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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;V. Kurt Bellman, post: 2945118, member: 71723&quot;]Too many posts since I posted last to effectively use the Quote feature, so I&#039;ll respond randomly.</p><p><br /></p><p>1) The ANA has never &quot;written&quot;, &quot;decided&quot;, or &quot;mandated&quot; ANYTHING regarding grading. They have merely &quot;endorsed&quot; what Ken Bressett and Q. David Bowers have (and this is quote) &quot;compiled, arranged, and edited&quot;. The biggest problem with people is (and I&#039;m including site moderators here) is JUST LIKE in the &quot;Red Book&quot;, too many people read the grading descriptions and look at the pretty pictures, but it is stone-cold butt-stupid obvious they skipped over the introductory paragraphs where it is discussed how to AND HOW NOT TO use what follows.</p><p><br /></p><p>2) The ENTIRETY of what follows in (full title) <i>The Official American Numismatic Association Grading Standards for United States Coins, 7th edition </i>is NOT intended to ESTABLISH definitions of grades of ANY KIND WHATSOEVER, but rather to REPORT what the editors FIND out there in the wild. In the current 7th edition, on pages 14-15, this passage is quoted word for word, <span style="color: #b30000">&quot;Lest a reader get the wrong idea, this book <i>reports </i>the grading being used in the marketplace. It does not <i>create</i> it. If the 7th edition were to give definitions that were not useful in the buying and selling of coins in real life, it would not be of much use!&quot;</span></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="color: #000000">3) Technical grading, as defined above, is &quot;not be(ing) of much use&quot;.</span></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><br /></span></p><p><span style="color: #000000">4) As recently as the ANA Anaheim show of August 2016, Rick Snow, the &quot;Mac Daddy&quot; of Indian Head Cents, has put forth a throughly thought out idea of how to more informatively grade coins, particularly applicable to copper coins, and even more particularly applicable to IHC&#039;s. But it had something important to offer all series, as well. It has been greeted with a gigantic collective yawn accompanied by the chirping of the common field cricket. People want and expect simplicity, and will reject mind numbing gratuitous complexity. One thing matters - Which coin is better?</span></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><br /></span></p><p><span style="color: #000000">5) Moral of the story: no one is EVER done learning, and if one ever is tempted to stop, he is rightly labelled &quot;irrelevant&quot;.</span>[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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