Would this grade a ms64?

Now that we have a second side, yes, I can say I concur. MS64. Let me offer a theory on why this might trouble you. There has been a myth circulating (pun IS intended) in this hobby that an MS65 coin is a "virtually perfect coin". That myth made SENSE when all there was was MS60, MS65, and in theory, MS70. We really used to be in that place. As more "tweener" grades came to be, the idea that MS65 meant "almost perfect" went away (except perhaps in Doug's mind) . You look at this coin and say, "Wow, that's farther away from 'virtually perfect' than a single point." And you'd be right. What was WRONG was getting the old system started in the first place, and THAT is my counter-argument to the "all grades are gradeflated" meme that is actually pure crap. Today's grading system is, in my opinion, far SUPERIOR to the one the "dinosaurs" long for, even if one of them IS our own head moderator.

When all we had was 60, 65, and 70, it was okay to call a nearly perfect coin a 65. Under that system, your coin was a 60.

Now that we have every point, a nearly perfect coin is a 67, 68, or 69, and yours is a 64. That is NOT "gradeflation"; it's enhanced accuracy, PERIOD!

 

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Pcgs didn’t think so. I think it’s got the marks of a high end 63 and the luster of a 65. So I don’t feel 64 is out of line

 

It's a well struck Peace dollar with lots of luster, so 64 should be correct.

 

Exactly. Doesn't meet MY criteria for MS64, but it does for some. I just pass on the ones that don't make my grade, and that's what really matters. There are a lot of these, so patience really is a virtue.

 

This answers the OP's question perfectly.

Keep in mind, contact marks are just one of the 4 aspects of grading Uncirculated coins. Strike, Luster, Eye Appeal, and Contact marks are all evaluated.

Thus, on your coin the Strike appears average, and the Luster appears quite strong. The eye appeal is attractive, and there are a few contact marks in prominent places. All of this adds up to a 64 overall. I think it appears accurately graded from those pictures.

 

I think it is ms64. I also believe the price delta from Ms63 to ms64 is not too much

 

Where does that get you, Kurt? Think about it. Nowhere.

Nowhere Man, please listen up. MS65 is still gem/uncirculated grade. From a technical standpoint, i.e., of condition and preservation, all the MS grades are still evaluated on two principal criteria, i.e., contact marks and luster. That's how they were evaluated 60 years ago, and it's how they're still evaluated, today. The only difference is, to appease the Third-Party Appraisers, we break the continuum down to the Sheldon Scale grades, then do this dumb-ass market grading thing, gift-wrapped to these TPAs by the ANA, just to give the former plausible deniability. "Hey, don't complain at us, we didn't stand technical grading on its head with this crackpot, pretty-boy, style of grading--that was started by the ANA--educate yourself!" But MS65 is still the gem/uncirculated cut, that strike zone still changes, and that's hardly any big revelation.

And look, I don't mind this crackpot system. They're crackpots, that's all you have to know. That's why this coin will market MS64 even though there's no way on God's Green Earth it's anywhere close to MS64. In fact, technically, it has wear. In double-talk, that's "cabinet friction." More like "cabinet fiction," you ask me...

 

Yeah? Big fat hairy deal! You're allowed to call a dog a turnip, but don't expect others to follow you. The modern coin grading system is so far superior to what was around 30 years ago, its analog would be continuing to treat diseases caused by microbes by bleeding people. "Yup, that's the way is was, and that's all we need." Pfffft. Eddie, I'm in central Pennsylvania. Our morons INVENTED that kind of obstinate theory. I've had to deal with it my whole life.

 

The market grading system is based on what a coin appraiser determines the coin can fetch in the particular plastic it's in. The grades are a rationalization for the appraisals, which are about the plastic, not the coins. Once the coins are in the particular plastic, they have a particular market value, per that particular appraiser's price guide. Put the same coins in PCGS, NGC, ANACS or ICG plastic, and you have four different markets, and four different market grades, all determined, not on the coin, but on the plastic it is in.

I don't collect plastic. I don't grade plastic, or admire plastic. If that makes me odd, it makes me odd. Besides, plastic is bad for the environment, too.

