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 Replies: 35 / Views: 3,379 |
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Pillar of the Community
 Egypt
3470 Posts |
This is the grading system that I am suggesting to use with the lowest grade is the AG. Brilliant Uncirculated (BU) Uncirculated (Unc.) About Uncirculated (AU) Extremely Fine (XF or EF) Very Fine (VF) Fine (F) Very Good (VG) Good (G) About Good (AG) Or may be I will add at the bottom of the scale the two grades; Poor and Very Poor. I am thinking of adding them as this will make the BU grade as the 100% condition regarding everything you expect a coin to be perfect in and the Very poor grade will be the 0% coin simply that has enough wear to make it like a planchet. And thus the grades will be; Brilliant Uncirculated (BU)---100% Uncirculated (Unc.)---90% About Uncirculated (AU)---80% Extremely Fine (XF or EF)---70% Very Fine (VF)---60% Fine (F)---50% Very Good (VG)---40% Good (G)---30% About Good (AG)---20% Poor (P)---10% Very Poor (VP)---0% I dont want to use the points of the sheldon system to make subdivisions but may be I can use the + and - sign to explain that the coin has a grade that is very near to the above or lower grade.(It is in the grey area between two grades) The points to be examined will be: weight, thickness, diameter details (Full or week strike) and (wear) luster (Cart weal, amount of luster and toning) Presence of scratches and bag marks Corrosion or spots Cleaning, dipping and PMD Again I am not inventing a new grading system more than I am trying to find a one that will be easy for my country to use and as you all said that will also make it easy for Egyptian collectors to communicate with other world collectors. Waiting for your thoughts  |
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
20753 Posts |
Quote:
So what do you think of adding these two grades at the bottom of the scale; Poor and Very Poor? Maybe the explanations got lost in time and G was supposed to mean GARBAGE.  I think your idea of just letters for now are sufficient. Unless the people there are long time coin collectors with US knowledge, adding numbers to letters may well be excessive. One thing not covered in this post is the language. I mean not being an Egyptian myself, I don't know what is spoken there. I would assume English is not the native language but for all I know it could be. If not English, then using English words for a grading system could really be confusing for people. Now if the Egyptian word for Good is used, wouldn't this make international comparisons difficult. Same with all the grading words and letters. Again, not familiar with the Egyptian language, I would think if using English words would limit the amount of people able to properly understand the grading system. AND note in your system, P could well be a Proof. Many here do use P for Proof although also, PR or Pr. |
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Pillar of the Community
Egypt
3470 Posts |
Regarding the language .... all collectors and dealers I met till now do use the same words for Uncirculated they call it "Uncir", the Extremely Fine, they call it Extra fine and the About Uncirculated they call it "About" Dont think that Grades expressed in English language will be a problem as Egypt have been occupied by Great Britain for about 82 years and we still have many English words in our slang language. Actually we do have many foreign words in our language ... French, English, Turkish and other Our Slang Arabic language is a unique one in between all the Arabic speaking countries and all of them call it "The Egyptians language" Other Arabic speaking countries dont even call us as Arabs... they usually either call us "The Egyptians" or "The Pharaohs" Also, I was intending to make this book in both languages, one to be published and distributed in Egypt and this will be in Arabic and the other will be in English language and it will be published and distributed an Egypt and any other country. Or may be the 2 languages in the same book  I dont know yet but in the last meeting, we didnt decide which will be first. |
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Pillar of the Community
United Kingdom
2133 Posts |
EgCollector,
I think you should start off with at least one grade other than Unc and BU.
It is so easy to distinguish between Unc and BU that a grading guide isn't needed.
Tt's much more difficult to distinguish between EF and Unc, say for Fuad's and Farouk's coins, and even more difficult to distinguish between VF and EF, particularly for people such as I, who don't see many Egyptian coins.
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Pillar of the Community
Egypt
3470 Posts |
Pertinax, Its funny that you mentioned those two Kings as we decided that we will start with coins from 1917 to 1952 and this will include the coins of Sultan Hussien, Sultan Fuad, King Fuad and King Farouk. These are the most popular, favorite and expensive coins in the Modern Egyptian coins and there are some coins that have dates or mint marks that are scarce in high grades and some may reach a degree of rarity to be found in BU or sometimes Unc. |
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Pillar of the Community
United Kingdom
2133 Posts |
thai-vic asks Quote:
...how many scratches on a coin distinguishes a VG from an F? I think that idea is a rather America-centric view of grading, though it may well have been adopted elsewhere. To me, an F coin with 5 scratches should be described as such rather than VG. It might be the case that a dealer decides to charge the same price as a VG coin for an F coin with 5 scratches but that's surely a commercial decision rather than a grading decision. |
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Pillar of the Community
Egypt
3470 Posts |
OK, these are the grades and their definitions:
Brilliant Uncirculated (BU)
• Perfect new condition, showing no trace of wear.
• No evidence of scratches, handling or contact with other coins.
• Full mint luster.
Uncirculated (Unc.)
• No visible signs of wear or handling
• Show a few number of contact marks.
• Surface may be spotted, lack some luster or lightly toned.
About Uncirculated (AU)
• All detail will be visible.
• Wear only on the highest point of the coin.
• Half or more of the original mint luster present.
Extremely Fine (XF or EF)
• About 95% of the original detail visible.
