Anyone have an idea as to how coins are graded at third party graders. Specifically, what I'm wondering, do they have specialists in certain coins (e.g. maybe they have a Morgan dollar expert who does nothing but grade Morgans all day until he/she's cross-eyed), or is everyone a generalist and they rely on references? I'm visualizing 20-30 graders hunched over in cubicles with a stack of coins to grade. Each grader has a digital clock at their desk and they have 1 minute to grade and send on to the encapsulation area. Or I'm wrong.
Quote: Specifically, what I'm wondering, do they have specialists in certain coins (e.g. maybe they have a Morgan dollar expert who does nothing but grade Morgans all day until he/she's cross-eyed), or is everyone a generalist and they rely on references?
While they would have people who have more experience grading one type or another, I doubt there would be any single-coin specialists. Simply because, if the packages in the queue for today didn't happen to have any Morgans in them, then the "Morgan Expert" would have to go home early. So I suspect most of their graders are at least competent in grading most US coins.
They would have "world coin specialists" whose grading skills are more generalist in nature, rather than relying on specific published grading curves for each specific type. Most world coins do not have any such grading curve.
Quote: Each grader has a digital clock at their desk and they have 1 minute to grade and send on to the encapsulation area
One minute would be generous. Someone crunched the numbers once, in terms of number of coins graded, number of graders employed, and number of work hours in a day; by the calculation, each coin gets about 30 seconds of attention, unless it's extra-high-value or problematic. And if I recall correctly, each coin gets looked at by two graders before proceeding (and a third grader only if those two graders disagree), so each individual grader does one coin in about 15 seconds.
Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise, you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite. - C. S. Lewis
Quote: They would have "world coin specialists" whose grading skills are more generalist in nature, rather than relying on specific published grading curves for each specific type. Most world coins do not have any such grading curve.
Two of PCGS' World Coin graders, Jay Turner and Dylan Dominguez, taught a course at the last ANA Summer Seminar for U.S. coin collectors on World Coin grading.
-----Burton
50+ year / Life / Emeritus ANA member (joined 12/1/1973)
Life member: Numismatics International, CONECA
Member: TNA, FtWCC, NETCC, EveryCountry (online) coin club
Owned by three cats and a wife of 40+ years (joined 1983)
Sap, I watched it, but it doesn't answer my question of, "are all of their graders able to grade all kinds of coins, or do they channel certain coins to certain graders?" For instance, are there people just as capable grading Morgan dollars as they are the coinage of George Iii?
When I imagine how these things work, the video "south park chicken bailout" comes to mind!
Sap's video is very interesting; it'd be nice to have an update on it. It's probably 20 years old as the holders have the "series" on it which ended in 2005 I believe.
Disclaimer: While a tremendous amount of effort goes into ensuring the accuracy of the information contained in this site, Coin Community assumes no liability for errors. Copyright 2005 - 2026 Coin Community Family- all rights reserved worldwide. Use of any images or content on this website without prior written permission of Coin Community or the original lender is strictly prohibited. Contact Us | Advertise Here | Privacy Policy / Terms of Use
Posted 09/21/2025 7:58 pm
