields. They are still the exact same people. Remember the grades and the grade descriptions came first, the numbers were tacked on later as an after thought.

The original grading standards only had three grades of Mint State, 60, 65, and 70 and 70 was considered to be more of a theoretical grade that would never be used in actual practice.

In 1978 the ANA board gave ANACS permission to try a six month experiment applying grades to the coins being authenticated beginning on March 1st 1979. This may have been the beginning of Third Party Grading in the US. (It is possible that INSAB may have started a few months earlier.)

MS-63 and 67 were officially added to the grading system in 1980 in response to pressure from the marketplace and the growing gap in prices between the MS-60 and 65 grades.

By 1985 pressure was rising again for the addition of the MS-64 grade because of the rising gap between MS-63 and 65 but no action was taken.

In Feb 1986 PCGS began operations using all eleven MS grades. In July after meeting and discussion by the ANA Board about whether to add the MS-64 grade it was decided to go all out and adopt all eleven MS grade plus the addition of the AU-58 grade. This marks the point at which all eleven MS grades became part of the "Official Grading Standards".

 

Well said, Mike.

It bears mentioning that the "ANA Grading Standards" book does not give standards for Mint State grades. It gives a very brief "boilerplate" description which is identical for all series in the book, and that only for some of the eleven numerical MS grades. Clearly that is woefully short of a standard.

It also bears mentioning that, IMHO, that same book does a darn good job standardizing grades due to wear. It makes some attempt, albeit little, to mention sharpness / strike issues for certain dates and die varieties and mentions adjustments / allowances are necessary.

Further, it makes no attempt to quantify grade lowering due to various problems - nor should it. That is totally subjective and up to each individual. IMO there is no way, or reason, to standardize that.

 

Conder
Great post and information. Thanks for adding this.

 

I do have one. My preference is the fifth edition. For some reason, I like the illustrations better than the sixth edition.

 

If there is going to be a link to that article, I wouldn't mind reading it when you've written it...

Cheers guys, its been informative and useful...