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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;pcrdnadave, post: 32191, member: 1672&quot;]The physical wear on a coin cannot be <i>visually</i> measured.&nbsp; There are an infinite number or points of wear from when the coin is first struck to when its no longer recognizable as a coin.&nbsp; Therefore, we are creating artificial bins to divide visually discernable stages of this wear into convenient categories.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>A silly but accurate analogy is feet vs shoes.&nbsp; Given a person&#039;s foot, what shoe size (grade) would you assign it if there were only three choices, small, medium and large?&nbsp; Most everybody could visually grade feet accurately in that system (but not very precisely).&nbsp; Now try<i> visually </i> grading the size of person&#039;s foot using the sizes 1 to 13 with 1/2 incriments.&nbsp; We could get close (more precise) but would probably disagree on some (less accurate).</p><p><br /></p><p>With only 7 bins, a wider range of coin wear would be put into each category.&nbsp; With 70 bins, it may not be possible to distinguish between adjacent bins.</p><p><br /></p><p>One way to overcome this is to use precise and accurate objective measurement of wear.&nbsp; This leaves out subjective virtues such as eye appeal and will probably not be embraced by the hobby.</p><p><br /></p><p>Another way is to use a &quot;floating bin&quot; system.&nbsp; For example in the 70 point system I would say the coin is a 32 plus/minus 5.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>My point is that grading is subjective, based on visual observation, and not likely to be treated scientifically any time soon.&nbsp; Till then, just recognize that which ever system we use, is up to us and is not necessarily more correct than another.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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