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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;cladking, post: 361357, member: 68&quot;]I suspect Mr Bowers was referring to classics.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>The problems with grading isn&#039;t seeing the difference, the problem is with the weighting of those differences.&nbsp; Not only do many MS-65&#039;s really fall in the MS-64 or MS-66 realm but more importantly most coins have attributes of several different grades.&nbsp; This is no simpler for moderns because you might have a perfectly struck coin but from highly eroded dies.&nbsp; Then it might be virtually mark-free.&nbsp; How is such a coin graded?&nbsp; One service might call it a 68 and another a 62.&nbsp; One collector will think it&#039;s beautiful and another disgusting.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>But these aren&#039;t the differences which are easily learned.&nbsp; What&#039;s easily learned is seeing the range of marking and the range of strike and die quality.&nbsp; Dividing these into seven or ten levels is quite easy if the coins are equal in all parameters.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>There tends to be a little correlation between being well struck and mark free (except in nickels).&nbsp; It&#039;s easy enough to look for exactly what one desires whether that&#039;s pristine surfaces or exceptional detail.&nbsp; One might eschew this altogether and seek circulated coinage or one might insist on coins that are close to perfection.&nbsp; Really with some of my collections I&#039;m just not really concerned about grade at all.&nbsp; With something like a good-for token it just seems more interesting if it has a lot of wear.&nbsp; Imagine all the free cigars or whatever that were the result of the wear![/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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