 

Here, Eddie, you're either nuts or blind. There is NO "wear" on that coin. There are lots of marks, but wear is a different animal. I was specifically INSTRUCTED that nothing that CAN HAPPEN in a canvas bag, among other coins, is or CAN BE wear. Wear happens in contact with other matter, AND once you know how to identify it, the difference is clear.

What's more, I steadfastly REFUSE to participate in ANY grading system that amounts to "mark counting". Why? Because literally EVERY OTHER attribute of an MS coin is MORE IMPORTANT to a coin's attractiveness and desirability than marks are.

 

The old technical system is/was so fundamentally flawed that in its original state, would assign a AU50 grade to what is today a stunningly gorgeous AU58 while calling a beat to death ugloid monster a MS60 JUST because it was technically BU. So what? So this - I would GLADLY pay MORE, FAR MORE for that paleo-AU50 than its MS60 cousin. Today's MS60 is a monstrosity, and AU58's are GORGEOUS. We STILL need to "fix" that, are we are starting to do so, by using MS61-62 to regrade those gorgeous pieces. It's just a shame we don't have the guts to establish MS53 and AU63.

Without knowing the terms for it then, I've known since I was a kid that something was thoroughly ROTTEN about technical grading in the AU/BU range.

 

This HAS TO BE a lie because it is graded raw in the first instance. And I am SO sorry old buddy, but every time my eye sees, "I don't collect plastic, I collect coins", my mind HEARS "I'm going to continue to run the same scam I used to run before there were TPGS's."

 

The number on the slab determines the grade if I agree with it after studying the coin. Otherwise, the number can be in Martian for all I care. The coin isn’t coming home with me.

 

Agreed.

 

I agree, but to a point and if I had graded it overall I would say it is a 63.

 

I never ran any scam. Where did you get that? Is that how you reason, through a prefabricated set of assumptions? These TPGs are setting their own standards and making markets for their plastic. At least, before their advent, you had to know to something about how to collect coins. Now all you have to know is how to bid on plastic. They turned this hobby into a commodities market for their plastic. And I already said, plastic is bad for the environment, too.

 

1) I'm just saying MOST people who disdain modern TPG grading ARE running a Buy Low / Sell High grading scam. Good to hear that's not your motivation.
2a) You STILL have to know how to grade.
2b) If you collect NOT having that skill, you deserve the butt-kicking you WILL receive.
2c) PART of knowing how to grade is knowing how to grade coins TODAY, not 25-30 years ago.
3) The NEXT time I am positively affected by an environmental argument angle will be the very FIRST time.

My ANA diploma, with High Honors, for my first grading course was called "Grading Coins Today". Do you REALLY think that last word was just a random throw-away word? Did it fall onto the diploma at random? No. All words mean things. The use of the word "Today" clearly connotes that something has changed, and they are PROUD of that change. As am I.

By the way, that diploma is 1997 vintage. At the course I took from Brian Silliman last March, MORE stuff changed, too. And they're proud of THOSE changes, too. As. Am. I.

 

Who invented the standards before the TPGs? I'll bet if you asked your colleagues at ANA, they're so stupid, they'll answer ANA did that. Did ANA invent those standards? Or did ANA simply classify observable phenomenon relative to the state of preservation of the coin? It was the latter. Nobody invented those standards. And anybody back in that day who actually knew how to think could nail those ANA classifications on the button, every time. But today, what are the standards, but arbitrary? That's why we can't hold these TPGs to their grades. If they were grading observable phenomenon, we could hold them. We can't hold them when they're grading by these comic book standards ANA gave them, which are purely arbitrary.

Learn how to technical grade, and the rest you're seeing on that plastic is but opinion. That's how we should be understanding these market grades. They're half-grade, half-opinion.

Ah, the comfort of opinion, without the discomfort of thought. That defines what this market game is.

 

You are putting far far far to much weight into the market grading. It’s not the dominate force in the grades you’re making it out to be

 

They can't ignore the technical component, completely, otherwise they'll really look silly. I guess the important thing is, learn those technical standards, so you know what's fact, and what's opinion, in their "grade." That's about it. If we all did that, sharpened our technical skills (...rather than looking for "double dies?"), I think this could become a real hobby, again. But then, maybe that's just me, and what do I know? I'm a horse.