• Features are sharp and well defined.
• A bit of luster may show.
Very Fine (VF)
• About 75% of the original detail visible.
• On a coin with no inner detail, there will be moderate wear over the entire coin.
• Corners of letters and numbers may be weak.
Fine (F)
• About 50% of the original detail visible.
• On a coin with no inner detail, there will be fairly heavy wear over all of the coin.
• Sides of letters will be weak.
• A typically uncleaned coin will often appear as dirty or dull.
Very Good (VG)
• About 25% of the original detail visible.
• There will be heavy wear on all of the coin.
Good (G)
• Coin's design will be clearly outlined but with substantial wear.
• Some of the larger detail may be visible.
• The rim may have a few weak spots of wear.
About Good (AG)
• Typically will be only a silhouette of a large design.
• The rim will be worn down into the letters if any.
I can use the + and - sign to explain that the coin has a grade that is very near to the above or lower grade.(It is in the grey area between two grades)
Is there anything that anyone would like to add to describe any of these grades?
Edited by EgCollector
09/07/2012 6:01 pm
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Pillar of the Community
United Kingdom
2133 Posts |
EgCollector, I think that's a great start. What's important is not how well that fits with other countries grading systems but how well that fits with Egyptian coins. Although, you're going to start with coins from 1917 to 1952, presumably at some point you'll progress to the coins issued under Ottoman rule, so your grading system needs to fit that, too. It's really difficult for people to estimate what Quote:
75% of the original detail means. I think it would be far more useful if you were to use descriptive language like ' the decoration on Farouk's uniform shows as a broad band' or 'there is no join (is that a tassel ?) on Fuad's fez'. The American Numismatic Association grading guide is a very useful example of this methodology. |
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Pillar of the Community
Egypt
3470 Posts |
Quote:
Although, you're going to start with coins from 1917 to 1952, presumably at some point you'll progress to the coins issued under Ottoman rule, so your grading system needs to fit that, too. Pertinax, That is in our plan but we decided to start with the Royal collection as it is the most favorite for all the Egyptian collectors. This will be as a pilot for the Ottoman coins and for the Republic coins too. Quote:
I think it would be far more useful if you were to use descriptive language like ' the decoration on Farouk's uniform shows as a broad band' or 'there is no join (is that a tassel ?) on Fuad's fez'. The American Numismatic Association grading guide is a very useful example of this methodology. This is what I was talking about from the start.... this is the project I am intending to describe each coin denomination and date of this time period how it looks like in each grade and will try to take measurements of weight, diameter and thickness and see if there is a correlation between them and the degree of wear of each grade or not. Will let a professional photographer take pics of obverse and reverse for each grade with a standardized background. Will take pics for varieties and mint marks .... may be some errors too if I am lucky. Will add mintage and composition. Some historic information for each coin if available and then market value for each grade. Simply I want to make a Red Book of the Egyptian coins |
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Bedrock of the Community
13014 Posts |
Quote:
will try to take measurements of weight, diameter and thickness and see if there is a correlation between them and the degree of wear of each grade or not. Not familiar with the minting technology in egypt, but that could be useful for newer coins as they are pretty standard with the new technologies in minting in the US anyway, but even then theres acceptable weight differences even for brand new coins. Coins minted with older technologies will have a wider acceptable variance that will probably make trying to grade by weight impossible |
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Pillar of the Community
United Kingdom
2133 Posts |
EgCollector,
Your comment about varieties interests me.
I didn't know there were varieties for the royal coins (apart from the different mints).
Are they listed in the latest edition of the KM catalogue ?
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Pillar of the Community
United Kingdom
2133 Posts |
basebal21,
I didn't know there were acceptable weight differences even for brand new coins.
Are these differences listed online, please ?
How do the coin-taking machine maker cope with differing weights ?
What's the acceptable percentage difference.
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Bedrock of the Community
13014 Posts |
Pertinax
If you have some new coins especially ASEs or something like that weight them, I highly doubt theyll be the same. While the new process does make things pretty streamline its almost impossible to have everything be the exact same.
The tolerance varies for different coins as theyre different sizes. Generally if its close like a couple grams of the listed weight on the mint site its good to go.
The coin machines go off size by the slot they go through triggering a counter for most of the ones I've seen. While the weight varies enough to not be able to grade by it, its not enough not to fit through the slots. If its doesn't fit its either a bad strike error or fake
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Pillar of the Community
United Kingdom
2133 Posts |
basebal21,
I've just compared weights (all in grams) from the remainders of mint (all BU) bags of UK florins:
1965: 11.08, 11.34, 11.39, 11.36
1966: 11.35, 11.43, 11.5
1967: 11.42, 11.34
I'm amazed that there could be such a variation.
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Pillar of the Community
United Kingdom
2133 Posts |
I've just found at http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_t...ritish_coins that the weight of the florin should have been 11.5 grams. If there's this much variation for modern UK coins, there probably is for modern coins of other countries, including Egypt. Thus there's not much point in grading by weight. However, I did buy a large lot of circulated UK silver threepences, some time ago, with the express idea of arriving at an average weight in different grades - when I've nothing better to do, I'll do the study. |
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Replies: 35 / Views: 3,379 |
First Page
Posted 09/07/2012 12:16 pm
