Please Explain/Enlighten What Terms On TPG Slabs Mean.....

cdngmt- I am a bit hesitant to agree with you. Coin grading is and always has been extremely subjective. TPGs have, like you said, attempted to regulate it more and have been fairly successful. However, it still varies significantly. You can get a coin in a PCGS MS-63 slab, crack it and send it back, and get MS-65. By 'buying the coin, not the slab', you can consider if it is over- or undergraded (hence affecting value) and weigh other factors like eye appeal. This concept applies as much or more to details coins than problem-free ones.

Hi
Again I do appreciate the opinions expressed. I can understand GR58 explanation ...as far as his example goes(ie with cleaned coins. BUT when I saw corroded I really can't see/accept it. To me its double talk akin to its perfect except where its not.
I think the other to commentators are both on the point I'm having such difficulty with. Unless grading is more standardized and will generate the same (or narrow range of )valuation wherever it is evaluated, there is no justification for pricing.
We are in effect buying tulip bulbs, prices and values have no floor, they are fad and whimsy (which is true of course to some degree). If the value is all puffery...why not just catalogue pictures? {we can't really handle the coins with "impairing their value and worth"}

Details BAD

It means that the coin was messed with. Altered. Cleaned. Something like that.

Not original.



Now, if your choice (for an exceptionally rare or pricy - given YOUR budget) is between a hole and a details coin, and you know you aren't going to turn around next week or next month or even next year and want to upgrade... a details coin can "fill the hole".

Sometimes that is ALL you are going to get - there simply aren't any original coins in existence. S'be'it.



Net Grading. OK, the coin has been messed with. If it HADN'T been, it would be an XF40.

One school says no net grading, just XF details.
The other school says, "we can approximate how messed with". XF Details, Net VF35 - means just a little. XF Details, Net AG3 - means a lot.

Also sometimes you look at a Details coin and you might think "I don't see it". Remember, the TPG's are still just some guys sitting in a room giving an opinion. They have lots of experience of course but they aren't necessarily perfect.

If you are going to net grade you need to also state the sharpness or details grade and preferably what the problems are that resulted in the net grade.

Unfortunately there's very little incentive for the TPGs to standardize on ANYTHING. In some sense we're lucky the 70 point scale was established long ago or ...

Any one of these posts should have answered your question but now we are on page #2 and it may keep going.

Here is the long answer to your original question:

During a 1970's ANA Authentication Seminar the instructor explained that a very strict system of identifying coins was used at ANACS. He called it "technical" grading as it explained what a coin actually looked like. We were asked to imagine how we would describe (grade) an uncirculated coin that was chopped in half! His answer was "Uncirculated, chopped in half." It was NOT AU or lower (Net grading as practiced by Large cent collectors). Another example would be Uncirculated, rim filed.

When TPGS started. A coin with a rim file was not considered suitable to be put into a slab; and they kept the money. This practice goes against what I was taught: ANY COIN in ANY CONDITION can be described and graded.

Finely, the TPGS got the message. At first one service, ANACS described the problem and then Net graded the coin to reflect its lower value. IMO, this is nuts. It can be demonstrated that the grading services actually DO NOT PUT A VALUE ON A COIN is spite of the claim.

Today, a details grade reflects the way it was done in the beginning. A coin is graded for its condition and then the problem is noted. XF Details - corroded indicates that there is a XF degree of details remaining yet the coin is corroded.